Creating a Clean Eating Meal Plan For Weight Loss
In this post I’m sharing the meal planning habits that helped me lose weight and keep it off for the last decade. Rather than dieting, I made some flexible and sustainable lifestyle changes that had a huge impact on my overall health and wellbeing.
When it comes to health, wellness and weight loss, I’m all about creating a foundation for lasting success. That comes from understanding the basics, our own needs and managing expectations. It’s a big topic with a lot of nuance, but for now I’m focusing on menu planning for weight loss. I encourage anyone who is trying to lose weight to work with a dietitian or practitioner for personalized guidance. I’m sharing some of the principles that have worked well for me personally, but this information is intended as education and not medical advice.
Many of these habits are simple nutrition basics for healthy eating, so weight loss isn’t the sole purpose. I found them to be satisfying, sustainable, and easily adapted to everyday life. What and how we eat is so important for our wellbeing, but exercise, enjoyment, sleep and stress management are too. There’s just no one size fits all.
I wrote this blog post, ‘How to Meal Plan’ that explains my process for creating a healthy meal plan. Below, I’m sharing specific things I consider when creating one for weight loss and maintenance.
How I Create a Weight Loss Meal Plan
Mindset shifts and expectations (self care over self punishment)
Intuitive and mindful eating
Balanced meals: not too light, not too heavy
Healthier alternatives
Volume eating
Add more flavor
Variety
Healthy boundaries
Mindset and Expectations
Shifting from a mindset of blame, shame and self punishment to one of self care and compassion has a huge impact, and will affect the kind of meal plan you create. But this applies to a lot more than just weight loss and meal planning. These negative beliefs are self limiting and sabotaging. Shifting out of this mode can be really freeing and I find there’s less rigidity and restriction with self care and compassion, compared to a dieting mindset.
One way that I practice this is making choices that are good for my health and wellbeing, and that help me feel good physically and mentally, without the pressure of a certain result. There’s so much overlap, and often these choices help with weight and health too. Measuring success by the scale creates a lot of pressure, and discounts the other benefits we might experience. This is a great mindset to create a meal plan from- how can I really enjoy healthy foods that make me feel good?
Intuitive and Mindful Eating
Intuitive eating is a conscious and mindful effort. This is what helps us connect with our needs and make choices accordingly. Intuitive eating can be subtle, and takes a bit of practice to figure out what works best and when. A simple way that I practice intuitive eating is to pay attention to what I’m drawn to, which includes certain foods, meals and cuisines. What’s catching my eye lately on Instagram, Pinterest or cookbooks? What would I feel excited to eat next week? How much prep will I feel like doing ahead? These will help guide what you choose for your meal plan.
Balanced Meals
If I had to choose the most important thing for me on this list, it would be balanced eating. This means there’s a bit of protein, fat, healthy carbohydrates and fiber in meals. Personally, I find it helpful to prioritize protein and be mindful with fat and carbohydrates, without going ‘low fat’ or ‘low carb’.
Eating balanced meals can help to stabilize blood sugar, hunger and appetite and satisfy nutritional needs through the day. Balance can also help create more satisfying meals, prevent meals that are too light or too heavy and reduce food cravings and overeating.
Balancing meals is a thoughtful approach to building meals, adding things to the plate or bowl with intention. This way, there aren’t more fats, calories or carbs than you realize. When I’m meal planning, I decide what foods I’d like to fill each category with. If I’m in the mood for tacos (I’m always in the mood for tacos) this is how I might build them:
Carb: Tortilla(s)
Protein: Chicken Tinga
Fat: Avocado (or guacamole or a chipotle crema instead!), olive oil for sautéing peppers
Fiber: Sautéed bell peppers on the side and/or topped with shredded cabbage, diced onion and chopped cilantro
Extra Flavor: a sweet and spicy hot sauce
Healthier Alternatives
Sometimes I might crave foods that I don’t really want to indulge in or that wouldn’t make me feel great. Instead, I find a healthier, homemade or high quality version to satisfy the craving. Indulgent foods aren’t inherently ‘bad,’ so I like to satisfy the craving through higher quality, lower fat (like baked vs. fried), less processed options. I might make my healthier copycat Reese’s recipe or a deep dish pizza in a cast iron pan using olive oil and organic cheeses. I like to consider my week as a whole. In theory there are at least 21 meals + snacks in one week. If two or three of those are more indulgent or less healthy, there’s still so much momentum towards health goals.
Volume Eating
Volume eating for weight loss is a great tool if you tend to like larger portions. It’s about filling your plate with low calorie foods that have more volume, from water and/or fiber. Volume eating foods include popcorn, apples, berries and non starchy vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli or kale. This principle also helps to be mindful around simple carbs or calorie dense foods, which have less volume for the calories. These foods include sugary and fatty foods like baked goods, sweet beverages and fried foods. Some volume eating recipes I might include are a sandwich with popcorn for lunch, or a grain bowl with lots of veggies like my veggie rice bowl with spicy sauce. This isn’t just for volume, but a great way to eat more nutrient dense foods and fiber through the week.
Flavor
When I think about a typical weight loss dinner, I think of grilled chicken and steamed broccoli. If that is what it took to lose weight, I’d never do it. I typically need meals that have a lot more interest than that. For me, spices, texture, marinades and sauces are key. I love adding sauces like tahini dressings, chipotle crema, pesto, chimichurri and ranch to up-level healthy meals and make them a bit more satisfying. I also make sure to include some variety when it comes to texture.
Variety
Preventing a meal rotation rut before it happens is another trick to create sustainable eating habits. Making the same thing to eat all week, or making the same meals week after week, can get boring. Sometimes boredom happens regardless, but I find that with planning more variety, it happens less.
I tend to rotate through the same 10-15 things every few months, with the seasons. I like to make a few big batch recipes to keep in the freezer for easy reheating, so I’ll rotate through those and add something new when they run out. Soups, pasta sauces like this sausage and vegetable bolognese, salmon burgers and Chicken Tinga are all great for the freezer and the meal rotation. These are also great ideas for beginner weight loss meal prep. I think you’d have to decide how much overlap you enjoy. On weekdays, I tend to make the same breakfast, have two options for lunches through the week, and a different dinner each night. You can get my free workweek meal plan here!
Healthy Boundaries
If you couldn’t tell, I’m not a fan of diets. But I am a big fan of healthy boundaries. I consider it different from restriction or rigid diet rules because it can be more flexible or conditional. We live in a society with food abundance, and unhealthy, addictive food abundance. Trying to eat healthy, lose weight or maintain weight loss with no structure is really difficult. I think it’s one of the reasons why people might gain weight back after a diet ends, because there’s less structure. It’s up to an individual how restrictive to be with it, but I don’t personally feel that a lot of restriction is enjoyable or sustainable.
I like the Mediterranean Diet or a clean eating diet as a healthy diet plan for weight loss, because neither eliminate whole food groups, but instead filter out low quality, processed foods. If you find a structure you enjoy following most of the time, then it’s more sustainable. And this structure will guide the ingredients you plan meals around for the week.
I typically prioritize real-food ingredients and plan most meals around beans, whole grains, wild seafood, berries, Greek yogurt, pasture raised meats/poultry, eggs, avocado, nuts, extra virgin olive oil and fruits and vegetables.
I hope these tips help you create a meal plan you really enjoy. When it comes to habit changes, joy and ease is so important for longterm success. Diets or meal plans to follow tend to be short term solutions. But when you want the benefits to last long term, it often takes a different approach, and creating a healthy foundation is key. If you’re interested in more personalized healthy meal plan and meal prep guidance and accountability, I offer 1:1 sessions for just that. Read more about it here and let’s connect!