It's a bit late in the game to post this, but since I'm not making any radical changes when Q2 starts, this is my official eats plan for now thru early summer.
Nothing too fancy, as I sketched out what I wanted, it was really easy to make a meal plan. I'm telling you, even when you feel like a failure b/c everything you worked months doing goes belly up, that experience really comes in handy, b/c @ the precise point in the road where you fucked up, next go round you know to veer in another direction. Unless of course, you are insane.
What I wanted this meal plan to be was very basic, lots of fruits and veggies, 5 meals a day, eating every 3 hours and w/in 1200-1500 calories. That way if I stay in the 1200 range during the week, I can safely go into or over the 1500 range over the weekend. I also allow myself 1 day to peak @ 1800.
B/c I'm a flexible kinda chick, I've broken it down even further.
While the daily range comes in handy, I choose to tackle it in 7 day blocks. For 7 days I have 8,400 – 10,500 (10,800 if I do 1500x6 + 1800 peak day) calories to play with. If I strictly stay w/in 1200 cals Monday to Friday, I will have used 6,000 w/4,500 left for the weekend or 2,250 for both days.
I highly doubt I'd ever eat that extreme, let's all pretend I didn't shall we, but it gives me room to do 1,600 or 1,800 even 2000 calories tops, on the weekend w/no worries b/ c I'm still w/in the 7 day range.
Back to the 1500 per day, so I took my total calories and divided it by 5. That put each meal in the 240-300 calorie range. Snacks can be lighter, like 150, giving me room for a heavier lunch, like 350-400. Dinner will be my lightest meal and no eating 2 hours before bed, or I'm done @ 8.
The actual day to day will vary, but it'll pretty much look like this:
Breakfast:
Sweet potato w/cottage cheese & fruit* or bowl of high fiber cereal w/raisins and vanilla soy milk
Snack:
Some kind of nut w/random fruit & various styles of cheese
Lunch:
Italian or Mexican style Lean Cuisine** w/3 servings of veggies added and cottage or mozzarella or string cheese mixed in
Snack:
Yogurt and fruit or cottage cheese and fruit
Dinner:
Large salad or SBD wrap or bowl of soup and small side salad or if I do the sweet potato in the AM, a bowl of cereal***
To explain a few oddities:
* Last year I fell in love eating sweet potatoes w/cottage cheese mixed in, and thought it'd be a good AM breakfast. It's warm, it's filling, sweet potatoes are a good carb, cottage cheese is a good protein and it's perfect to have after an hour of heart pumping cardio. I *may* get fancy and toss in some chopped pineapples too.
** W/everything being fairly bland, my one splurge a day is my one dish favorites Lean Cuisine lunch. I LOVE the pasta Italian/Mexican versions. I have eaten the low carb & spa ones b/c they are "healthier" but I don't really enjoy them. So lunch will make up for the fact that I shant eat from the Tree of 4 C's, (Candy, Cake, Cookies or Coke) throughout the rest of the day. And again, being my heaviest meal, I get it out of the way early in the day.
*** A bowl of cereal in the PM b/c it's the lightest meal. I've found that so long as I eat on time during the day, I'm normally not hungry @ nite. Plus, my cereal of choice is full of fiber, which my brain likes to picture is sloughing out the gunk clinging to my intestinal walls as I sleep. Gross, but true.
By my count, every day I'll have consumed: 2-4 fruits, 3 veggies, 5-6 servings of dairy/protein and @ least 20 gms of fiber via whole grain cereal alone, though after adding in the veggies and fruit, I may end the day w/30gms in my system. Not bad @ all.
That's pretty much how I'm grubbin'.
And last but not least these 3 bad boys. Per. Day.
Note: Comments are now closed. Please use the contact form to leave a message.
Sounds like a great plan. I love the sweet potato/cottage cheese idea - I mix cc with a lot of different things: tuna salad, scrambled eggs, etc. I'll bet it's delicious with sweet potato.