Meal planning for weightloss – any ninja tricks?

The summer has been good – lots of fine food and drink, and now there is visible evidence of it with a layer of lard.

The move more part of the equation to rid of it is under-control. The eat less bit is harder.

Other than MyFitnessPal, are there any apps or software you lot recommend for tracking macros and calories? And even better, any great sources for planning them? I need a weekly meal plan (and to do the shopping in advance) to avoid falling into the take-away trap that has me so well upholstered.

Your ninja tips and tricks please 🙂

The eat less bit is harder.

The secret – its all about portion control – cut all the food in to pieces larger than you can fit into your mouth

I can’t do prolonged sensible eating, so I do 5:2, work really well after the first couple of weeks isn’t that hard.

cut out the carbs. Exercise more

Diet Coke. Drink it with every meal and it dissolves calories. Thats how it works. Honest.

I bought a Hairy Bikers diet cook book for ideas – some of them are a bit faffy for mid-week missions, but I cook them once the simplify them.

You need to build a stable of about 10 dishes you like and pick them week by week – I use Sainsburys click and collect, it’s easier than walking around, less temptation too. They offer decent discounts for it too if you know where to look.

Chew
Chew
and chew some more!
Medically proven link to your brain and stomach.
We don’t chew enough anymore with soft, processed food and as such eat much more before we feel full.
Try it with the same meal – eat normally.
Then chew AT LEAST 20 times on each side of your mouth and see which meal you struggle to finish.
Theres a reason we have teeth.

Whats wrong with MyFitnessPal?

1) Any old meal plan will do, you know what’s healthy and what isn’t, you’re not a baby/idiot. Just think up 7 meals (or 3-4 and shop twice a week, that way you can eat fresher veg), although I find the amount of ‘treats’ is independent of the size of the shop so maybe fewer shops is better. If you want to feel virtuous, halve the carb content of the meals and bulk up the lean protein and vegetable, things like cooking spag-bol, use a recipe for 4, but about 2/3rds the (lean) mince and 50% more onion, then cut 1/3rd of the pasta you’d normally use for 2 (i.e. cut 60% from the recipe).

2) Smaller portions, and on smaller plates. And everything served with salad or plain veg as appropriate. Fill half the plate with a salad (make it interesting, doesn’t need to be lettuce, a pile of tomatoes and peppers is far more fulfilling, or 2x veg (steamed carrots, peas, sweetcorn, broccoli, cauliflower, whatever, knob of butter if you want some flavour). Compared to potato/rice/dough and other carbs they’ve so little calories that portion size is an irreverence, and they’re very filling.

DO NOT SNACK. It may well say to eat 5 small meals a day, but if you’ve not go the self control to eat a can of tuna and some raw carrots at 10:30/16:00 and reach for a muesli bar instead then it’s not going to help is it?

DO GO TO A GYM. Cutting 500calories a day off your correct diet is hard work, cutting 1000 off a diet that’s already 500 over is even harder. Burning 800 calories in a spin class takes 40minutes out of your morning or evening commute/routine (no need to shower before leaving the house and it probably saves faffing time at home if you pack your office clothes in your gym bag the night before), you can do it even in crappy weather. No excuses and you’ve just doubled or tripped your calorie deficit for the day.

DON’T get hung up about processed foods, as long as they’re healthy they’re fine. There’s nothing really unhealthy about dolmio Vs homemade bolognese, but sweet and sour is a definite no whether homemade or not!

Chew
Chew
and chew some more!

Theres something to that. Not the quantities of chews a such maybe but slower eating. It takes time for our brain to register that our belly has enough food in it. Because of our crap work life balance in the UK we eat meals too quickly and keep eating past the point where we’re full / sated. In comparison in france for instance people will lay out more of a spread of food (rather than sit down to a heaped plate)and spend time picking out and preparing what they eat while they’re eating it – spending more time eating but eating less as a result.

Chew
Chew
and chew some more!

This is also a real thing.

No problem with MyFitnessPal – just wanted to ensure it is still the go to choice…

The chewing idea is a good one. very good point!

myfitness pal + tracking exercise (endomondo I use). Lost a stone so far over the last 6 weeks.

Plan is, stop eating when you hit 1850 calories(lose 1.5lbs per week). pretty simple, but effective. I can eat more If I excercise more (though I try to keep that to about half so I get some benefit from the exericse, weight loss wise.)

I still have weekends were I can easily rattle 10000 calories over a few of days of drinking and eating, but you’ve got to live. just get back on it and it’ll work.

75lbs left to go for this fat bastard! 😆 reckon, it’ll take me a year with the above plan, 2 year if I have a lot of nights out! 😆

both me an my brother are doing it, so egging each other on, that seems to be the best Idea for longevity.

My ex has polycystic ovary syndrome and gain over 6st due to the pill then a hystericalectomy.
She dropped 7st all in using a good diet and portion control.
The specialist made her do a food diary using the extended chewing and it was shocking the difference in the amount she could eat.
Same size meal, same food – literally half the amount.

Avoid anything low fat, including lean mince, adds to the flavour and satiates better

literally a ninja trick – I bought a Nutri Ninja blender a while back. I’d been pretty sceptical about them to be honest, but took a punt. It’s been a revelation! Often used to skip breakfast due to not really fancying eating, but I have no problem smashing down a fruit/veg/protein shake which I make & take to work (so I do my morning ride fasted after a couple of espressos!)

It’s handy as well for when I’m really hungry but haven’t got a decent meal ready – only takes a few seconds to prep a healthy shake, which keeps the edge of the hunger and gives me time to knock up a proper dinner (so prevents unhealthy snacking).

+1 smaller plate

Avoid anything low fat, including lean mince, adds to the flavour and satiates better

Avoid anything “low”. Salt, sugar, calorie, fat. There’s no need, all you’re aiming for is to get back to average/normal (which isn’t the mean/median/mode anymore but you know what I mean). Just avoid the stuff that’s high in anything (harder, because they don’t write that in big letters on the packet).

My rule of thumb is to drain off the fat after frying the meat (if it’s not something lean like chicken, or lean pork mince) by decanting the pan through a sieve. Oil that you can see floating around your sauce or on the plate isn’t adding to the flavour, oil that emulsifies into the sauce or stays in the meat is.

I bought a Nutri Ninja blender a while back.

What you have to be mindful of though is blending food is a really good way of packing a lot of food into a small quick meal. More of a useful tool if you’re trying to eat as much as possible within the limits of appetite – such as an in an endurance sport scenario or recovery from serious illness – not the ideal tool if your problem is you’re eating too much

don’t ‘smash it down’ either, cos you’ll end up talking like Jamie bloody Oliver.

only 13 more mondays until Christmas , what’s the point?

+1 smaller plate

Buy older plates! I’ve got some crockery thats modern and some from the 1960s. Modern plates don’t look all that much bigger – but they actually hold nearly double the food!

Don’t cut out carbs, or any other important food groups. Just exercise portion control and chew properly. I find eat small and often works for me.

What you have to be mindful of though is blending food is a really good way of packing a lot of food into a small quick meal. More of a useful tool if you’re trying to eat as much as possible within the limits of appetite – such as an in an endurance sport scenario or recovery from serious illness – not the ideal tool if your problem is you’re eating too much

A good point, and noted, although I think a lot of the time the problem isn’t that people are eating too many calories – just the wrong calories. I think it’s important to be as active as possible (I ride most days) so you need to eat enough calories to sustain that otherwise you’re going to get ill. Of course if you’re eating junk calories, that’s going to affect your energy levels so you won’t feel like being active.

It might sound counter-intuitive but even people looking to lose weight might be better off eating more (but better) especially if they are doing more exercise as well, weight training, etc. I’ve never been one to count calories, just eat clean & listen to what my body is telling me.

don’t ‘smash it down’ either, cos you’ll end up talking like Jamie bloody Oliver.

A pukka point, me ol’ china! Sorry, I’ll stop now.

I use a fairly straight forward diet. Not sure on my body fat percentage at the moment, not super low, but easy to maintain. Diet is the easy bit, it’s the exercise you do that makes the difference.

Eat the same, healthy things often. Means you’ve always got the stuff in the kitchen. I have the same breakfast every morning, the same lunch, and the same dinner 5 out of 7 days (not literally the same meal every night, but 5 different meals but the same ones every week). Weekends I can experiment a bit as I have more time and I’ll be burning more calories as I’ll be out on the bike for several hours.

Assuming you’re not eating boring stuff it doesn’t get monotonous

Nice humble brag 8)

Whats wrong with MyFitnessPal?

It’s fine if you eat pre packaged shite, or are prepared to weigh and measure every ingredient.

Davidtaylforth has body image issues.

I’m into salads at the moment – I make a massive bowl of red cabbage, rocket, grated carrot, green beans, lettuce, cucumber, spring onions and herbs. That live in fridge and lasts 3-4 days as its not dressed.

then come meal time I grab a big pile of salad, fill half the plate with it and add some protein and some cooked veg.

that makes a filling low carb meal and replaces a bog standard meat , potato and veg type meal.

for pasta dishes I measure out the pasta before I cook it – 50g per person is the right amount but I was grabbing double that before i started measuring.

Its working so far, I’m on the right side of 14stone for the first time since my early twenties.

Have you tried the snake diet? You can make your day’s calorie intake as large as you please – but you have to swallow it whole in one go….

Never trust anybody that feels the need to publicly show the top of their boxer shorts! 🙄

Never trust anybody that feels the need to publicly show the top of their boxer shorts!

This man however is 100% trustworthy

maccruiskeen – Member
This man however is 100% trustworthy

You bet your ass!

maccruiskeen – does your plumber know that you invite him around for those cheeky photo sessions? 😆

Homeopathy diet.

Simple dip the food you would normally eat in water. Drink the water, throw away the food.

More seriously. Plan what you are going to eat and create a menu then stick to it. Keep things in the house and at work to snack on or distract yourself. I often find I snack absent mindedly so having something around with virtually no calories or healthy is better than going to the vending machine. I also keep a good selection of drinks – fruit tea, cordial etc. as having that replaces snacking/boredom.

Toddboy – Member 
Does your plumber know that you invite him around for those cheeky photo sessions? 

[Sherlock]
He’s no plumber. He’s a Italian taxi driver, note the heavily tanned right arm.
[/Sherlock]

No he isn’t, if he were an Italian taxi driver he’d have a tanned left arm 😉

Edit – Unless Italian Taxi Driver is an euphemism for something unsavoury in which case he may well be…

wombat – Member
 No he isn’t, if he were an Italian taxi driver he’d have a tanned left arm

Well done, spotted sooner than expected.

However you appear to have overlooked the fact he evidently lives & works, as a taxi driver, in Bristol.
Note the orientation of the spanner handles.
😉

I can’t do prolonged sensible eating, so I do 5:2, work really well after the first couple of weeks isn’t that hard.

We’ve just started this after watching a documentary on it. Seems logical and healthy, as opposed to completely cutting carbs or living off slim-fast shakes.

No snacks in the house, you hear me? No snacks. At all.

Anyway, here’s my weekly meal plan:
Breakfast – Oats soaked in yogurt, with some fresh fruit. Spilt this, half at 6:30am on the train, the second half at 9am in the office. I find that keeps me less hungry. The weekends it tends to be avocado on toast and an egg or 2 with hot sauce.

Lunch – A sort of bolognaise thing I make, basically it’s canned tomatoes, mushrooms, turkey mince, a little bit of brown rice and a few herbs and chilli. I may swap this for a good sarny at the weekends. I know exactly how much of this I have each day as I make it in bulk on a Sunday and weigh it.

Dinner – Green veg, peas, kale, cabbage, broccoli, all or some of that. Lean meat or fish, marinated chicken, salmon, occasionally a good steak. Maybe a poached egg. No carbs.

Snacks – Apples, normally have 1 mid afternoon. I’ll also have a banana before I exercise.

Water – Loads, 5 or 6 pints per day.

Exercise – 30 mins every day minimum. Typically that means 4 x 1/2 hours runs, 1 game of 5-a-side and 2 or 3 bike rides. I may swap a turbo session or 2 in there. The bikes rides tend to be 90 mins in the week, 4 hours+ at the weekend.

Weekends I will have 1 cheat meal, something filthy washed down with a couple of pints. I may have a bigger breakfast if I have a big ride ahead, maybe some porridge with fruit and honey.

I’ve found 3 things helped a lot.
Planning and discipline – I know what I will eat, when and how much. I also can’t snack unless I go the to shop that walk is enough to stop me. I know what exercise I will do, when and to what intensity.

No fear of hunger – I used to fear feeling hungry, now I don’t. Being hungry is OK actually, I wake up hungry most days, that’s fine, I get hungry in an afternoon, that’s OK too. I know when I will eat next so that’s fine.

A goal – I have a certain shape I want to be and a certain body composition, I know I’m working to that and will know when I get there. Weight to me is unimportant.