Meal Plan for the Week

A few months ago, I signed up for a personal trainer, who put me on an interesting diet: six 200-300 calorie meals a day, each meal three hours apart. Of course, she told me, this is a flexible enough diet; if, for example, I wind up eating a 500 calorie meal, then my next meal will just have to be a smaller one.

"The important thing about this diet isn't so much the calorie intake," she said, "so much as it is about working your metabolism. You are training your body to expect to be fed every three hours instead of having it guess at when its next meal will be, which is better for fat burning."

For the sake of losing weight, I tried to get my meals under 200 calories, giving an allowance to my dinners to be closer to 300 calories. Between this and training for a half marathon, I managed to lose 11 lbs over the course of three months.

I am 5 lbs away from my goal weight of 120 lbs. Would I love to try to get to 115 lbs? Of course! 110 lbs would be equally great. I have the exercise portion of my weight loss project down; I run at least four days a week (and three of those runs end in some sort of ab workout), and I do some strength training at least one day a week. The part that's been harder for me to handle has been my meal plan.

The Slim Fast diet is what helped me lose my weight fast, but I am not so keen on drinking my meals anymore. It's not nearly as satisfying as actually eating it. Also, while I'm pretty good about eating my grains, my fruits, my meat, and my dairy, it is my vegetable intake that suffers. For no real reason! I love vegetables, but I have never considered them snack food.

Luckily, the cafeteria at my work sells salads at a pretty decent price, and it's straight up salad; nothing that would sneakily add in extra calories like at most restaurants! And so, here is my meal plan that I want to try this week, subject to tweaking as I figure out what works and what doesn't.

DAILY

Breakfast: Cereal (possibly Special K, with berries) with nonfat milk, tea, and a multivitamin

AM Snack: Greek yogurt (with fruit)

Lunch: Salad, maybe with a roll (no butter)

PM Snack: Carrot sticks, maybe some granola?

Dinner: Variable (see below)

Dessert: Parfait from Yoplait

DINNERS

Sunday: Okonomiyaki

Monday: Curry rice + salad

Tuesday: Sunday's leftovers

Wednesday: Monday's leftovers

Thursday: Soup and salad (lunch will be whatever is served at the cafeteria)

Friday: Fish Friday

Saturday: Pasta dish

I will not make this blog a food log, but I will be keeping one to make sure I'm doing well with my meal plan. Hopefully, by this time next week, I will be 1-2 lbs lighter!