Have you ever felt the crushing disappointment when a meal plan doesn't pan out like you'd hoped? Join me, Leonila Campos, as we unpack the reasons behind this frustrating phenomenon and learn how to craft meal plans that celebrate flexibility and your unique lifestyle. We tackle rigid and impersonal meal planning head-on, addressing how cookie-cutter approaches can lead to anxiety, feelings of failure, and the inevitable collapse back into old habits. I'll also explain the nuances of how social engagements and environmental factors often disrupt our best-laid nutritional plans, and why understanding our own dietary needs and preferences is key to creating lasting, positive changes in our eating habits.
Then, we switch gears to the more practical side of things—how to actually make meal prepping work for you, not against you. We explore batch cooking and smart grocery shopping, looking at how these strategies can fit seamlessly into your busy life without sacrificing taste or variety. The goal is to turn the kitchen from a battleground into a place of creativity and joy—a mission I'm passionate about. Whether you're a seasoned home cook or someone who is just figuring out the difference between boiling and broiling, this episode is packed with insights that'll help you navigate the world of nutrition with confidence and a dash of fun.
Would you like to chat about a meal plan for yourself?- send me a message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com or you can also visit my website at www. fuelxfit.com
Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast and share with a friend. If you would like to know more about my services, please message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com
Have you ever felt the crushing disappointment when a meal plan doesn't pan out like you'd hoped? Join me, Leonila Campos, as we unpack the reasons behind this frustrating phenomenon and learn how to craft meal plans that celebrate flexibility and your unique lifestyle. We tackle rigid and impersonal meal planning head-on, addressing how cookie-cutter approaches can lead to anxiety, feelings of failure, and the inevitable collapse back into old habits. I'll also explain the nuances of how social engagements and environmental factors often disrupt our best-laid nutritional plans, and why understanding our own dietary needs and preferences is key to creating lasting, positive changes in our eating habits.
Then, we switch gears to the more practical side of things—how to actually make meal prepping work for you, not against you. We explore batch cooking and smart grocery shopping, looking at how these strategies can fit seamlessly into your busy life without sacrificing taste or variety. The goal is to turn the kitchen from a battleground into a place of creativity and joy—a mission I'm passionate about. Whether you're a seasoned home cook or someone who is just figuring out the difference between boiling and broiling, this episode is packed with insights that'll help you navigate the world of nutrition with confidence and a dash of fun.
Would you like to chat about a meal plan for yourself?- send me a message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com or you can also visit my website at www. fuelxfit.com
Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast and share with a friend. If you would like to know more about my services, please message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com
Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to another episode in the Simple Nutrition Podcast. I am your host, leonid Lacampos, registered dietitian, and today I want to talk to you about meal plans I briefly mentioned I think I did an episode on that too but I wanted to talk about, maybe the reason why most meal plans don't work reason why most meal plans don't work, and so, and maybe what we can do to help us maybe follow a meal plan or use a meal plan to help us with our goals, or just to help us know what to make for dinner, right, or for lunch, or whatever the case may be, because sometimes that is the problem and that is so overwhelming, like, what do I cook today, right? And then oftentimes, if we make a decision when we're hungry, a lot of the times it's not going to be the best decision versus if, maybe, we think about some ideas ahead of time, and so what I always talk to my patients and my clients about is, like the more obstacles and more challenges that we remove from when we are so busy to help us reach our goals, the better, because it is really difficult to think about those things when we are in, you know, in the middle of the situation per se. So, but yeah, let's start with that, right?
Speaker 1:
Okay, what is maybe one of the reasons why most meal plans don't work? And one of the main reasons is because it lacks personalization, right? When you look in, like, if you type meal plan for weight loss, for example, or meal plan for muscle building, it's just a general guideline, right, so very general, and it gives you whatever information you want it to give you, but it's not personalized, right, so very general, and it gives you whatever information you want it to give you, but it's not personalized, right, and so it doesn't take into account, maybe, our preferences, our dietary restrictions, lifestyle factors, and so it leads to not want to continue to do it, right, it may be difficult to stick to it because it's not something that is going to work specifically for us, right? And so that is, you know, maybe one possible reason why most meal plans don't work. Second reason could be on sustainability, right? So if we think about, okay, I have this goal and it's a short-term goal, and I want to go from A to B in this time, right, and I will follow that meal plan for that time frame, and, yes, you might see results at that moment, right.
Speaker 1:
But then what's going to happen when you stop that, it's that we're going to go back to our old behaviors, right, and we're going to go back to what we know and the habits that we have created up to that point, or maybe even before we started that plan. Right, because we are creatures of habit, right, and so we usually tend to go back to what feels good, what feels natural, and that's just our human nature. And so if we haven't established these habits to help us to continue to follow that plan long-term, then we're just going to go back to what we were doing before. So unsustainability is another one. Right, it could be. Maybe it's too restrictive or it requires a significant time and effort to follow, so making it very unsustainable long-term, and so it is very unlikely to stop it essentially. And so that's another possible reason why a meal plan might not work. And then when we think about if we see it right, let's say, okay, we follow a meal plan and we see it as dieting or as diet or something that when we go into it, we feel anxiety or we feel like, oh, I really don't want to follow that. It's really also difficult to follow it, right, because you're going into it already, not feeling so thrilled about it, and so your brain naturally is like, oh, I don't want to do that. And so then you know it's not sustainable, again.
Speaker 1:
So another possible reason why meal plans might not work or won't work it's because of social and environmental factors, right? And so maybe the meal plan doesn't align with social gatherings or cultural practices or environmental considerations, making it more challenging to adhere to it or follow it. And so, again, the meal plan is not working for you, right, follow it. And so, again, the meal plan is not working for you, right? And so if you're somebody that likes to enjoy outings, right, or likes to travel a lot, and you see the meal plan as a roadblock, right, okay, I'm going to be on this meal plan for this amount of weeks, but then I'm going to go travel and I'm not going to follow it, because you know who doesn't want to try foods when you're traveling, when you're on vacation, right? And so that could be another reason why.
Speaker 1:
And then another possible reason could be that it's really strict, right, almost like following a diet, and so then it creates a sense of failure when we are not sticking to it, when we don't follow it. And so then a whole other cascade of emotions and things come down right. And so now we're feeling guilty, now we're feeling discouraged, now we're feeling like we can't do these right. And it's not because we are failing at it, it's just because that meal plan wasn't meant for us, right. It's because that meal plan was too strict, too rigid, and it's just not working for us, right? That's not something that we see ourselves following long-term. So that's another possible reason why a meal plan won't work. So that's another possible reason why a meal plan won't work.
Speaker 1:
Another one could be that maybe there's not enough resources, enough education or skill development to follow it. And so if there's not enough guidance right on the principles of nutrition or the cooking skills or what specifically you're struggling with, then it's going to be difficult to achieve it right specifically you're struggling with, then it's going to be difficult to achieve it right. So, for example, I have clients that hate cooking, right, or just like cooking, or they're like I'm not a cook, right. And so then we focus on specific techniques, simplifying the recipes, making sure that, hey, is this plan going to work for you? Now I am giving you, maybe, these reasons why most meal plans are not going to work.
Speaker 1:
Because I want you to understand that before you start a meal plan, before you go and buy one or before you go and follow one, you really have to ask yourself number one what is the reason why I want to do that? Number two can I sustain the long term? Number three what is the reason why I want to do that? Number two can I sustain the long term? Number three what am I getting out? What am I learning from following this plan? Number four can this align with my ethics or does this align with just my life in general? Right, and so if most of the answers to these questions are no, then what's going to happen is that, yeah, in the moment, maybe for a short period of time, you are going to follow it. Right, especially if it's a monetary reason, like you pay for it, you're like, okay, I need to follow that.
Speaker 1:
But then, long-term, right, as you get into, you know, maybe you become busier, you get busier, or maybe things happen. Get into, you know, maybe you become busier, you get busier, or maybe things happen, life happens. Then we are steering away from it. Right, because we almost see it as a chore. We almost see like, oh my gosh, this is another thing that I have to do. If that is the case, right, you really have to find something that is going to work for you. One, to save money. Two, to save you the trouble of, you know, getting into it and getting discouraged and feeling like I can't do that or I'm a failure. We want to try to avoid that as much as possible because we don't want to feel that we're not achieving what we want to achieve just because we're following something that is not aligned with us. So, asking yourself those questions right Now, I am a meal plan expert, right?
Speaker 1:
Well, I'm a dietitian and so, legally, I'm able to create meal plans for my patients and my clients. There's some states I'm in California that I, so we are protected by the law, right? If someone says, oh, I can make a meal plan for you and customize and personalize it, that is actually illegal if they are not dietitians or if they don't have the credentialing to be able to do that, right, but anyway, I think I talked about that in another episode. So, as a dietitian, right, I have. Meal planning is something that I use. Meal planning is something that I use with all my clients, right, I'll leave all some components of it.
Speaker 1:
But here is the caveat about my meal plans is that when I sit down to talk about the goals of my patients right, that's, for example, you come in and see me and you have a specific goal. Right, because I ask lots of questions. I want to make sure that I am understanding the whole you. If there are any specific dietary restrictions, if there's a specific health condition that I need to know about, then I make sure to ask all those questions I ask about food preferences, what are the foods that you dislike, or food that you will never eat? Right, because all those answers are going to help me to create these personalized, customized meal plan that you know you're going to want to do. And so I ask all those questions for those reasons. Right, because I know that, if one, I'll never give my clients a general, just one size fits all meal plan. That is just not right.
Speaker 1:
So I spend time creating these meal plans for my patients without those answers in mind, but also thinking about OK, you mentioned that you don't like cooking, right, so let's simplify this plan as much as we can to make it so doable for you. Right, like you're not spending hours and hours in the kitchen if you already don't like that, right? Because then what's going to happen is you're going to come to me and be like, hey, this was really difficult, right? And so, again, I use meal plans all the time and I create meal plans all the time, but I already know the questions that I need to ask and, essentially, how to create this meal plan specifically for my clients. But the other thing, too and I emphasize this significantly time after time is that the meal plans that I'm creating for you are not a diet, right?
Speaker 1:
I don't want you to take this meal plan and follow it to the T I mean ideally right, if that's something, if there is a specific goal that you want to follow and you want to achieve it. But I want you to understand the composition of the meal plan. I want you to understand why is it that I'm creating it this way? Because I want you to take those tools and use them anywhere you go, right, if you're traveling and you want to, you know, follow the structure of it, we want to follow the tools around it. You can do that, right, when we stop working together, I want you to continue to use those tools. Right that you're learning with the meal plan that I'm creating and seeing how the meals are composed. So now you continue to use them long term, right. I even encourage my clients to look to into previous meal plans that I created.
Speaker 1:
If, for some reason, you're not feeling like, oh, I don't want to have the meal that is for today, right, but I really feel like I want to have that meal that I had two meal plans ago and you can go back to that. Right, because you get all the tools. You get the grocery list, you get the recipes, you get notes, right, and you get alternatives to some ingredients, and so then you have those tools that you can use that right for when you are creating these meals. So I always emphasize that right, because when your brain comes into that thought of restriction and you shouldn't have that, or I'm on this plan, on this rigid plan you almost feel like you don't have control of things, right, even though there is some control because you have that plan, but your brain feels like you don't have control over anything else and you feel like you're stuck right, and so then that affects essentially everything that we're going to do, because then we're going to feel like, oh my gosh, I can't have a piece of chocolate, and I really want a piece of chocolate right now, but I'm on this plan and I cannot have it right Again, that is having an unhealthy relationship with food, and so I always encourage my clients hey, if there's one day where you feel like I don't want to have that today, maybe I want to have something else, that's totally fine, right.
Speaker 1:
I today, maybe I want to have something else, that's totally fine, right. I've had clients that ask me too with this meal plan, can I still have a piece of chocolate, right, or can I still have a cookie once in a while? And my answer is always, of course, right. This plan has to work for you. I'm not giving you a diet, right? I'm giving you a tool that you can use to achieve your goals, right? There's not something that is set in stone and I'm not you a tool that you can use to achieve your goals. It's not something that is set in stone, and I'm not going to be there pounding it on you like hey, you need to follow these 100% of the time, because again, we go back to that restriction, we go back to feeling rigid and like I can never do anything else because I'm on that planet. So that's not how I work.
Speaker 1:
My job, one of the jobs as a dietician, is to provide you with the tools to educate you and show you and guide you on how to create these healthy and balanced meals. If it's meal prepping, if it's just guidance on how to do them without restriction, right, guidance on how to do them without restriction, right, because we already know, I guess, another huge reason why diets don't work, why rigid meal plans don't work, is because they are so strict and because they don't align with what we are doing currently, right? So there is that, my friend. Now I want you to to understand again, right, when you are thinking about, ok, I want to improve my nutrition, Right, or I want to eat healthier, or I want to make sure that maybe I'm optimizing my health for whatever goals that you have, that you are, that you really know what it is that you want, right, and you look at your week and you look at you know, okay, what do I want to do, what's the first step that I need to get me to my goal? Right? And if meal plan is one of them, again, not going with just a general, one-size-fits-all meal plan, because now you're going to waste your time with that, but then you're not going to learn the tools that you need to continue to do a long term right. So be clear with that, right.
Speaker 1:
And then, um, you can use recipes, right, if you feel comfortable with creating them yourself, like a meal plan yourself. Use different recipes, right, that, um, that you're going to enjoy. Because, again, you also have to think about okay, am I going to enjoy these meals Right? Is this something that, um, that I'm going to eat again and again and I'm going to enjoy it? Right? Because, um, if you are not right, then who wants to eat a meal that is like, no, I have to eat this meal and I don't even like it, but I have to eat it Right? So then we lose that enjoyment of eating and like what's the point? So, choose recipes that you feel like you're going to enjoy. You know, maybe there's a recipe that you're hesitant about, but you still want to give it a try. You know I've had different clients that I love that they're so honest and they say you know, when you gave me that recipe, I was hesitant because I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but I still give it a try and I actually really enjoy it, right, so give it a try too.
Speaker 1:
The other thing, too, that I have to say is that, with the meal plans that I create right, it's not just like one, and we follow it for months and months I usually like to change them right Every two weeks, every four weeks, max every six weeks, because we have to rotate our meals, right, and this is something that you can do too. Rotate your meals, maybe, gather a bundle of recipes and rotate them every so often so you don't get tired of eating the same things. Also, because when you think about eating the same meal over and over and over one, you're not only getting tired of eating that meal, but two, you're only getting the nutrients that are in those foods, right. So, for example let's keep it super simple You're only eating broccoli, chicken and rice, right, you're only getting the nutrients from broccoli, chicken and rice. So it's okay, right, rotate it. Okay, maybe next time I'll do broccoli and quinoa, and you know, I don't know carrots, right. Or mixed vegetables, so you get the nutrients from different food groups, which is also essential right, to get a variety of minerals, a variety of vitamins, antioxidants and so on and so forth. So some tips there. Right, rotate your recipes. Get a bundle of recipes right. Choose the ones that you feel like you know they're easy, start with the easiest ones right until you get your groove of things and then rotate them as you go and then batch cook right.
Speaker 1:
If you're doing meal prepping and you want to save some time, batch cook your meals right, meaning that you're going to cook a good amount of food for a few days, three days maybe. I usually don't recommend eating. You know cooking for like five days because you know. If you're someone that gets you know gross by the time that is day five, because maybe the quality of the food is not the best, then just do it, you know, every three days or so on. Or you can batch cook for five days but maybe freeze the Thursday and Friday, so that way it's still kind of fresh in that sense, but that's another way that you can do it too. Or if you're doing like a batch cook of your grains, right, you can do that. Right, you can use like a rice cooker or something like that and you can do that.
Speaker 1:
Now I do have clients that are really busy, right, and I completely understand that because I am a business owner, I am a mom, a wife, and so there's time where I'm not. I don't have the time to like be there and chop things right or cook the proteins or whatever the case may be. And so some of the tips there if you're so busy and you're like man, I only have like 30 minutes to cook a meal and then that's it. What I usually suggest is buy pre-cut food right, especially your produce vegetables and fruits, or frozen ones If you're going to use them for like smoothies or add them to your overnight oats or whatever the case may be, but for sure your vegetables. Because even if you think, okay, how long can it take me to wash the vegetables and pre-cut them? Sometimes we don't even have those five, 10 extra minutes. So if that is the case, it's totally okay to buy them already prepared, and of course they're going to be a little bit more expensive. But you have to give that trade-off right. Like, do I spend a little bit more on something that is already ready to go or do I spend the time right? So you have to have a trade-off there.
Speaker 1:
So there's so many vegetables that are already pre-cut or pre-cooked already, uh, pre-cut or pre-cooked, um. One example for, for instance, um tray joes. I usually buy a tray of joes, like my groceries, and they have like this tray of asparagus that are already trimmed and you just put it in them in the microwave for like two and a half minutes and they're ready and they usually come out really good, uh, versus you buying them in a bag or in a bunch and then having to wash them and, like, trim them and then season them and whatever, steam them. Now, I've done that. I've done both ways, right, I've go back and forth and a lot of, and what I've noticed is that I'm actually eating the asparagus that are already prepared, because, again, I can just put them in the microwave or in the steamer for like two minutes. Bam, right, that saves me five minutes or whatever. So, again, it doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're so busy or when you're short on time, those extra minutes can really make a difference. So that's totally fine.
Speaker 1:
Now there are also some places I know, costco and I'm sure other places, trader Joe's I want to say that's what it's doing Maybe other like Save More, vons, depending on where you live. I've seen that they already have pre-cooked proteins, so like chicken and steak, turkey, um, that you can, just that, you can buy and, like, use it for your week, right, and that's totally fine too, of course, if, if those proteins, um, have, you know, heavy sauces or extra oil or extra, um, you know, seasonings that are oil based, they are going to add more calories, right, but there are some that are only their only flavor, right, with, like, maybe, some salt and some herbs and spices, and you can use that. That's absolutely okay. Again, it saves you some time. They are more, more expensive, right, but again, you have to have that trade-off, so you have to use these tools to your advantage, right? You? You really have to know, okay, do I have how much time do I have to cook? Right, like, let me get a little plan here for me, because if this is something that I really want to do and something that I've been wanting to do, but maybe I have no idea where to start or maybe I don't know what to do, or like how to do it right, get a plan for yourself, right, and maybe do some steps. Okay, when can I do my cooking, right? Do I want to do it at the weekend? Do I want to do it, maybe on Monday or maybe on my day off, and I can cook for, like you know, three to four days. Or can I delegate some of these tasks to, you know, my spouse or an older child or something like that? Right, again, something that is going to work for you.
Speaker 1:
Second thing getting the bundle of recipes to help you, right? So that way you know, okay, these are the ingredients that I need. I got the ingredients, I have everything ready. Let's get cooking right. Because if you don't have that right, if you want to do a recipe but you don't have the ingredients now, we're back into these obstacles and challenges. So we end up not doing it right Because we don't have the tools, we don't have what we need.
Speaker 1:
And then again, if you get tired or bored of eating the same things, just switch it up right. Rotate your recipes. Ask your family if you cook for someone else, ask them, okay, what would you like to eat or what are some choices? That can be a little difficult, because sometimes they're like I don't know, whatever, it doesn't matter. And then you end up in square one but maybe some of the recipes that you made in the past? Okay, which ones do you want to have this week right and narrow it down like that.
Speaker 1:
So, anyway, my friends, to recap, right, we talked about why most meal plans don't work. Some of the things that we said is like they're too restrictive or too rigid, they're not personalized or customized. Maybe we don't have the tools or we don't know how to make them. Maybe they're too difficult and complicated, too many ingredients, maybe they don't align with our current lifestyle, or maybe we feel that they're like something that we don't want to do or something that we don't want to follow. And then we talked about how to create a meal plan that is going to work for you, right, rotating different recipes, batch cooking, using a plan that is customized, you know, individualized for you, and that it meets your goals.
Speaker 1:
And I have a gift for you, right? So let me show it to to you again. My friend, if you are just listening, don't worry. You can always head to my youtube video, which is linked in the store, in the show notes, but you're also going to get the, the resource or the gift in the show notes. So head over to the show notes and you can um, you can view it that way, but I'm going to share with you so you can just have a visual.
Speaker 1:
I know something people are like. I would like to see what is that about? Right, and this is pretty much what essentially I provide to my clients when we are meal planning, right, something's something along those lines. But I created this bundle bundle for you of recipes. It's just 15 recipes, right, that you can use um to help you with your meals. Right again, this is not, uh, a plan that I'm telling you to follow per se, but just use it as a tool to help you generate, generate ideas, maybe to add to your repertoire of recipes, foods that you want to try, but I try to gather recipes that are pretty simple to use.
Speaker 1:
Now, when you look at the recipe, it says six servings, right, like if you wanted to cook for multiple days, maybe for you or someone else, but you can always divide ingredients by the amount of servings that you or someone else, but you can always divide ingredients by the amount of servings that you want to make. It's not going to be 100% accurate in that sense, but it will give you an idea. But, basically, each recipe is going to have some notes, it's going to have directions and ingredients, and so you can create your own grocery list, but I give you 15 recipes, right, a combination of plant-based and animal protein sources. There's some with the air fryer or one pan um, and different types of um cuisines, if you want to, what you want to call it. Uh, there's wraps.
Speaker 1:
You know that if you want to do that for like your lunches, because you know you're busy and you're like I don't have a lot of time, to want to spend a lot of time cooking my lunch or eating my lunch, hopefully you have at least 20 minutes but there's different recipes here, um, that you can use for like breakfast, lunch, at dinner, um, and create again your own recipes, create your own plan, rotate them, add them to the list that you already have, uh, and give them, give them a try, so that resource resources there for you. Again, it's totally free, you don't have to pay me anything. You'll find it in the show notes, right? It'll give you a link where you can download it and you'll have it right away. But if you have more questions or if you are wanting maybe your own individualized meal plan that you want me to make it for you, head over to again the show notes and then I'll add my email so you can email me there. That will be probably the fastest way that you can reach out to me for that, and then we can get you going.
Speaker 1:
All right, so there is that resource for you, but that is pretty much it, my friend, for today's episode. I thought I was going to be able to make it in a shorter amount of time, but I get really passionate about these things and I can talk about nutrition and different topics related topics forever, but anyway, so I hope you enjoyed this episode. Um, thank you again for supporting me. Thank you for listening to this episode. Share it with a friend. Don't forget to follow me on um. Wherever you listen to your podcast or um, like the videos on YouTube, share it. Share it with a friend or a family member, and that is it, my friend. So take care, stay strong and stay safe. We'll talk to you and see you in another episode. Bye for now.