250 | Meal Plans SUCK : Rethinking Your Nutrition Strategy to get RESULTS

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Meal plans suck. Or do they? Join me on Tea with Tina as I challenge the conventional wisdom surrounding meal plans and unveil why they often miss the mark for busy women juggling careers and motherhood. If you’ve ever felt trapped in a cycle of under-eating and bingeing, overwhelmed by the mountain of decisions you must make daily, or just plain exhausted by the rigidity of meal plans, this episode is for you. I share my insights from years of working with high-achieving women, exploring how these plans can sometimes exacerbate stress rather than relieve it, leading to the dreaded binge and guilt spiral.

Together, we'll dissect the allure of a simplified eating regimen and the common pitfalls that can derail your wellness journey. From the decision fatigue that comes with learning new nutrition habits to the unpredictability of life's social events, meal plans can sometimes feel like shackles rather than a helping hand. Instead, let's embark on a journey to build a healthier relationship with food that aligns with your unique lifestyle and long-term goals. You'll walk away empowered with knowledge, ready to make sustainable choices that support your well-being without the suffocating confines of traditional meal plans.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the Tea with Tina.
Today I want to chat about whymeal plans suck.
Alright, that's a little bit ofa clickbait title, but I will
say most of the time, meal planswill not serve you in the long
term, but I will tell you whenthey can be helpful, because I

(00:21):
am somebody who likes to look atthings from all perspectives.
I'm not going to give you ablack and white of like.
No meal plans suck and or yes,meal plans are the answer to
everything.
Okay, the reason I'm talkingabout this I think I recorded a
podcast about this a while back,but you know it might need a
refresh A lot of the times.
I work with busy women, and ifyou're listening, you're

(00:44):
probably one of them, so youknow I.
I work with busy women and ifyou're listening, you're
probably one of them.
So you know I.
I work with busy women.
Either they are career drivenor they are mothers.
Sometimes they're both.
They could be mothers tochildren or fur babies, but they
tend to be high achievers, highachievers, perfectionists.
They, they do it all.

(01:05):
They, they do not fill theircup up, but they want to right.
They don't know how to, butthey, they want to be their best
selves for their husband, theirboyfriend, their fur babies,
their kids, their co-workers,their family, you know whatever.
And when I meet with themthey're usually very stressed

(01:32):
out and the vibe I get isdesperation.
And that's okay, it's a part ofthe process.
But I get a lot of like youknow, I'm super burned out, I'm
super exhausted, I'm hungry allthe time.
Most of my clients come to me,usually under eating, but then
they're stuck in this bingecycle.

(01:52):
They're trying to eat athousand calories a day and then
they feel super hungry and likeI don't know why I'm so hungry,
and then they overeat.
So by the time you see, liketheir weekly calorie average,
they're actually not atmaintenance or even a deficit.
They're at just enough wherethey're either staying the same
or gaining weight.
Right, and they get bloatingfrom the binging.

(02:13):
They're stressed out, so theyget inflammation and hold on to
water weight and they feel likecrap.
Does this sound like you?
I see it a lot.
But one of the questions I geton top of this is just like,
like nutrition feelsoverwhelming and they're just
like well, can you just give mea meal plan and I get it?
I get it, because you'reprobably overwhelmed, you have

(02:36):
decision fatigue, whether it'syour job, your kids taking on
this whole new like fitnessnutrition thing will make you
like exhausted.
The idea that you have to thinkand learn how to track calories
, macros, what foods are good,sounds exhausting.
You just want somebody to tellyou what to eat and I love that
for you.

(02:56):
We love that for you, Iunderstand.
But let's think about this longterm.
Okay, let's say you did followa meal plan.
Okay, you followed it and itwas like egg whites with oatmeal
and you did, you know, salmon,rice, broccoli, then maybe you
did tacos for dinner.
You know you follow it.
Okay, we're following it.

(03:18):
We're doing great, we'regetting results.
Uh-oh, saturday you have to goto a baby shower.
There's going to be cake there.
It's going to be a lot of goodfood.
What do you do?
Your meal plan doesn't tell youwhat to do, so you kind of just
eat whatever, because you kindof felt restricted on your meal
plan of eating the same fewthings.

(03:38):
It worked for a while, but nowyou're kind of getting bored.
So then you overeat and thenyou feel bloated and crappy and
then Sunday you try to be better, but then you overeat again and
then you go you know what,screw this, I already undid all
my progress, I'm just gonna eatwhat I want.
And then you gain weight, moreweight than when you started and

(04:00):
then you're back to step oneand then, once you feel bad
enough about yourself, you tryto start over with the meal plan
again, because that's what youremember working, that's what
made the weight come off right.
Or what happens when you aresick of the food on your meal
plan and you don't know how toadapt it right.
This is where meal plans mess meup and I don't like them is it

(04:23):
doesn't teach you how to adapt,because you will need to adapt.
I don't care.
We're not doing this for a week, a month, a year.
This is the rest of your life.
So you need to know how to eatin a way that, like, if certain
foods aren't available to you,you can make healthy choices or
better choices.
Or if you're out to eat or yougo to that baby shower, you know

(04:44):
how to portion control.
Or maybe there's a day that youdon't care.
You know you've been doingpretty good.
So if you eat whatever you wantthis day, it's not going to
undo your progress.
That's what meal plans won'tteach you.
I think meal plans, this is whatI think meal plans are good for
.
I think they're a good guide.
I think they're a good like.
Oh, you know, this is whateating X amount of calories,

(05:08):
like your goal calories, wouldlook like if it was balanced and
healthy.
So this is what you could do,but I want it to be flexible,
right, like, so like, let's say,you have salmon, rice, broccoli
.
You're not stuck to that, right, like four ounces of salmon, we
could do four ounces of steak.
You could do four ounces ofground turkey.

(05:28):
You could do chicken sausage.
You could do chicken breast.
You could do cottage cheese.
You could do Greek yogurt.
So you know it's plug and play.
Same thing with rice.
You could do white rice, brownrice, quinoa, sweet potato,
regular potato pasta, proteinpasta, um, mac and cheese,

(05:50):
annie's mac and cheese, veggies,broccoli the options are
endless that you can use there,um, and the methods with how you
cook them.
So it's more of a plug and playin my eyes, but it's a good.
It's good to have that to fallback on, because I know for me
if I ever feel overwhelmed orfeel like maybe my taste buds
went out of control and I'm likeI need a little bit of a reset.

(06:10):
I kind of fall back on thosebasics, something that would be
similar to a meal plan, like.
I always go back to my basics,but I vary them, uh, because I
am somebody who gets sick ofeating the same things all the
time.
So that's where I think a mealplan is useful.
But if you, if you're feelingoverwhelmed and you feel like
you need a meal plan, you maynot want to hear this, but

(06:33):
you're probably just gonna haveto really make things easy.
I know you want to jump to thefancy stuff, you want to do what
the girls on Instagram aredoing, but sometimes you need to
focus on just drinking enoughwater and getting enough sleep
and maybe adding a vegetable inlike.
You need to get consistent justdrinking enough water and
getting enough sleep and maybeadding a vegetable in Like.
You need to get consistent atthat.
First.
I made a podcast about this aswell.
Once you are consistent withthe basics, then you have the

(06:59):
right to get picky, right?
So you got to start with thesimple stuff and build from
there, and again it might feeltoo easy.
But if you can't even do theeasy stuff consistently, then
there's something we need towork on right, like if you're
not doing the basicsconsistently.
We got to figure out why youwouldn't start decorating a

(07:20):
house that was completely gutted, you wouldn't start adding
fancy furniture to it whenthere's not even walls up right.
You got to build a foundation.
You got to build the structurefirst, then you can decorate it.
So many of us want to jump tothe fancy stuff and the fun
stuff and I get it because Ilike that too.
But you have to build a strongfoundation to be successful.

(07:43):
So that's my thoughts on mealplans.
Hopefully this changes yourperspective.
And just a little side note toothere are other ways than
tracking macros.
There's a sliding scale.
Can you just keep a food diary?
Can you use the hand portiontracking method?
Look that up if you don't knowwhat that is Using your hand to
kind of gauge portions, to helpyou kind of indirectly track

(08:04):
calories.
Can you keep a photo food diary?
I do this with my clients inthe app.
I can kind of look at theirfood choices and we can see how
can we make this a little bitbetter.
You know, can you switch todiet soda from regular soda?
Can we get.
You know, maybe the burgerwithout the bun and load up on
veggies.
You know little switches likethat.

(08:26):
You can do light tracking.
You can track just calories,and that you can do light
tracking.
You can track just calories andprotein.
You can do full tracking.
You don't have to track everyday.
So there's a lot of differentmethods here.
It's all about figuring outwhat works for you, and if
you're somebody who doesn't know, then I would definitely reach
out to a professional.
I'm somebody who takes pride inhelping people understand
nutrition and get educatedproperly on nutrition.

(08:48):
It's not a quick, easy route.
It's not a quick fix, but Iteach you the tools that you're
going to use for life and, onceyou get them down, that allows
you to reach your goals and keepwhatever progress you made.
Keep it, because this is longterm right.
So that's my thoughts there.
Have a great rest of your day,you guys.

(09:10):
Hope you enjoyed this podcastand I'll chat with you soon.