Why do Menu Plans not Work?
So what’s wrong with meal plans?
In our early days, we learned something the hard way:
Meal plans and diets aren’t useful or sustainable for the vast majority of clients.
Clients often feel like they’re either “on” them or “off” them. The black and white nature of a meal plan suggests that people have to eat perfectly at each meal (to match what’s listed in the plan) — or they’ve failed. It’s psychologically unpalatable and unsustainable.
Even more, meal plans are too inflexible.
They don’t work with the reality of people’s busy lives. Work meetings, children’s programs, meals out, dogs that need walking, cars that break down, family members that get ill, etc. Meal plans take none of these into account.
Finally, meal plans assume people already have the skills to follow them.
But that’s simply not true. Most people who aren’t eating healthy today don’t have the basics down.
Without skills like:
• planning grocery shopping;
• choosing the right items from the store;
• storing and preparing food correctly;
• eating slowly and mindfully;
• tuning into hunger and appetite cues;
• avoiding problem foods; and
• choosing better options at restaurants…
…following a meal plan becomes hopeless.
You might as well ask someone who’s only strong enough to bench press 135 pounds to do 405 pounds. No matter how badly they want to, they don’t have the skills or capacity.
But these aren’t just intellectual objections. In our experience, only 1 in 10 people can actually follow a meal plan for more than a few weeks.
At Tim Harris Personal Trainer we coach creating new habits and making changes that last a life time not just a few weeks… www.timharris.de