What makes a good meal plan for weight loss?
To lose weight, you eat a little less energy than your body uses, over weeks rather than days. A plan that helps doesn’t remove the dishes you like: it sets the amounts.
On the plate: plenty of vegetables, a full portion of protein to keep you satisfied, and a measured portion of starch such as rice, pasta, potatoes or bread.
- Complete meals rather than plates so light you are starving by 5 pm.
- Weighed amounts rather than guesses by eye.
- Meals ready in advance, so you don’t improvise at night.
- Room for pleasure: a dish you love stays in the plan.
Why the amounts matter more than the list of foods
The same plate of chicken, bulgur and vegetables can help you lose weight or gain it: only the portion changes. “Eat healthily” doesn’t tell you how much.
Why not a 1,200 or 1,500 calorie meal plan?
A fixed number ignores the person eating it. How much energy you burn depends on your weight, height, age, sex and activity, so the same 1,500 kcal is a gentle deficit for one person and far too little for another.
A kilo of body fat holds about 7,700 kcal. A steady pace of 0.25 to 0.5 kg a week means eating roughly 275 to 550 kcal a day below what you burn.
For a woman who burns about 2,000 kcal a day, 1,500 kcal is a deficit of 500 kcal: a little under 0.5 kg a week. For a man who burns 2,800 kcal, the same 1,500 kcal is a gap of 1,300 kcal a day: a pace of more than 1 kg a week.
Meal prep for weight loss
A weight-loss plan holds when the meal is ready before the hunger arrives. A dish cooked on Sunday serves dinner and the next day’s lunch; the rest is reheated or comes out of the freezer.
- One box per preparation: the starch kept apart, so you can portion it at the meal.
- Cooked food keeps three days in the fridge at most, cooking day included; cooked rice keeps for less time.
- Anything eaten later goes in the freezer on the day you cook.
- Weigh the ingredients when you cook, and your portion when you serve.