There is a weird divide in the nutrition world right now. People seem to fall into 1 of 2 categories, they either are all in for a meal plan, discipline and specific numbers, OR, they are all about self-love, eating food you enjoy and breaking all the “food rules”. Guess what… you do not have to be a zealot of either and can still have great success (did you just read that in the Borat voice…? That’s how I typed it).
Wait… how can I love myself, curl up with nature in a meadow playing with a baby lamb if I’m not eating intuitively. Or on the flip side, how can I have a rock hard six pack, win every competition I ever enter and say “bro” every other word as I do copious curls…
Very rarely do people truly live in one side or the other and the athletes at PP are no different, we’ve had every athlete and client from every walk of life. We’ve had vegans who are extremely particular about how their food is sourced and where each bite comes from and we’ve had meathead who only cared about eating more protein and having bigger arms. Guess what… we helped educate both of them on how to take both styles and meld them together for best results.
When people think of meal prepping they see small Tupperware with broccoli, white or brown rice and chicken. No sauce, no flavor because there isn’t enough room with all those GAINS. What meal prepping really should be is freedom and preparing for success.
How can intuitive eating can be more successful with meal planning and prepping?
Time constraints can be fixed
No matter what your eating style, everyone has stresses and issues that can arise that throws off their life and eating. A great way to minimize that and reach your goals faster is to plan ahead. This will help you with your time constraints when you have them and allow you to do what you should be doing… enjoying your life and spending time doing what you love with who you love! No need to count every carb in your planned meal, just eat foods you enjoy slowly until you are about 80% full and have things in balance.
Meal planning can and should have some flexibility to it
This often gets looked at the person has to account for every single food they eat that day, but that doesn’t mean those foods can’t rotate based on what your WANT to eat. When intuitively eating, it isn’t about “good” foods or “bad” foods, but it is about foods you WANT to eat and help in general to reach your goal. This means that having snacks, pre planned meals, etc all in your fridge, office, bag/backpack and potentially car can make it much easier to eat the foods you like. No, you don’t have to just make rice and chicken then eat that at each meal, but having accessibility to your foods throughout the day allows you to eat and improve your relationship with food.
Prepping meals can AND SHOULD be foods you enjoy –
Read the above point again, you can’t eat food that you don’t have access to. This means you need to have those foods around. When planning out your day or week just make sure you have a balance of foods around you that you enjoy and will help you with your goals.
Many of the same rules still apply!
The basics of intuitive eating are all great; honoring your hunger, making peace with food and honoring your health come to mind. This planning and prepping can simply be a few general snacks and meals you enjoy and then you can pick throughout the week as you see fit. At some point, no matter how intuitively you eat you have to shop and bring home food, so all you’re doing is taking these foods that honor your feelings and turning them into delicious meals you can eat when you get home tired from school or work.
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