Effective Strategies for Achieving Sustainable Weight Loss with Our Meal Plans
Meal plans are a great way to ensure you are getting the balance of nutrients right for your individual needs. Healthy and sustainable weight loss comes from reducing your energy intake by around 500kcals (2000kj) a day. More than this and your body may be forced to break down your muscles to make up some of the energy it is missing to get you and your body through the day. Less than this and you may find weight loss is frustratingly slow which may dampen your motivation to continue. A 500kcal a day deficit seems to be the sweet spot for weight loss without feeling deprived or ‘hangry’.
To help get you started, we have given you a choice of 4 meal plans that uses the high protein shake in place of one meal per day. To help you choose the right one for your needs, use the energy calculator below to get an estimate of your daily energy requirements. This will provide you a number in Kilojoules. If you prefer to convert this to calories, then divide the number by 4.18. This will give your daily requirements in calories.
To work out the right plan for you.
- Use the energy calculator to work out your estimated daily energy requirements - Available here
- Then take away 2000kj/500kcal from the total to get your estimated energy needs for weight loss.
- Choose the plan that is closest to that figure. Don’t be tempted to go lower than this as you won’t be setting yourself up for sustainable weight loss.
Meal Plan Tips
- If you would like to include more milk-based coffee in your day e.g. small latte or Cappuccino, just swap out a slice of cheese for each small coffee to keep the overall energy and nutrient profile the same over the day.
- In this plan you can use either the High Protein or classic shake. If you are diabetic, we recommend the high protein shake as it has a little less carbs. Likewise, if you are finding you are still hungry after the shake, you could try swapping to the high protein shake in place of the classic.
- Don’t try to skip a meal as a way of reducing your energy intake. This may result in over-eating at your next meal or snack. A meal replacement shake can be a good way to keep your body nourished while skipping the meal prep.
- Check your weight once a month (you can also use your clothes as an indicator if you don’t like the scales) and if you are not seeing any downward movement, consider tracking your intake using an app such as Easy Diet Diary and try the next plan down in calories/kj for a month. It might be that your individual metabolic, body composition and health conditions call for a slightly lower intake.
- Monitor your hunger, fullness, and energy on a scale of 1-10 to see if the plan is keeping you satisfied. Plans will only work if you can stick with them.
- difference but if you eat out regularly (e.g. 2 or more times a week) then you may find your weight loss is slower (see next tip).
Weight loss tips
- Be patient with the results as it may not be possible to be consistent with a meal plan every week or month. You might have weeks or even whole months that contain lots of birthday parties or celebrations which takes you away from the meal plan. Try thinking of weight loss as a slow burn rather than a quick fix and follow the plan whenever you can and eat mindfully the times you can’t.
- It is ok for weight to plateau from time to time. Try to see these as the body trying to create a new weight set point. The body doesn’t like too much change and naturally wants to return to your starting weight. You may have several of these ‘re-calibrations’ on your journey which is all part of healthy weight loss. For most people, weight creeps up slowly, and you probably had some little ‘re-calibrations’ or weight plateaus that you just didn’t notice. Try to stay patient and consistent with your eating and exercise during these plateaus as these are the times people are most likely to give up.
