The Tea with Tina
The Tea with Tina is going to be your new favorite weekly chit-chat that will feel like a good, juicy sit-down with your BFF. This podcast isn't your average (and boring) radio talk show-styled podcast. We dig deep, get personal, and have lots of fun along the way. Hear some relatable stories and a different perspective on various topics from health and fitness to pop culture. I am Tina Wieland, a certified fitness trainer and nutrition coach. Grab your caffeinated drink of choice, get comfortable, and be ready to hear the TEA.
The Tea with Tina
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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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Tea with Tina. Today I want to chat about why meal plans suck. Alright, that's a little bit of a clickbait title, but I will say most of the time, meal plans will not serve you in the long term, but I will tell you when they can be helpful, because I am somebody who likes to look at things from all perspectives. I'm not going to give you a black and white of like. No meal plans suck and or yes, meal plans are the answer to everything. Okay, the reason I'm talking about 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.
Speaker 1:I work with busy women, and if you're listening, you're probably one of them, so you know I. I work with busy women and if you're listening, you're probably one of them. So you know I. I work with busy women. Either they are career driven or they are mothers. Sometimes they're both. They could be mothers to children or fur babies, but they tend to be high achievers, high achievers, perfectionists. They, they do it all. They, they do not fill their cup up, but they want to right. They don't know how to, but they, they want to be their best selves for their husband, their boyfriend, their fur babies, their kids, their co-workers, their family, you know whatever. And when I meet with them they're usually very stressed out and the vibe I get is desperation. And that's okay, it's a part of the process. But I get a lot of like you know, I'm super burned out, I'm super exhausted, I'm hungry all the time. Most of my clients come to me, usually under eating, but then they're stuck in this binge cycle. They're trying to eat a thousand calories a day and then they feel super hungry and like I don't know why I'm so hungry, and then they overeat. So by the time you see, like their weekly calorie average, they're actually not at maintenance or even a deficit. They're at just enough where they're either staying the same or gaining weight. Right, and they get bloating from the binging. They're stressed out, so they get inflammation and hold on to water weight and they feel like crap. Does this sound like you? I see it a lot. But one of the questions I get on top of this is just like, like nutrition feels overwhelming and they're just like well, can you just give me a meal plan and I get it? I get it, because you're probably overwhelmed, you have decision fatigue, whether it's your job, your kids taking on this whole new like fitness nutrition thing will make you like exhausted. The idea that you have to think and learn how to track calories, macros, what foods are good, sounds exhausting. You just want somebody to tell you what to eat and I love that for you. We love that for you, I understand. But let's think about this long term. Okay, let's say you did follow a meal plan. Okay, you followed it and it was 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. We're doing great, we're getting results. Uh-oh, saturday you have to go to a baby shower. There's going to be cake there. It's going to be a lot of good food.
Speaker 1:What do you do? Your meal plan doesn't tell you what to do, so you kind of just eat whatever, because you kind of felt restricted on your meal plan of eating the same few things. It worked for a while, but now you're kind of getting bored. So then you overeat and then you 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 eat what I want. And then you gain weight, more weight than when you started and then you're back to step one and then, once you feel bad enough about yourself, you try to start over with the meal plan again, because that's what you remember working, that's what made the weight come off right. Or what happens when you are sick of the food on your meal plan and you don't know how to adapt it right.
Speaker 1:This is where meal plans mess me up and I don't like them is it 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 eat in 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 you go to that baby shower, you know how to portion control. Or maybe there's a day that you don't care. You know you've been doing pretty good. So if you eat whatever you want this day, it's not going to undo your progress. That's what meal plans won't teach you.
Speaker 1:I think meal plans, this is what I 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 what eating X amount of calories, like your goal calories, would look 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 of ground turkey. 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, brown rice, quinoa, sweet potato, regular potato pasta, protein pasta, um, mac and cheese, 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 play in my eyes, but it's a good.
Speaker 1:It's good to have that to fall back on, because I know for me if I ever feel overwhelmed or feel like maybe my taste buds went out of control and I'm like I need a little bit of a reset. I kind of fall back on those basics, 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 of eating the same things all the time. So that's where I think a meal plan is useful. But if you, if you're feeling overwhelmed and you feel like you need a meal plan, you may not want to hear this, but you're probably just gonna have to really make things easy.
Speaker 1:I know you want to jump to the fancy stuff, you want to do what the girls on Instagram are doing, but sometimes you need to focus on just drinking enough water and getting enough sleep and maybe adding a vegetable in like. You need to get consistent just drinking enough water and getting enough sleep and maybe adding a vegetable in Like. You need to get consistent at that. First. I made a podcast about this as well. Once you are consistent with the basics, then you have the right to get picky, right? So you got to start with the simple stuff and build from there, and again it might feel too easy. But if you can't even do the easy stuff consistently, then there's something we need to work on right, like if you're not doing the basics consistently. We got to figure out why you wouldn't start decorating a house that was completely gutted, you wouldn't start adding fancy furniture to it when there's not even walls up right. You got to build a foundation. You got to build the structure first, then you can decorate it. So many of us want to jump to the fancy stuff and the fun stuff and I get it because I like that too. But you have to build a strong foundation to be successful. So that's my thoughts on meal plans. Hopefully this changes your perspective.
Speaker 1:And just a little side note too there are other ways than tracking macros. There's a sliding scale. Can you just keep a food diary? Can you use the hand portion tracking method? Look that up if you don't know what that is Using your hand to kind of gauge portions, to help you kind of indirectly track calories. Can you keep a photo food diary? I do this with my clients in the app. I can kind of look at their food choices and we can see how can we make this a little bit better. You know, can you switch to diet soda from regular soda? Can we get. You know, maybe the burger without the bun and load up on veggies. You know little switches like that.
Speaker 1:You can do light tracking. You can track just calories, and that you can do light tracking. You can track just calories and protein. You can do full tracking. You don't have to track every day. So there's a lot of different methods here. It's all about figuring out what 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 in helping people understand nutrition and get educated properly on nutrition. It's not a quick, easy route. It's not a quick fix, but I teach you the tools that you're going to use for life and, once you get them down, that allows you to reach your goals and keep whatever progress you made. Keep it, because this is long term right. So that's my thoughts there. Have a great rest of your day, you guys. Hope you enjoyed this podcast and I'll chat with you soon.
