Nutritional Frameworks
Precision Meal Plan: With a precision meal plan, every food source and amount is dictated with no flexibility. This approach is typically reserved for body builders in prep, though some clients may prefer this. This is also used when dealing with specific health issues that require a temporary restrictive protocol such as gut dysbiosis.
Example: Every meal will be dictated as shown below
Meal 4: 40P/30C/15F
175g Salmon
150g Sweet Potatoes
100g Leafy Greens
5g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Flexible Meal Plan:
Scenario 1: With a flexible meal plan, every food source and amount is dictated, more as an example of how the amounts can be attained, but there is a degree of trust between coach and client that if substitutions are made, due diligence will be done on the part of the client to ensure macro nutrient needs are met.
Example: A meal plan might indicate 100g of blueberries for breakfast. 100g of blueberries yields 15g of carbohydrate. If the client wanted to have strawberries instead, they would need 200g of strawberries to achieve 15g of carbohydrates. It is important that the coach educate the client on this so they understand food sources are not interchangeable.
Scenario 2: A client may prefer a precision meal plan for all the meals of the day except for family dinner. It can be extremely frustrating and time consuming to cook a separate meal from your family for dinner. In this case I will give them a precision meal plan for all meals, but then provide general guidance for dinner. Depends on the diet phase (cutting or growing) I may undercut the early meals to allow for a wider calorie range at dinner as 4-6oz of chicken breast is very different from 4-6oz of prime rib. This approach cannot be used for bodybuilding as every calorie counts. It’s an excellent approach for someone who want to dial things in tightly, needs structure, but also doesn’t want to sacrifice family dinner.
Example:
Meal 4: 30-60P/30-60C/10-20F or Get a minimum of 30g of protein and get between 400-700 cal. This looks like 3-6oz of meat, a fist sized serving of carbs, and a thumb sized portion of fats. *It’s important to give the client multiple frames of reference to understand the intent.
Macros: A macros based approach provides the most freedom of choice, but the tradeoff is more work. It is up to the client to source, weigh, measure, and track their food to hit their targets. This can work well if the client is diligent with tracking and weighing their food. It will not work if they simple eyeball or guestimate amounts. It’s also important to provide some parameters with this approach as food quality is important. When I give macros I always give a list of generalized parameters and tailor to the individual as needed.
Example:
Macro based parameters:
150g Protein/150g Carbs/50g Fat
90% of the foods you eat should be whole, single ingredient foods. These are foods you can catch, kill, or grow. If they have roots or a mother they are fair game.
Stay adequately hydrated. Salt your meals using a quality pink himalayan salt or celtic sea salt. Avoid iodized table salt. Drink between .5-1oz per lb of body weight daily.
I will also include general guidance on nutrient timing if the client is a strength athlete or simply enjoys the added nuance. Meal timing is not as critical for a general lifestyle client unless they have advanced beyond the basics, have good habits established and want to dive deeper.
Flexible Targets Approach: This approach is like a macros based approach but is slightly less meticulous. Instead of having hard targets for each macronutrient as seen above, I will give a calorie range goal and a protein range goal. While this is not nearly as precise and will yield slower results initially, it is excellent for long term compliance and combating the mental fatigue of constant tracking. This approach comes with the same parameters as a macro based approach, but as stated, less meticulous. I have found this especially helpful for busy moms and those who have had issues with disordered eating. I have given a target of 150g of carbs and had women check in with me who ate 140g of carbs and felt like they failed. Conversely, that same woman may hit 160g of carbs and feel like she is getting fat. Of course this isn’t how the body works, but it’s how the mind can play tricks on us and I’ve found this approach incredibly helpful. I utilize this myself when I am not training for anything particular.
Example:
Calorie range goal: 1400-1700
Protein range goal: 110-150
Success looks like consistently landing in these ranges. The range is wide enough to provide a buffer for life to happen, but narrow enough to move the needle on our goals. We toggle the ranges up and down as needed.
Imagine, you’re a busy mom, you forgot to meal prep and you have a million errands to run with 3 toddlers at your heels. Instead of quitting on your goals and committing to start up next week, you can run to Target, hit up the Starbucks, grab a couple orders of the egg white bites, log your protein and calories and get back to your day. You still need to track, but this approach affords you some wiggle room.
Habit Stacking Approach: This is for the person who has never tracked or it’s been years since they’ve tracked. They have little to no healthy habits established and are overwhelmed by all the various diets, dietary approaches, conflicting opinions, and are drowning in information, but starved for wisdom. Often, these are the folks who are morbidly obese and desperately want to make a change. I’ve found giving these folks macros or a meal plan is simply too much. They need to work their way to that. I begin by listing all the positive habits we need to establish before we address the removal of anything negative. I then give them a choice over which habit to build first. I have found with these clients they often feel like everything is spinning out of control, so giving them autonomy helps them really lean into the lifestyle change. Once a client gives me three weeks of 90+% adherence to the habit we are focusing on I consider it established and we move to the next one. With this approach, in only 4-5 months we will have new patterns of behavior established that serve as a foundation we can build on for real life change.
Example: Habits to establish
Adequate protein- important note here. For morbidly obese people we do not operate with traditional protein targets. If I have a 400lb man I will not be giving him 400g of protein. I will start between 1.2-1.5g per kg of body weight. In his case that’s between 215g-270g.
Daily movement- 5000 steps daily. This may be very tough for the extremely overweight as it’s stressful on their joints. Take this case by case. Give them a goal they can hit but need to get uncomfortable to do.
Adequate hydration- I will have them drink a gallon of water a day. This is a simple decision to execute and gets them a quick emotional, process goal(more about process goals vs outcome goals in a later post) win. It will also serve to displace empty liquid calories they are consuming.
Micronutrient intake- I want them to get 3-4 servings of fruits and veggies daily. I don’t even care which initially. Yes, fruits have more carbs than veggies and need to be tracked, but we aren’t there yet. We are getting them to build healthy habits and learn to love good food.
Sleep 7-9 hrs. Sleep is critical for optimal health, fat loss, hunger regulation and a host of other factors that impact weight loss. I want them to get good sleep, not scrolling their phones or watching TV. If they can’t quite break that habit I’ll advise they use blue light blocking glasses.
Resistance training. Some are ready for this right away, other’s need time to build into this. This is where an individualized approach comes in.
If you need help achieving your health goals and would like to discuss coaching with me or my team, you can book a call here.
