“Will I get a meal plan?’
This is a question I hear from potential clients quite a bit – and the answer is no. Let me explain.
Meal plans and diets simply aren’t useful or sustainable for the vast majority of people.
Clients often feel like they’re either “on” them or “off” them. The black and white nature of a meal plan suggests that people have to eat perfectly at each meal (to match what’s listed in the plan) — or else they’ve failed.
It’s psychologically unpalatable and unsustainable.
Even more, meal plans are frequently too inflexible. They don’t work with the reality of people’s busy lives. Work meetings, children’s activities, meals out, dogs that need walking, cars that break down, family members that get ill, etc.
Meal plans take none of these into account.
Finally, meal plans assume people already have the skills to follow them. But that’s simply not true.
Without skills like:
- planning grocery shopping;
- choosing the right items from the store;
- storing and preparing food correctly;
- eating slowly and mindfully;
- tuning into hunger and appetite cues;
- avoiding problem foods; and
- choosing better options at restaurants…
…following a meal plan does zero to cultivate the habits necessary for long-term success.
If you’re currently using a meal plan, that’s OK. But make sure it’s working for you.
If your meal plan is making you feel:
- overwhelmed
- anxious and fretful
- guilty
- regretful
- bad
- overly rigid and/or preoccupied with food…
or any other negative, unproductive emotion…
…and if you find the meal plans result in you:
- “falling off the wagon”, hard
- getting obsessive and compulsive about food
- restricting foods and food groups…
- doing “all or nothing”, usually ending with “nothing”
…then consider trying another approach.
A habit-based program, like the one offered through Chickadee Health Coaching, focuses on repeating small, short-term daily actions to work towards a long-term goal.
By doing these actions or habits daily (or as often as possible), you’ll practice changing.
And when it comes to change:
- Action is more important than information.
- Doing is more important than knowing.
When we see and feel change happening, and experience ourselves making new choices, we start to think that maybe change is possible. We can’t un-see or un-know the fact that we just made a healthier choice – and we start to imagine making more and more healthier choices.
Bottom line – habit-based coaching works.
XO ~Robyn
I work with women who are ready to say goodbye to yo-yo dieting for good. We’ll use a sustainable, practice-based approach to build healthy habits into your life, one day at a time for an entire year.
The result? You’ll develop healthy habits that become second nature and last a lifetime. You’ll lose the weight (and inches) you haven’t been able to shed – for good.
If this resonates with you, CLICK HERE for details on how to work with me.