Healthy Meal Plan
Eating a healthy diet is a fundamental part of physical and mental wellbeing, and being healthy has never been more important. According to the CDC, nearly 72% of American adults over 20 are overweight or obese. Wow.
It’s time to change that. Eating a well balanced and healthy diet is a crucial part of losing and maintaining a healthy weight. At its core, a healthy diet or meal plan is one which contains of the basic building blocks of life your body needs. It helps nourish you with the vitamins and minerals and the right amount of energy required to go about your daily tasks, but not too much so as to cause excessive weight gain. Ideally, you hit a balance so you can start feeling optimal and working your best.
Almost all government nutritional bodies agree that a healthy diet is one which is low in processed foods, these are items which are pre-prepared and not found in nature. Take for example, frozen pizza, ice-cream, cookie dough or popcorn - all of these items are high in saturated fats and heavily processed and usually have tons of sugar. The first step when moving to a healthy diet is to remove these food types from your diet (or at least reduce them to a minimum.
Secondly, a healthy diet should include regular portions of vegetables and fruit. One useful way of thinking about having a healthy diet is to think about 'all things in moderation', especially processed foods and those high in sugar and refined carbohydrates.
While healthy means different things to different people - some people prefer paleo, while other prefer low carb or keto - but a healthy meal plan doesn’t necessarily care about a specific diet or ideology. The primary aim is to eat things in moderation, while fueling your body to perform well and be at a beneficial and healthy weight.
While it might sound difficult - eating healthy is not as hard as it can sound - especially if you are purposely about it and decide to make a plan in advance.
Benefits of a Healthy Meal Plan
A healthy meal plan has several benefits. Primarily - having a plan instead of just “trying to be healthy” increases compliance and the chance that you’ll be successful. Life can get hectic and by having a plan at the ready - when the ups and downs of life come at you - you’ll have a plan for what to do.
Beyond that though - a healthy meal plan can benefit your life in many ways. Eating healthy can help you achieve a healthy body weight and better lean muscle-fat ratio.
You’ll often see the following benefits:
- Increased energy
- Better or overall improved sleep
- Improved appetite
- Better skin and nail quality
Also - achieving a healthy weight can improve health outcomes across the board including:
- increased overall health and immunity
- lowered risk of obesity
- lowered risk of cancer
- lowered risk of diabetes and other health complications
In short - following a healthy meal plan can help your life dramatically in quite a few ways.
What To Eat on a Healthy Meal Plan
The word “healthy” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but in general - here’s what you should and shouldn’t eat on a typically healthy meal plan diet.
Eat this on a healthy meal plan diet.
- Vegetables
- High quality meat
- Fruits
- Healthy nuts + seeds
- Real, whole foods as much as possible.
Avoid these foods on a healthy meal plan
- processed foods
- sugars
- processed sugars
- excessive grains
- candy
- energy drinks
- alcohol
Customizing Healthy Meal Plans For You
One of the best things about getting a meal planning service to help with your healthy meal plan is that you can customize the plan to your needs.
With Ultimate Meal Plans - you can easily
- pick a specific diet or a generic “healthy plan”
- increase the number of people a recipe is for
- exclude ingredients for picky eaters or allergies
- automatically generate your weekly shopping list
- instantly checkout with an online grocery service (optional)
- plus you get access to a ton of bonus discounts with our meal plan and product partners.
With those options - you can be certain that you can customize a meal plan that will fit your tastes exactly and be a plan that’s not just healthy for you but is sustainable and one you can see success through.
→ Try healthy meal plans free for 14 days here.
Examples Healthy Meal Plan Recipes
A meal plan isn’t any good with out some amazing recipes to back it up. Here are some of the best recipes we’ve found that you can try out in your own healthy meal plan:
Healthy Meal Planning Citations & Resources
For more references and sourcing on healthy meal plans, check out the following links:
