Don't starve yourself! Here’s a healthy meal plan for quick weight loss

Healthy eating is like the road to discovery – what must one eat, what must one not, what could spike your insulin levels, is crucial. Dropping oodles of weight or finding the magic word to hormonal balance while fulfilling all your nutritional requirements is not that difficult. Just when you think you may have found your answers, there’s a whole new concept that will make you doubt what you were just so sure about. If you’re on a lookout for a meal plan for weight loss without cutting down on food, here it is!

HealthShots got in touch with Anupama Menon, a nutrition counselor, who curated a weight loss friendly diet plan that’ll help you shed those extra kilos easily.

“Staying fit is a constant discovery of your body, tweaking and re-tweaking your food and exercise routine, ensuring your health lives up to its potential. Healthy meals are generally straightforward. The key is to eat lightly cooked food and without combining too many food groups.

Stick to this meal plan for weight loss and you’ll achieve your fitness goals in no time:

1. Choose your nutrients wisely

For any of your main meals like breakfast, lunch or dinner, combine not more than one protein group (dairy, meats, eggs, dals, legumes, pulses, tofu), one carb group (rice, millet, wheat), and a serving or 2 of vegetables.

“Keeping your combinations simple will allow for better digestion through better enzyme activation. Keeping the combinations frugal will also pave the way for moderate eating. The palette loves variety and the more choices you have, the more you will tend to eat” says Menon.

diet for healthy bones
Dress you plate with all the nutrients! Image courtesy: Shutterstock

2. Timing matters

Stick to the same meal timings every day. Hunger gets regulated better, cravings are lesser and you go through your day without raising the hunger hormone ghrelin. Ghrelin is a fat-storage hormone. The fewer times it raises its head, the better you can manage your cravings and eating patterns. The trick is to go through your day without feeling hungry, eat every 2-3 hours, and consume 20 minutes before you know you will feel hungry. And watch how delightfully you will be able to manage your scales, your portions, and your hunger.

3. Hydrate yourself

When you are hungry, sip water – warm or cold. Many times, it’s easy to mistake thirst for hunger.

4. Light meals do the trick

“2 nights a week, keep your meals light with just a soup and a salad with fresh raw, stir-fried vegetables garnished with 5-10 gram of nuts and if really needed, a serving of whole-grain carbs like wheat, brown rice, or amaranth.

Burrito Recipe (1)
Small meals are the building blocks of a meal plan for weight loss. Image courtesy: Shutterstock

5. Space out the eating time

Keep a clear 12 hours gap without anything to eat or drink between the time you finish dinner and when you start breakfast. Give that 5 days a week.

6. Don’t give up on cheat meals

Menon advises, “Over the weekends or otherwise, give your body a happy push by eating to your heart’s content whatever it is that it desires! Cheat meals like desserts or fried indulgence, overload of carbs, or the meats that you so love can be cooked in the richness of a moderate amount of butter or ghee. Your happy hormones will soar and so will you.

Ladies, deprivation is never the key to health, balance is. All you need to do is discover your balance and your formula!