Seb’s meal plan for lazy, semi-broke, hedonistic people who hate to think about what to cook.
So this is what I figured about 2 years ago: I always ate the same rubbish meal almost every day because I hate thinking about what to cook. Better things to do with my time. I push it for the next day and the next day… When I finally got tired of my waste line looking like my mom’s I figured that what if I turn that laziness to think about cooking to my advantage? I figured out ONE healthy daily meal plan that would go down the treat every time and stick to it for as long as I get sick of it. I knew that even when I didn’t feel like eating it today, the alternative to thinking up another decent meal would trump the need to swap, and if I got into any start at all, I wouldn’t want to just ruin all my progress with junk.
I’ve lost over 10 kilos and I’m now leaner than I was in my 20’s. I’ve got muscle that I never had before, and I’m still not sick of my meals. I just drowned another burrito. I got a good start on the gym, too, but most of the weight loss is due to diet, for sure… The gym makes what’s left look awesome. ;p
Figure out a healthy version of your favorite meals.
Name your favorite foods. Now, do you have ANY IDEA how many calories you save if you replace regular mince with extra lean mince for instance? Same animal, better taste, a bit more expensive, granted. When you take every part of your favorite meal and find a lighter version of it, you won’t even notice the difference. (Tell your kids nothing. ;p)
You figure out one of your favorite meals, maybe two. You’ll count the calories ONCE and make no changes to how you cook it once you’ve figured it out.
Borrow a FitBit for 24h at least.
If you have a Fitbit, (or can borrow one for a day) you stay at almost complete rest for one day. Move as little as possible (tough) for one day or two, and take down the total calorie burn for that day. That’s your lower limit of calories, the minimum that you require for the day. You ALWAYS need to feed your body enough for it to survive in complete rest. That is also the optimal amount of calories you want to consume in a day if you want to lose fat. If you’re trying to build muscle, things get a little more complicated, but when you’re eating at this rate, you won’t be losing muscle over your diet.
You’ll figure out your lean body mass (total weight – your fat%) by whatever means necessary. This is used to figure out how much, out of your total calories, must come from protein in a day. (There are calculators online. Notice that the counters give you a number for protein, not the weight of the meat itself. You can figure it out easily with (free) MyFitnessPal (below) to count the nutrient contents in whatever you want to eat. You can eat more meat than what it first sounds like.)
Now. Your total calorie requirement, yes? The calorie content in the extra lean meat you chose and measured to be enough? Then, the remaining calories can be filled up with almost anything, but on top of your protein, you need stuff that contains fibre, and if that stuff contains veggies and fruit, you’ll probably do fine. Also, you might have pop corn for an evening snack.
When you eat the same thing every day, you’ll finish every food container you buy. Saves money. You’ll always know what you need, never buy random stuff and so forth.
What I eat
This is what I do, but you can obviously figure out your own meal plan if this is too simple:
2 Burritos: one in the morning and one for dinner, plus a light rye roll with cheese, cucumber, and tomato for lunch, one bag (100 g) of popcorn, or a homemade protein ice cream made with Ninja Creami. A full-grown man will probably need another protein meal for the day.
My burrito
About 20 minutes to cook and eat. ;p
Start by putting a frying pan on a medium heat stove and a high protein, high fiber, low carb wrap on a plate. If in Australia, you might like Simon’s Pantry wrap. (Old El Paso wraps are very high in calories, so use a healthier option, although OEP is used in sauces and spices – best on the shelf in the store I go to.)
Chop up some ice berg lettuce and make a bed for your mince on the wrap.
Fry 150 g extra lean pork mince (I like to divide a 0.5 kg pack in three to avoid waste, men can certainly do that) in a frying pan – add no oil or crease, it will fry in it’s own fat.
While on pan, spice with maybe 1/3rd of Old El Paso Burrito mix spices and
1/3rd of Old El Paso taco sauce jar (mild to hot choices, any) (No need to be extra careful on the amount, it’ll even out once you’re finished with the jar.)
Scoop the mince on the wrap and lettuce, and put one slice of light cheese on the pan while you chop veggies if you want to fry it (gets tastier).
Chop up 3 (green) olives (3 fits nicely in the wrap.)
Chop up 3 cherry tomatos and
1/8th of avocado (avocado is quite oily, so don’t go overboard with it. I halve it and divide a half in 4 sections and have one for each burrito. Men could possibly get away with a 1/4th.)
some pickled cucumber chopped up
Wrap it all up and put face down on the pan so the wrap seals shut. Give it a couple of minutes and turn it around for a crisp lovely shell. I then wrap it in aluminium foil and eat, yes I know, bad me, but it’s so nice and street-foody… ;p Or baking paper would also do, or whatever, you do you.
Men can have 3 of these a day I’d be willing to bet without getting too specific, but if you really want to do it right, do some calculations. Then, a light snack, maybe a protein bar (don’t confuse with nut bars,) and pop corn for Netflix. Guzzling it all down with Coke Zero. ;p I’ve been eating like that for 2 years or so and I’m still not tired of it. My friend Brett has French toast for breakfast with low cal mable syrup, yoghurt and raspberries, and for dinner he has sweet potato chips with good meat of the day and a ton of veggies. The same pop corn for night and a light cookies with tuna or something for lunch – I’m never there so…
Pizza
You could do a pizza for weekends if you don’t mind fiddling with it, replace half of wheat flour with rye, and use tuna for filling. (Try it, it’s fucken brilliant. Finns’ most favourite pizza filling, that just happens to be healthy as f. Has won the Pizza Baking World Championship in Italy a few times over.) Don’t kill it with cheese, but you can certainly add cheese, and spice it to fuckery of course. You’ll have to portion control, tho… A half should do for a meal. ;p
Calculate calories when you want to get real specific about it, this is a very rough guide. “Half a pizza” means a very different thing in different parts of the world. ;p
Spaghetti and meatballs
Meatballs are great thing here, just use extra lean mince, and you’re good. No butter, they’ll fry OK in its own fat even if it’s just 5% or under. Use durum spaghetti – it’s higher in fibre and much nicer anyway as you know.
Healthy food doesn’t have to be weird, just use BETTER ingredients.
Free calorie calculator app: MyFitnessPal
Download the calorie counter app MyFitnessPal for easy tracking. You only need to check it once and then repeat, repeat, repeat. It’ll also show you micronutrients are in place, and you just add your calorie target into the settings, your height, gender, etc, and it’ll help you create a meal plan you love. Share ideas with your friends, too.
DON’T adjust calories per exercise if you’re not seriously training.
Calorie adjustments as per exercise gives you a little play room with your calories, sure, but whenever you can tolerate it, don’t eat extra while losing weight. Calorie adjustment is important when you’re also trying to build muscle, other than that, let the weight drop and just be mindful not to lose muscle for eating too little. (See the Fitbit daily calories at rest value I mentioned above.)
Remember your body is built to keep you alive, it doesn’t care what you look like. It thinks famine is always a danger, so it stores all the fat it can whenever it can and tries to use as little energy as possible for every task, for your good, so you don’t have to spend your life hunting or gathering or eating 24/7 like some animals do. It’s just that our current foods are so full of energy and void of nutrients that our bodies are telling us “hey, good find on the energy field, thumbs up and all, but I still need some xyz, send some vitamins down the hatch, please,” and you feel that command as hunger.
Pay attention to your fingernails.
You’re getting everything you need from your diet, when your fingernails are healthy, strong, white, and pink. White dots are tell-tell signs of mineral (zinc) deficiency in your diet. Eating meat should fix that, other fingernail-diagnosis can be made with this guide here. There’s nothing much there that a good diet can’t fix.
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