Let’s say you want to go on a two tropical vacation to the Caribbean. You can’t wait to have fun in the sun. Would you leave the house without packing for your trip? Of course not! You need your bathing suit, sunscreen, beach towels, clothes, makeup, and other stuff to take with you. I also never go on vacation without at least having a packing list!
Think of this chapter as similar to a travel packing list. We are going to go over absolutely everything you need to know to prepare yourself for Intermittent Fasting. The next chapter is my favorite in the book and has your 30 Day Challenge. But before we get started, it’s time to get ready!
Prepping for the Journey
I want you to go through each step of preparing for your Intermittent Fasting 30 Day Challenge. Take as much time as you need, but the whole process shouldn’t take longer than a week or so. It’s okay to fit this into your busy schedule!
By now, you have read through many aspects of Intermittent Fasting, and you are probably starting to realize this is definitely an eating plan and fasting plan that has as much to do with mental preparations as any other endeavor. You are going to get your mind ready to go as much as anything physical that you’ll do. Your mindset should be one of openness, curiosity, excitement, and be flexible enough to handle any and all challenges that come your way.
Got it?
Okay, good. Now, we will move on to a few of your personal numbers that I want you to calculate before we go about finding recipes and meals.
Setting an Eating Window: 먹튀검증
If you have not done so already, go back to Chapter 4 and read over the sample meal plan and fasting plan templates. Choose the amount of time that you’d like for your eating window. You will also pick whether you’d like to eat one, two, or three meals per day. Meals usually last about one to two hours. Then calculate when your eating window will begin and when it will end.
Write all of this information below:
My Eating Window Lasts ______ Hours
Eating Window Start Time: __________ am / pm
Eating Window End Time: ___________ am / pm
Number of Meals Per Day: ___________ meals
Meal #1 Time: ___________ am / pm to __________ am / pm
Meal #2 Time: ___________ am / pm to __________ am / pm
Meal #3 Time: ___________ am / pm to __________ am / pm
Okay, great! Remember that this information is flexible, and you can change it at any point. This will be personalized to you. I like to write my eating window information on the first page of my food diary. That helps me remember it while I am going about my day.
Setting Your Calorie Requirements:
Next, is to figure out your calorie requirements. You can find that in an online calorie calculator. Then, we will divvy up those calories amongst your meals. Refer back to the sample meal plan templates in Chapter 4 to get a better idea of what percentages work best with either one meal, two meals, or three meals. Those percentages should all add up to 100%.
Write all of this information below:
Calories Per Day: _______________
Meal #1 is _________ % of my daily calories = _____________ calories
Meal #2 is _________ % of my daily calories = _____________ calories
Meal #3 is _________ % of my daily calories = _____________ calories
Great! Now you know exactly how many calories to consume in each meal. Those calories are going to be a mixture of the healthy food ingredients you read about in Chapter 4 as well.
Setting Goals:
You have your baseline eating window times, your meal plan times, and your calorie counts. Now it’s time to set your goals. You get thirty days’ worth of Intermittent Fasting days in the next chapter to get through. So, what are your weight loss goals for the next four weeks? I break my weight loss goals down into smaller five pound or ten pound milestones. That way, I don’t get overwhelmed by lots of weight to lose. I just focus on losing the next five pounds.
I also want you to think about your exercise goals, too. That is largely about setting up a gym going or home exercise routine of various activities that will help shed the pounds and strengthen your body at the same time.
Fill in your goals in the spaces below:
Overall Weight Loss Goal: _______ pounds
Current Weight: __________ pounds
Goal Weight: ____________ pounds
First Weight Loss Milestone: _________ pounds lost in _________ weeks
Second Weight Loss Milestone: _________ pounds lost in _________ weeks
Third Weight Loss Milestone: _________ pounds lost in _________ weeks
Exercise Goal: ______ minutes per day and _______ days per week
Exercise Start Time: __________ am / pm
Exercise End Time: ___________ am / pm
Exercise Routine: ____________________________________________
I include my goals right on the front page of my food diary. They help keep me motivated, and it’s amazing to see how far I’ve come just by using Intermittent Fasting on a regular basis.
With your numbers prepped, ready to go, and written down in an app or food diary or place where you can see them pretty much each day, you know where you start. The journey begins with finding out where you are today ? and these numbers tell you that in great detail.
Finding Recipes and Meals
Here is the fun part of any eating plan ? finding recipes and meal ideas to go into your meal plan! Whether you are eating one, two, or three meals a day, you have your calorie counts for each of those meals. Now, it’s just a matter of finding delicious foods and flavors that will satisfy your nutritional requirements.
There are just certain types of foods that we love to have with our meals each day. If you think of your meals in terms of categories, that makes it easier. Check out my ideas below:
Meal 1: Breakfast
Whether you’re eating two or three meals per day, typical breakfast food options are really popular. These are actually my absolute favorite foods. I could eat breakfast for dinner, too! Breakfast foods are also popular with kids, if you’re a mom. Here are some breakfast food options you will love to have to help you when you literally break your fast.
~Smoothies, especially ones with an avocado or coconut milk base to give you plenty of good fats to start your day. Stick in a handful of fresh baby spinach or kale to sneak veggies into your diet.
~Egg dishes, like baked eggs, scrambled eggs, frittatas, quiche, and omelets stuffed with veggies and cheeses.
~Meat options include bacon, sausage, or even steak.
~Breakfast bowls are popular, so have fun searching for ones that contain healthy ingredients like vegetables and different herbs or spices.
~For breakfast beverages, you can have milk, low sugar orange juice, low sugar fruit juice like strawberry banana, coffee, or tea. Bulletproof coffee, which has been enhanced with good fats like butter, is a popular and tasty option, too.
Meal 2: Lunch
Most of us eat lunch at work, and you only get an hour at the most. So, I often take last night’s dinner as leftovers for lunch! My favorite lunch options are either hearty and filling soups or salads with plenty of toppings. If you are eating just two meals a day and lunch is your biggest meal, you might want to check out the dinner ideas and have supper for lunch instead. Here are other lunch options:
~Home made soups, usually made in the crockpot to make them easier. Popular ones include chicken noodle, beef stew, chunky minestrone, and hearty vegetable. Kids really love soup, too.
~A hearty salad that starts with a base of greens like Romaine lettuce, baby spinach, and chopped kale. Top with more sliced fresh veggies like mushrooms, bell pepper, tomato, red onion, carrots, cucumbers, or celery. Then add pre-cooked chicken, beef, turkey, or ham. I also add a handful of cheese like Feta or shredded cheddar, and a sprinkling of crunchy extras like seeds and nuts. For dressing, I like many different flavors to add variety. Buy all natural salad dressings that have an olive oil or dairy base, limited chemicals, and no added sugars.
~Healthy sandwiches with whole grain bread, mayo or mustard or pesto, and then plenty of cheese, proteins like chicken or ham or bacon, and lots of veggies. Serve alongside pickles or fresh vegetables with hummus to dip.
~Lunch beverages include milk, green or fruit or herbal teas, low sugar fruit juice, or ice water with lemon.
Meal 3: Dinner
Dinners, also known as your last meal or third meal, usually feature the majority of your daily calories. They are built around one major hearty protein choice like chicken, beef, pork, ham, fish, or seafood. This protein is usually served alongside a cooked or roasted vegetable like carrots, onions, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, or mushrooms. You can also expand your palate by choosing foods from around the world for dinner. What else could be for dinner?
~Find healthy recipes for your family’s favorite ten dinner options.
~Try a new dinner option every two weeks. Pick a country with different flavors and try to incorporate that dish into the menu. Popular options include French food, Thai food, Indian food, Greek food, Spanish food, and Japanese food.
~Substitute brown rice, wild rice, barley, quinoa, or whole wheat for rice, corn, and white flour carbohydrates.
~Dinner beverage options are ice water with lemon, milk, or the occasional glass of wine.
These meal options are just here to give you an idea of the different things you could eat for your one, two, or three meals each day. On a two meal a day plan, you could have breakfast and dinner, with no lunch foods, lunch and dinner with no breakfast foods, or breakfast and lunch with no dinner foods. This eating plan really is customizable to your life!
It’s more about when you eat. As long as you choose healthy, natural ingredients like those above, you will do just fine!
Creating Your Weekly Meal Plan
Meal planning is made a lot easier when you have all the meal ideas and recipes from the last step ready to go. I have a folder on my computer that contains all of my recipes for each meal. That makes it a lot easier to just add those to my weekly meal plan and much easier to create grocery lists, too.
I thought I’d share my weekly meal plan template with you. I eat two meals a day. I type this up on the computer, then print it out and put it on the fridge each week for my kids to see it, too. That way, everyone knows what we’re eating when!
Date: ___________________
Meal 1 at 12:00 pm.
Recipe: ___________________
Calories: __________________
Meal 2 at 4:00 pm.
Recipe: ___________________
Calories: __________________
Kids’ Dinner: ____________________
Feel free to customize this sample daily meal plan template! I have a 6 hour eating window and eat just two meals a day. Are you eating three meals a day instead? Then add the extra lines for the third meal. Are you eating just one meal a day? Then include all the recipes and calories for the foods in that one meal. You can play around with this basic idea to really make your meal plan your own.
I also have kids, so they get their own dinner option. That way, I know what to make for them, if I have to make something separately. Usually, though, I eat what they’re eating! I do make healthy versions of foods, so both Mom and the kids are happy and healthy.
The Kitchen Equipment You’ll Need
Do you need to purchase anything fancy and special to make delicious Intermittent Fasting meals?
Not unless you really want to! I am able to make all kinds of delicious items using basic kitchen equipment like my 12” cast iron skillet, several saucepans in different sizes, three large cookie sheets with a cooling rack, a high-speed blender for making smoothies, a large crock pot or slow cooker, and a food processor. Instant Pots have recently become popular, so you could get one in a larger family size to cut down the amount of time to make many crock pot dishes.
Whichever recipes you’ve decided to make that go with your calorie counts and your personal tastes, they can usually be made using the above equipment. It helps to have everything washed, cleaned, and ready to go as part of your overall Intermittent Fasting preparations!
Creating a Grocery List
Meal planning makes creating grocery lists so easy! With your seven days’ worth of meals in front of you, you can quickly rifle through the fridge, cupboards, and freezer to see what you need to stock up on.
I created a grocery list template on my computer that has all the food categories of items to restock. I tend to buy a lot of pantry and cupboard items in bulk that have a long shelf life. Then, I spend about an hour each week purchasing the fresher ingredients for that week’s meals. After doing this for several weeks, you’ll find that grocery shopping is a breeze. You will also discover that you keep purchasing the same items over and over. That is a good thing! It means you’re committed to only buying healthier ingredients, and that you’re not tempted to put something in your cart that could slow down your weight loss.
Remember Gin’s Golden Rule of Grocery Shopping for Weight Loss:
If It Doesn’t Go in the Cart, it Can’t Go in Your House and it Won’t Get Eaten!
Weight loss begins at the grocery store, lovely ladies. Stick to your healthy shopping list, and you will stick to your weight loss goals.
Here are the grocery store categories that correspond to most grocery stores:
Produce & Fresh Herbs:
~In the produce section is where you’ll get your fresh vegetables and fruits for the week.
~You can buy fresh garlic and fresh herbs in this section as well.
Meat & Seafood:
~Buy the best quality proteins, fish, and seafoods that you can afford, since they won’t have as many harmful ingredients.
~You can purchase meats in bulk, portion it out into plastic bags, and store them in the freezer.
Eggs & Dairy:
~In the cheese section at your store, you can find all the cheeses to add to your grocery cart.
~The milk, eggs, butter, yogurt, and other dairy items are often kept in a different part of the store. I replenish my dairy items all the time, since we eat them so much in my house!
Nuts, Seeds, and Baking:
~I buy nuts and seeds in bulk and store them in airtight containers in my pantry cupboards.
~Shop in the baking aisle for your baking ingredients. I like to bake some home made healthy treats like crackers, granola bars, and healthy cookies.
Herbs, Spices, and Condiments:
~Dried herbs (fresh herbs go in the produce category) and dried spices. I keep a fully stocked herb and spice cabinet. I sometimes visit different ethnic markets to find herbs and spices that are inexpensive, unusual, or distinctive.
~Condiments include oils, vinegars, barbecue sauce, soy sauce, mayo, ketchup, and similar. Check labels, since these are packaged goods and frequently have too many harmful chemicals.
Frozen Section:
~The frozen section has a lot of packaged foods, so read your labels carefully here.
~I buy frozen vegetables, some frozen meats, and occasionally a small tub of healthy frozen yogurt.
Other:
~Coffee, wine, tea, and other items that don’t fit into any other categories go in this part of my grocery list.
You can customize this list to fit your own stores. I sometimes create separate grocery lists for buying items online, at different markets, and at different stores.
Cooking Your Meals
Fasting for at least fourteen hours per day gives you some extra time to prep and cook the recipes for the meals on your meal plan. It’s sometimes the prep work that takes the most time, so I cut down on that and save time by slicing vegetables and storing them in sealed plastic bags in the fridge. I also like to pre cook favorite foods like chicken breasts, bacon, and beef ahead of time. That way, it’s easy to combine those ingredients with others and make dishes.
While you are planning out your meals for your eating windows, you might want to include the cooking times. It’s all about preparing yourself for the 30 Day Intermittent Fasting Challenge to come!
Preparing for Fasting
What about your actual fasting times in between meals? What kind of preparations should you put in place for those?
Water and Hydration
Prepare for your fast by drinking plenty of water! You are also allowed to have water, perhaps with some fresh lemon slices, to sip on throughout the fast, too. It might help to stock up on plastic water bottles, a plastic water jug for the fridge, and any other items you will need to remind yourself to keep drinking water.
Having Tiny Snacks
Throughout your first few weeks trying Intermittent Fasting, it helps to have a few small snacks available during those fasting periods. It helps to get your body over the ‘hump’ of changing your metabolism, adjusting to fasting, and encouraging your cells to seek fat from your adipose cells instead of relying on incoming glucose. These tiny snacks should be no more than 80 calories at the absolute most. By the third week, your body will have grown used to Intermittent Fasting, and you will no longer need to have any calories for those periods of time between your eating windows.
Longer Fasting
What about preparing for longer fasting periods? In the 30 Day Challenge, I include a 24 hour fasting day. For those longer fasts, you would want to eat all of your calories like normal the day before the fast, but abstain from exercising that day, the day of the fast, and the day after as well. You would also want to break your fast with a well balanced and good protein rich meal that has plenty of essential vitamins and nutrients. I’ll talk more about that with the longer fasting in the next chapter.
Support System
If you read the chapter about being a mom on Intermittent Fasting, you read about putting a support system in place. This is another preparation to do before you start fasting. If you haven’t already, find an Intermittent Fasting community online and reach out to other women who are doing this along with you! They can give you real life examples of what they’re going through and answer more specific questions about their journeys. It’s very helpful!
Fasting Activities
Before you begin Intermittent Fasting, you might want to think about what kinds of activities you would do during your fasting periods. I was surprised to discover that, since I had cut out a meal, I now had that free time. If you already have a busy lifestyle, this is definitely one of the perks! You would simply be able to fill the new time with more things in your schedule. But it does help to add more activities into your life during your fasting times.
Tracking Your Progress
As part of preparing for Intermittent Fasting, you want to find the ideal tracking method for you that will be a helpful resource for collecting and writing down your own ‘data’ about this weight loss plan. You want to treat yourself to a nice paper food diary or find a great app for your smartphone that can be a resource to help you.
There are so many parts of Intermittent Fasting to track! Here are just a few ideas you could put into the diary:
~Track your weight loss goals
~Track how you feel and what you’re experiencing each day of Intermittent Fasting
~Track what you eat and the calorie counts
~Track the water that you’re drinking each day
~Track the exercise routine that you have chosen
~Track any new recipes you find
~Track how a new healthy recipe tasted
~Track grocery shopping
I am in love with tracking! I do like data and numbers. They give me a much clearer picture of what is really going on in my weight loss journey than just my own memories and experiences of it.
Tracking is also a way of honoring your commitment to changing your body for the better. You are putting how you feel in your body first! Your record of this experience is just confirmation of how much strength and courage it takes to not just try something new, but to believe that it will work. That is inspirational!
Tomorrow is When We Begin
Okay, you are now completely prepped and ready to begin the 30 Day Challenge of Intermittent Fasting! You have accomplished a lot, and you haven’t even begun your first day of fasting yet!
Let’s see what you did:
~You have found your first eating window in which to begin
~You’ve decided how many meals you’ll eat
~You looked up your daily calorie requirements
~You divvied up those calories amongst your meals
~You set your weight loss and exercise goals
~You found recipes and ideas for eating
~You made an amazing meal plan based on those recipes
~You also created grocery lists that have healthy ingredients
~You stocked your kitchen with equipment to make your meals
~You have what you need to see you through your fasts ? water bottle, snacks, etc.
~You have a tracking method, either a food diary or an appThat is a lot, but you will need it all throughout the next thirty days.
The final thing to do to before starting tomorrow? Take a selfie! Make sure that you take a picture of yourself as you are now. Are you ready to work towards changing your body and having a whole new you after fasting?
Then let’s get started.
Think of this chapter as similar to a travel packing list. We are going to go over absolutely everything you need to know to prepare yourself for Intermittent Fasting. The next chapter is my favorite in the book and has your 30 Day Challenge. But before we get started, it’s time to get ready!
I want you to go through each step of preparing for your Intermittent Fasting 30 Day Challenge. Take as much time as you need, but the whole process shouldn’t take longer than a week or so. It’s okay to fit this into your busy schedule!
By now, you have read through many aspects of Intermittent Fasting, and you are probably starting to realize this is definitely an eating plan and fasting plan that has as much to do with mental preparations as any other endeavor. You are going to get your mind ready to go as much as anything physical that you’ll do. Your mindset should be one of openness, curiosity, excitement, and be flexible enough to handle any and all challenges that come your way.
Got it?
Okay, good. Now, we will move on to a few of your personal numbers that I want you to calculate before we go about finding recipes and meals.
Setting an Eating Window: 먹튀검증
If you have not done so already, go back to Chapter 4 and read over the sample meal plan and fasting plan templates. Choose the amount of time that you’d like for your eating window. You will also pick whether you’d like to eat one, two, or three meals per day. Meals usually last about one to two hours. Then calculate when your eating window will begin and when it will end.
Write all of this information below:
My Eating Window Lasts ______ Hours
Eating Window Start Time: __________ am / pm
Eating Window End Time: ___________ am / pm
Number of Meals Per Day: ___________ meals
Meal #1 Time: ___________ am / pm to __________ am / pm
Meal #2 Time: ___________ am / pm to __________ am / pm
Meal #3 Time: ___________ am / pm to __________ am / pm
Okay, great! Remember that this information is flexible, and you can change it at any point. This will be personalized to you. I like to write my eating window information on the first page of my food diary. That helps me remember it while I am going about my day.
Setting Your Calorie Requirements:
Next, is to figure out your calorie requirements. You can find that in an online calorie calculator. Then, we will divvy up those calories amongst your meals. Refer back to the sample meal plan templates in Chapter 4 to get a better idea of what percentages work best with either one meal, two meals, or three meals. Those percentages should all add up to 100%.
Write all of this information below:
Calories Per Day: _______________
Meal #1 is _________ % of my daily calories = _____________ calories
Meal #2 is _________ % of my daily calories = _____________ calories
Meal #3 is _________ % of my daily calories = _____________ calories
Great! Now you know exactly how many calories to consume in each meal. Those calories are going to be a mixture of the healthy food ingredients you read about in Chapter 4 as well.
Setting Goals:
You have your baseline eating window times, your meal plan times, and your calorie counts. Now it’s time to set your goals. You get thirty days’ worth of Intermittent Fasting days in the next chapter to get through. So, what are your weight loss goals for the next four weeks? I break my weight loss goals down into smaller five pound or ten pound milestones. That way, I don’t get overwhelmed by lots of weight to lose. I just focus on losing the next five pounds.
I also want you to think about your exercise goals, too. That is largely about setting up a gym going or home exercise routine of various activities that will help shed the pounds and strengthen your body at the same time.
Fill in your goals in the spaces below:
Overall Weight Loss Goal: _______ pounds
Current Weight: __________ pounds
Goal Weight: ____________ pounds
First Weight Loss Milestone: _________ pounds lost in _________ weeks
Second Weight Loss Milestone: _________ pounds lost in _________ weeks
Third Weight Loss Milestone: _________ pounds lost in _________ weeks
Exercise Goal: ______ minutes per day and _______ days per week
Exercise Start Time: __________ am / pm
Exercise End Time: ___________ am / pm
Exercise Routine: ____________________________________________
I include my goals right on the front page of my food diary. They help keep me motivated, and it’s amazing to see how far I’ve come just by using Intermittent Fasting on a regular basis.
With your numbers prepped, ready to go, and written down in an app or food diary or place where you can see them pretty much each day, you know where you start. The journey begins with finding out where you are today ? and these numbers tell you that in great detail.
Finding Recipes and Meals
Here is the fun part of any eating plan ? finding recipes and meal ideas to go into your meal plan! Whether you are eating one, two, or three meals a day, you have your calorie counts for each of those meals. Now, it’s just a matter of finding delicious foods and flavors that will satisfy your nutritional requirements.
There are just certain types of foods that we love to have with our meals each day. If you think of your meals in terms of categories, that makes it easier. Check out my ideas below:
Meal 1: Breakfast
Whether you’re eating two or three meals per day, typical breakfast food options are really popular. These are actually my absolute favorite foods. I could eat breakfast for dinner, too! Breakfast foods are also popular with kids, if you’re a mom. Here are some breakfast food options you will love to have to help you when you literally break your fast.
~Smoothies, especially ones with an avocado or coconut milk base to give you plenty of good fats to start your day. Stick in a handful of fresh baby spinach or kale to sneak veggies into your diet.
~Egg dishes, like baked eggs, scrambled eggs, frittatas, quiche, and omelets stuffed with veggies and cheeses.
~Meat options include bacon, sausage, or even steak.
~Breakfast bowls are popular, so have fun searching for ones that contain healthy ingredients like vegetables and different herbs or spices.
~For breakfast beverages, you can have milk, low sugar orange juice, low sugar fruit juice like strawberry banana, coffee, or tea. Bulletproof coffee, which has been enhanced with good fats like butter, is a popular and tasty option, too.
Meal 2: Lunch
Most of us eat lunch at work, and you only get an hour at the most. So, I often take last night’s dinner as leftovers for lunch! My favorite lunch options are either hearty and filling soups or salads with plenty of toppings. If you are eating just two meals a day and lunch is your biggest meal, you might want to check out the dinner ideas and have supper for lunch instead. Here are other lunch options:
~Home made soups, usually made in the crockpot to make them easier. Popular ones include chicken noodle, beef stew, chunky minestrone, and hearty vegetable. Kids really love soup, too.
~A hearty salad that starts with a base of greens like Romaine lettuce, baby spinach, and chopped kale. Top with more sliced fresh veggies like mushrooms, bell pepper, tomato, red onion, carrots, cucumbers, or celery. Then add pre-cooked chicken, beef, turkey, or ham. I also add a handful of cheese like Feta or shredded cheddar, and a sprinkling of crunchy extras like seeds and nuts. For dressing, I like many different flavors to add variety. Buy all natural salad dressings that have an olive oil or dairy base, limited chemicals, and no added sugars.
~Healthy sandwiches with whole grain bread, mayo or mustard or pesto, and then plenty of cheese, proteins like chicken or ham or bacon, and lots of veggies. Serve alongside pickles or fresh vegetables with hummus to dip.
~Lunch beverages include milk, green or fruit or herbal teas, low sugar fruit juice, or ice water with lemon.
Meal 3: Dinner
Dinners, also known as your last meal or third meal, usually feature the majority of your daily calories. They are built around one major hearty protein choice like chicken, beef, pork, ham, fish, or seafood. This protein is usually served alongside a cooked or roasted vegetable like carrots, onions, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, or mushrooms. You can also expand your palate by choosing foods from around the world for dinner. What else could be for dinner?
~Find healthy recipes for your family’s favorite ten dinner options.
~Try a new dinner option every two weeks. Pick a country with different flavors and try to incorporate that dish into the menu. Popular options include French food, Thai food, Indian food, Greek food, Spanish food, and Japanese food.
~Substitute brown rice, wild rice, barley, quinoa, or whole wheat for rice, corn, and white flour carbohydrates.
~Dinner beverage options are ice water with lemon, milk, or the occasional glass of wine.
These meal options are just here to give you an idea of the different things you could eat for your one, two, or three meals each day. On a two meal a day plan, you could have breakfast and dinner, with no lunch foods, lunch and dinner with no breakfast foods, or breakfast and lunch with no dinner foods. This eating plan really is customizable to your life!
It’s more about when you eat. As long as you choose healthy, natural ingredients like those above, you will do just fine!
Creating Your Weekly Meal Plan
Meal planning is made a lot easier when you have all the meal ideas and recipes from the last step ready to go. I have a folder on my computer that contains all of my recipes for each meal. That makes it a lot easier to just add those to my weekly meal plan and much easier to create grocery lists, too.
I thought I’d share my weekly meal plan template with you. I eat two meals a day. I type this up on the computer, then print it out and put it on the fridge each week for my kids to see it, too. That way, everyone knows what we’re eating when!
Date: ___________________
Meal 1 at 12:00 pm.
Recipe: ___________________
Calories: __________________
Meal 2 at 4:00 pm.
Recipe: ___________________
Calories: __________________
Kids’ Dinner: ____________________
Feel free to customize this sample daily meal plan template! I have a 6 hour eating window and eat just two meals a day. Are you eating three meals a day instead? Then add the extra lines for the third meal. Are you eating just one meal a day? Then include all the recipes and calories for the foods in that one meal. You can play around with this basic idea to really make your meal plan your own.
I also have kids, so they get their own dinner option. That way, I know what to make for them, if I have to make something separately. Usually, though, I eat what they’re eating! I do make healthy versions of foods, so both Mom and the kids are happy and healthy.
The Kitchen Equipment You’ll Need
Do you need to purchase anything fancy and special to make delicious Intermittent Fasting meals?
Not unless you really want to! I am able to make all kinds of delicious items using basic kitchen equipment like my 12” cast iron skillet, several saucepans in different sizes, three large cookie sheets with a cooling rack, a high-speed blender for making smoothies, a large crock pot or slow cooker, and a food processor. Instant Pots have recently become popular, so you could get one in a larger family size to cut down the amount of time to make many crock pot dishes.
Whichever recipes you’ve decided to make that go with your calorie counts and your personal tastes, they can usually be made using the above equipment. It helps to have everything washed, cleaned, and ready to go as part of your overall Intermittent Fasting preparations!
Creating a Grocery List
Meal planning makes creating grocery lists so easy! With your seven days’ worth of meals in front of you, you can quickly rifle through the fridge, cupboards, and freezer to see what you need to stock up on.
I created a grocery list template on my computer that has all the food categories of items to restock. I tend to buy a lot of pantry and cupboard items in bulk that have a long shelf life. Then, I spend about an hour each week purchasing the fresher ingredients for that week’s meals. After doing this for several weeks, you’ll find that grocery shopping is a breeze. You will also discover that you keep purchasing the same items over and over. That is a good thing! It means you’re committed to only buying healthier ingredients, and that you’re not tempted to put something in your cart that could slow down your weight loss.
Remember Gin’s Golden Rule of Grocery Shopping for Weight Loss:
If It Doesn’t Go in the Cart, it Can’t Go in Your House and it Won’t Get Eaten!
Weight loss begins at the grocery store, lovely ladies. Stick to your healthy shopping list, and you will stick to your weight loss goals.
Here are the grocery store categories that correspond to most grocery stores:
Produce & Fresh Herbs:
~In the produce section is where you’ll get your fresh vegetables and fruits for the week.
~You can buy fresh garlic and fresh herbs in this section as well.
Meat & Seafood:
~Buy the best quality proteins, fish, and seafoods that you can afford, since they won’t have as many harmful ingredients.
~You can purchase meats in bulk, portion it out into plastic bags, and store them in the freezer.
Eggs & Dairy:
~In the cheese section at your store, you can find all the cheeses to add to your grocery cart.
~The milk, eggs, butter, yogurt, and other dairy items are often kept in a different part of the store. I replenish my dairy items all the time, since we eat them so much in my house!
Nuts, Seeds, and Baking:
~I buy nuts and seeds in bulk and store them in airtight containers in my pantry cupboards.
~Shop in the baking aisle for your baking ingredients. I like to bake some home made healthy treats like crackers, granola bars, and healthy cookies.
Herbs, Spices, and Condiments:
~Dried herbs (fresh herbs go in the produce category) and dried spices. I keep a fully stocked herb and spice cabinet. I sometimes visit different ethnic markets to find herbs and spices that are inexpensive, unusual, or distinctive.
~Condiments include oils, vinegars, barbecue sauce, soy sauce, mayo, ketchup, and similar. Check labels, since these are packaged goods and frequently have too many harmful chemicals.
Frozen Section:
~The frozen section has a lot of packaged foods, so read your labels carefully here.
~I buy frozen vegetables, some frozen meats, and occasionally a small tub of healthy frozen yogurt.
Other:
~Coffee, wine, tea, and other items that don’t fit into any other categories go in this part of my grocery list.
You can customize this list to fit your own stores. I sometimes create separate grocery lists for buying items online, at different markets, and at different stores.
Cooking Your Meals
Fasting for at least fourteen hours per day gives you some extra time to prep and cook the recipes for the meals on your meal plan. It’s sometimes the prep work that takes the most time, so I cut down on that and save time by slicing vegetables and storing them in sealed plastic bags in the fridge. I also like to pre cook favorite foods like chicken breasts, bacon, and beef ahead of time. That way, it’s easy to combine those ingredients with others and make dishes.
While you are planning out your meals for your eating windows, you might want to include the cooking times. It’s all about preparing yourself for the 30 Day Intermittent Fasting Challenge to come!
Preparing for Fasting
What about your actual fasting times in between meals? What kind of preparations should you put in place for those?
Water and Hydration
Prepare for your fast by drinking plenty of water! You are also allowed to have water, perhaps with some fresh lemon slices, to sip on throughout the fast, too. It might help to stock up on plastic water bottles, a plastic water jug for the fridge, and any other items you will need to remind yourself to keep drinking water.
Having Tiny Snacks
Throughout your first few weeks trying Intermittent Fasting, it helps to have a few small snacks available during those fasting periods. It helps to get your body over the ‘hump’ of changing your metabolism, adjusting to fasting, and encouraging your cells to seek fat from your adipose cells instead of relying on incoming glucose. These tiny snacks should be no more than 80 calories at the absolute most. By the third week, your body will have grown used to Intermittent Fasting, and you will no longer need to have any calories for those periods of time between your eating windows.
Longer Fasting
What about preparing for longer fasting periods? In the 30 Day Challenge, I include a 24 hour fasting day. For those longer fasts, you would want to eat all of your calories like normal the day before the fast, but abstain from exercising that day, the day of the fast, and the day after as well. You would also want to break your fast with a well balanced and good protein rich meal that has plenty of essential vitamins and nutrients. I’ll talk more about that with the longer fasting in the next chapter.
Support System
If you read the chapter about being a mom on Intermittent Fasting, you read about putting a support system in place. This is another preparation to do before you start fasting. If you haven’t already, find an Intermittent Fasting community online and reach out to other women who are doing this along with you! They can give you real life examples of what they’re going through and answer more specific questions about their journeys. It’s very helpful!
Fasting Activities
Before you begin Intermittent Fasting, you might want to think about what kinds of activities you would do during your fasting periods. I was surprised to discover that, since I had cut out a meal, I now had that free time. If you already have a busy lifestyle, this is definitely one of the perks! You would simply be able to fill the new time with more things in your schedule. But it does help to add more activities into your life during your fasting times.
Tracking Your Progress
As part of preparing for Intermittent Fasting, you want to find the ideal tracking method for you that will be a helpful resource for collecting and writing down your own ‘data’ about this weight loss plan. You want to treat yourself to a nice paper food diary or find a great app for your smartphone that can be a resource to help you.
There are so many parts of Intermittent Fasting to track! Here are just a few ideas you could put into the diary:
~Track your weight loss goals
~Track how you feel and what you’re experiencing each day of Intermittent Fasting
~Track what you eat and the calorie counts
~Track the water that you’re drinking each day
~Track the exercise routine that you have chosen
~Track any new recipes you find
~Track how a new healthy recipe tasted
~Track grocery shopping
I am in love with tracking! I do like data and numbers. They give me a much clearer picture of what is really going on in my weight loss journey than just my own memories and experiences of it.
Tracking is also a way of honoring your commitment to changing your body for the better. You are putting how you feel in your body first! Your record of this experience is just confirmation of how much strength and courage it takes to not just try something new, but to believe that it will work. That is inspirational!
Tomorrow is When We Begin
Okay, you are now completely prepped and ready to begin the 30 Day Challenge of Intermittent Fasting! You have accomplished a lot, and you haven’t even begun your first day of fasting yet!
Let’s see what you did:
~You have found your first eating window in which to begin
~You’ve decided how many meals you’ll eat
~You looked up your daily calorie requirements
~You divvied up those calories amongst your meals
~You set your weight loss and exercise goals
~You found recipes and ideas for eating
~You made an amazing meal plan based on those recipes
~You also created grocery lists that have healthy ingredients
~You stocked your kitchen with equipment to make your meals
~You have what you need to see you through your fasts ? water bottle, snacks, etc.
~You have a tracking method, either a food diary or an appThat is a lot, but you will need it all throughout the next thirty days.
The final thing to do to before starting tomorrow? Take a selfie! Make sure that you take a picture of yourself as you are now. Are you ready to work towards changing your body and having a whole new you after fasting?
Then let’s get started.
