How to Lose 2 pounds a Week: The Meal Plan

* Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nutritionist, or professional lifestyle coach

**Unless by 'professional' you mean 'gets paid' in which case you might make the argument that I do get paid in beer sometimes and am therefore at least an unprofessional lifestyle coach. 

When I stopped traveling for work a year ago, I started thinking a lot more about efficient ways to prepare healthy meals for myself. What and when is the easiest way to shop for food? How can I reduce the number of times I'm washing dishes?

After trial-and-error, research, 12 consecutive weeks of 2-pound weight-loss, continual harassment by my lovely friend Elizabeth to JUST PUBLISH this article already, and much food shopping and preparation...

here's my meal planning guide to healthy eating

Prep ahead (on the weekends)

• Rinse and dry your vegetables
• Grill, roast, or saute your proteins and refrigerate
• Make 10 servings of brown rice (this takes about an hour, so while that's going, do the vacuuming or paint your nails or something)
• Make 5 servings of oatmeal and store in individual microwave-safe bowls to reheat in the morning
• Slice your cucumbers. Put half of a cucumber in each of five Ziploc snack-sized bags with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese. Put the other half of your sliced cucumbers in a single baggie for salad assembly
• Count out five one-serving portions of peanuts or almonds and store in Ziploc snack-sized bags
• Hard boil a half-dozen eggs and refrigerate

Prep each morning

1. Drink 8 ounces of soy milk, especially if you've had a morning workout
2. Portion out your lettuce into a large Gladware container and top the salad with 1/5 of your pre-cut cucumber and diced protein
3. Assemble your lunchbag to include the salad, a hard-boiled egg, nuts, and one Ziploc of cucumber slices with Laughing Cow cheese
4. Microwave and eat your oatmeal
5. That's it. Easy, right?

See my grocery list article for a complete item-by-item breakdown of what to buy, organized by grocery store department.

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The Meal Plan

Breakfast

• 1c soy milk
• 1 serving whole (not instant) oatmeal

Mid-morning snack

• Water
• Hard-boiled egg or individually wrapped cheese

Lunch

• Water
• Salad with protein, cucumber, and dressing

Mid-afternoon snack

• Water
• Sliced cucumber with Laughing Cow cheese spread
• Peanuts or almonds

Dinner

• Water
• Grilled, roasted, or sauteed protein with veg and brown rice (optional)

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For those of you with a sweet tooth whose day wouldn't be complete without dessert, try making your own popsicles out of high-quality fruit juices (I recommend diluting it just a little) or have apple slices with a shmear of peanut putter.

I advocate a lot of water consumption -- not to the point of water intoxication (where your body's salts become so diluted that your muscles and vital organs, including your heart, no longer communicate properly with your brain and which can cause death) -- so keep that Nalgene bottle handy and drink about 8 ounces of room-temperature water 10 or 15 minutes before eating your meal. This will help prevent overeating and aid in digestion.

Tip: Keep your purse in the freezer

While watching Restaurant Impossible researching for my food blog (link: Dinner Over Easy), I learned food should remain at or below 40 degrees. The best way to get close to this is to make sure your entire lunch bag is cold.I accomplish this by keeping my lunch bag in the freezer with the two ice packs. This way, even my mid-afternoon snack stays cold. (Link: Amazon's attractive, purse-looking lunch bags for grown-ups.)

Remember to track your food intake on MyFitnessPal or whichever system you devised and which works for you. I pre-load my meals so at the end of the day I just make minor adjustments. Logging in once, rather than multiple times per day, also saves me a couple minutes.

What healthy food options do you enjoy? 

Can you envision this meal planning routine working 

for you and your family?

How do you cut meal-planning corners 

during a busy week?