Let’s rethink your typical Healthy Meal Prep.

Are you ready?

Here’s your ordinary healthy meal prep:

1. Plan out your meals (whether it’s 2x a day or 5x a day, there’s some sort of plan)
2. Account for food variety and balance in your prep
3. Prepare foods beforehand
4. Day comes, it’s now time to eat – so you eat

You may have tried this before, only to have given up because of the time commitment and necessary planning to do beforehand.

However, I believe there is a WAY different way to think about meal plans. 

Drop Healthy Meal prep ‘Time’, Think Hunger

Plan this, plan that. Buy ahead of time, pack ahead of time.

It all revolves around specific set times.

I mentioned this concept to a guy one time by saying “You don’t have to eat at noon everyday.”

Previously, he had said that every single day he eats lunch at noon. I usually don’t hear statements like this. Every single day, really?

But because he was so absolute in his 12pm eating, I was able to shift his mind set real quick.

Are you even hungry at noon?

He said he didn’t know. He’d been following this plan forever and didn’t even know how he felt at noon.

So how do you start to rethink your healthy meal plan?

I think you know now. Hunger. Your Healthy meal prep doesn’t take into account hunger, usually

It’s fine to have a 7 day healthy eating prep plan

Let’s start by having a quick (not too long I promise!) conversation about hunger.

Because so many people are concentrating on nutrition and exercise they miss the fundamental point.

And by point, I mean the growl in their stomach.

This fundamental point is what Weight Loss Enlightenment is about.

Weight Loss Enlightenment is about realizing you have the answers WITHIN you.

And it all starts with your hunger.

Because in America, we love to overeat.

In fact, I am working with a guy right now who loves to be full!

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

You might be in the same boat.

You like food. Or planning.

Heck, you might even get a little defensive when I start talking about food.

But rest assured …

Weight Loss Enlightenment (and healthy meal plans) are about feeling good.

Because overeating actually isn’t pleasurable.

And what I’ll suggest is that …

FOLLOWING A PLAN SET BY SPECIFIC TIMES IS NOT PLEASURABLE EITHER!!!

So yes, feel free to have plans and times and so forth.

But if you want a bit of freshness into your ‘plan’ just think about it.

The first sushi bite is delicious. The 2nd is pretty good. And so is the 3rd.

But by the 3rd roll you aren’t even tasting the sushi any more.

You are mechanically eating. You have zoned out. That’s what happens when you are on autopilot.

But what would happen if you ditched the time? Ditched the ‘eat at noon’ like a robot mentality?

What if you ate when you felt like it?

What if you ate when you were hungry?

Let’s break down hunger.

You’ve been conditioned in America to associate hunger with bad feelings.

Think of a starving kid in Africa. You instantly feel sorry for him (or her). When your life gets tough, you think about this starving kid.

You say to yourself …

Well, at least I’m not starving or hungry.

(In Santa Clara there are plenty of good places to eat!)

However, this is exactly what the diet industry wants you to do, by the way.

(If you want to learn more about my thoughts about the evil diet industry then take a look at this video here. Basically this video is about how the food industry is brainwashing you to think being super full is good. This way you’ll buy more food and give them more money. Anyways, I digress.)

‘Hunger is bad’ is programmed into us!

See for thousands of years …

And for most of the world …

HUNGER IS BAD.

Hunger means you gunna die.

So now in America and other 1st world countries don’t have this problem…

And now anytime we are hungry we associate hunger with fear.

Plus, the diet industry has conditioned us to think we need to be mindlessly full and keep stuffing ourselves with their products …

So long story short, you start thinking overeating (and also eating on a schedule) makes you happy.

You associate over-fullness and routine with joy and pleasure.

But really …

You are ‘happy’ because of the predictability.

But truthfully, the routine is making you not enjoy your food!

The healthy meal plan is deadening your senses!

We aren’t listening to our bodies!

So here’s what happens …

1. Just like on schedule noon time comes.
2. Just like it always does.
3. The routine makes you numb out, and mindlessly eat.
4. You eat more than you normally do

So let’s change the way we approach hunger. Let’s rethink.

Basically you just eat when you’re hungry!

You can still prepare healthy food beforehand.

Just wait until you are hungry.

For some extra tools you may first of all mentally use this hunger scale developed by Geneen Roth here.

1: I am absolutely starving
2-4: I am hungry and need to re-energize.
5-7: I still have energy and I feel satisfied. I don’t need food right now.
8-9: I am over-full. I can feel that I’m uncomfortable and beginning to get sleepy. It’s time to loosen that belt, and definitely time to stop eating. I probably didn’t need that last helping.
10: I way over-ate, roll me out of here and into my bed, please.

Every few hours during the day (or while eating your meal) just yourself where you are at on the scale.

Remember, you want to eat to the point where food is giving you pleasure and energy.

And getting to that point where food is NOT mindless, means you are NOT running on a clock.

Here’s how this will also help you lose weight

At a certain point, food will start to lose it’s taste, feel bad, and just be EXTRA WASTE.

But normally, because we’re ‘following the plan’ we don’t stop eating.

We’re distracted.

We believe we have to finish our meal (which we don’t)

So here’s what to think next:

Think to yourself:

• I will taste this again
• I can have more if I want
• I can leave food on my plate, its ok
• Gorging actually isn’t good

Remember, it’s okay to leave food on your plate. You don’t have to fall for the diet industry delusion.

It’s ok to be hungry

You need to see through the mental paradigm you are in.

If you grew up poor and food was scarce, realize that now you can have more if you want. It’s okay to leave food on your plate.

Realize the gorging not only isn’t healthy …

IT DOESN’T FEEL GOOD.

So pay attention.

Get out of your normal paradigm.

Get enlightened. Drop time.

And stop thinking about this whole thing as ‘homework’!

First off, never think of Weight Loss as Homework.

Because then you think in a mechanical way. You think …

• Just eat less
• Just count calories
• Just exercise more

I see the myth of more exercise very frequently. This is basically the homework approach.

Do your weight loss homework … go to the gym …

I’ve been helping people lose naturally for years and it’s amazing to me how many people try to lose weight by exercising more.

They are in weight loss homework mode!

But be prepared for real weight loss homework.

Because here’s the dirty math. Put on your thinking cap and bear with me for a few simple weight loss math equations.

Question 1:

Do you want to spend 30 hours of intense exercise to lose 1lb?

Think about. 30 hours in the gym running. 1 lb lost.

That’s 1.5 hours per day 5 days a week for a month.

Every single week day evening for a month you just exercise.

At the end you lose 1 lb.

You want that? If so, go ahead and exercise to lose weight.

It’ll take you 300 hours to lose 10 lbs.

I give this example because many a time people have an overly simply way of thinking about weight loss.

They are in weight loss homework mode and need to rethink!

The same thing is true with hunger, rethink!