Does an Intuitive Eating Meal Plan Exist? You Bet!

If you’re getting your bearings with Intuitive Eating – eating what you want when you want as opposed to following a rigid, restrictive diet, having a meal plan might seem like it is against the “no food rules” rules. 

Are you allowed to have a plan for what to eat when you’re not supposed to follow rules?

This can seem really confusing, so let me help guide you on how to have a flexible plan to support your fueling throughout the week without taking it so far that it feels restrictive or diet-y. 

If you’re new around these parts – welcome! I’m Colleen, a Registered Dietitian who approaches health and nutrition through the lens of Intuitive Eating. I’m a recovered dieter and now enjoy a much fuller life with food freedom. I want the same freedom and ease for you, so that’s why I founded the SociEATy to help amazing women just like you break free from restrictive diets and food rules. 

In this post, I’ll walk you through how a meal plan (<– snag your copy here!), when used right, can support your intuitive eating, not sabotage it. But first, let’s cover Intuitive Eating 101, in case that is a new term for you. 

What is Intuitive Eating?

Real quick: what is Intuitive Eating? Intuitive Eating is the best way to pursue lasting health and wellness…it is the opposite of following a restrictive diet and working against your body’s natural biology. Instead, Intuitive Eating is all about building a trusting relationship with your body and eating all foods. There are no ‘good foods’ and ‘bad foods’ with Intuitive Eating. 

Intuitive Eating is a philosophy that is backed by a lotta solid science. It is based on 10 Principles, which I go over in this recent post: What Are the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating (And How They Can Help You).

When done right, Intuitive Eating feels good both mentally and physically. You aren’t overwhelmed with trying to micromanage or measure each bite of food nor are you feeling outta control and binge-y when you get within ten feet of those foods. 

You know the ones; the ice cream, the sweet cereal, or the salty, crunchy bags of chips. 

Because you’re no longer trying to limit those foods, their insatiable draw goes away. You can have them in an amount that feels good…and you can skip them. It feels a whole lot better than the binge-restrict, crash-diet cycle that we’ve been on. 

But even if you’re no longer following a restrictive diet, it can still be helpful to have a plan. Let’s talk about a few benefits, next!

The benefits of an intuitive eating meal plan

Why bother with a meal plan? Here are a few reasons to say YES to a meal plan this week. 

With a non-diet meal plan, you may find that you:

• Have less decision fatigue and overwhelm when it comes to mealtime
• Can stay within a reasonable budget when grocery shopping
• Can get grocery shopping done more quickly
• Are better prepared for when snack time rolls around because you have foods on hand that you actually like
• Can incorporate gentle nutrition more naturally

Perhaps the biggest benefit of having an Intuitive Eating meal plan is that you’re planning your meals when you’re in a good mood and not starving or exhausted…like at the end of a long work day! That way, when meal time rolls around, you can have an easy choice that feels good, not get stuck in overwhelm or get so hungry because you’re taking a long time to cook. 

While you may choose to prepare some food in advance, you don’t have to. Let’s clear up the difference between meal planning and meal prepping so that you can figure out what works best for you. 

Meal planning vs. meal prepping

This blog post is mostly about meal planning, so let’s distinguish between that and meal prepping really fast because those are two terms that are often used interchangeably, but are actually two different things. 

Meal planning: doesn’t mean you necessarily DO anything before but you have a plan of WHAT to do. You have some ideas of breakfasts you’ll eat, tasty lunches, a dinner plan or two, and some snacks to have on hand. The meal plan is your road map. 

Meal prepping: this is actually getting in your kitchen and getting food ready. This could mean making full meals, assembling smoothie bags for your freezer, whipping up some snack bites, and cutting fruits and veggies to cook with and to nosh on. Basically, you’re getting foods ready to some degree so that it is easier to just reheat and eat come mealtime. 

Meal prepping can also be called batch cooking, BTW. 

You can do a bit of both meal planning and meal prepping. This is what I usually do: I usually cut up some veggies or make a snack, some overnight oats, or something to make the week feel easier. I don’t usually make full entrees in advance because I have a full file of 30-minute dinners to make throughout the week (my warm salad kit is my fave!). With a casual meal plan and a bit of prep, that is enough for me to feel ready for the week without taking all weekend in the kitchen (no thanks!).

Non-diet meal plans

If the thought of meal planning takes you right back to those restrictive, stressful days of dieting, please know that this can be totally different from that experience. Take a slow, deep breath! It absolutely can be done without the diet-y feels. Here is how:

What I’d like for you to do is download my free one-week binge-free meal plan. And then, you can have it open as you read through these tips to make the plan work for you and your real life. 

This is going to feel SO different from your dieting days…let’s get started!

Make your meal plan your own. 

The meals and snacks included in this plan are not meant to be the ONLY food you eat. You’re not going to follow this plan perfectly and that’s okay. I don’t want you to. If you’re like “Colleen, cottage cheese and I are NOT friends” then please skip the honey cantaloupe and cottage cheese snack idea and find something that you ARE excited about! There are many other recipes on my blog (and even more available as a member of The SociEATy).

Snack freely

One of the important tenets of Intuitive Eating is to eat when you’re hungry. 

If you’re using my meal plan as a guide, you’ll probably need more snacks than what’s listed, especially if you’ve been restricting, bingeing, or not eating enough. For example, I suggest having a serving of peanut butter balls as one of the snacks. If that isn’t enough, feel free to  enjoy a few more and/or add something to the snack until you’re satisfied. 

Eating more may feel a bit scary at first, but I promise that you can do hard things (and your body will thank you for giving it enough fuel). 

Trust your gut

When you were following a restrictive diet, you weren’t in a trusting relationship with your body and your hunger. You used tricks and strategies to mask, ignore and silence your hunger. 

Now that you’re letting dieting go so that you can thrive with food freedom, you’re going to need to rebuild that trust. If you feel hungrier than what you planned for, trust your gut and add more to that meal or snack. 

And in the same vein, if you don’t feel quite as hungry as you expected, don’t force yourself to finish what you made. 

Using my Intuitive Eating Meal Plan

I’m so excited to be sharing my Intuitive Eating Meal plan with you. 1,000s of women have already downloaded this resource and felt freer than they have around food for a long time. You can grab your copy right here. 

Once you have this plan in your hands, I wanted to offer some tips and strategies to help make this plan work for you and your Intuitive Eating journey, not something that feels like a restrictive diet plan. 

Tip 1: Start slow

Have you ever meal planned before? This is a whole new skill set!

Rather than going from planning nothing to planning every single thing, start off slow. Maybe this week you just think of a few breakfast ideas to have on hand and that is all. The Smoothie Cereal that I have included in this plan is a crowd favorite and a simple recipe I eat on repeat (I love that I don’t have to clean a blender after this meal). 

If having a few planned breakfasts feels good, then maybe next week you add lunch, then maybe a snack. 

Going slow to start can help rid yourself of the “all or nothing” mindset.

Tip 2: Plan options, not meals

Meal planning with an Intuitive Eating mindset is all about offering yourself options that you can use in a given moment, not a rigid structure that you HAVE to follow. 

If it gives you anxiety to think “I planned this so I HAVE to eat it!” try to plan options. 

Maybe you decide to have 2 things available for lunch this week and you can decide in the moment which option you actually eat. And skipping what you made to get takeout? Also an option! 

Having shelf-stable ingredients can be super helpful when taking this route. For example, having canned tuna and bread available for a sandwich as one option and then maybe you also have some frozen leftover chili that you can reheat as another.

Tip 3: Plan things you actually like

Remember how Intuitive Eating is supposed to feel good mentally and physically? 

It doesn’t actually feel all that great to force yourself to eat something because you ‘should’ or it is ‘healthy’. 

Gorgeous, there are SO many ways to nourish your body well. There is NO reason to make yourself eat something that others recommend if you don’t actually like it. 

Me, I totally hate putting spinach in smoothies. I know that a LOT of other folks love this approach to gentle nutrition but it does not work for me. So I don’t. 

Intuitive Eating is also about including the foods that you truly love. When I was in the thick of my dieting years, I would never let myself have peanut butter or cake. Or I’d feel SO guilty if I did let myself have some. No longer, my friends. I get to eat those foods, when I want, without guilt (it did take a while to unlearn those food rules that I’d held so dearly for so long). 

Take a moment right now to think “What foods do I enjoy eating?” and then? Plan in THOSE foods! 

Even though you see lots of kale salads and overnight oats on social media, and those things can be great, it doesn’t mean that is what you have to plan! Need some ideas? Check out my recipe index!

OK: so you’ve planned your meals, you might have even done some food prep and then Tuesday dinner rolls around and you are so NOT into what you had planned to eat then. What to do?

What to do if I don’t want what I planned?

Enter flexibility! And a bit of critical thinking. 

This is the beauty of intuitive meal planning: it isn’t a rigid rule.

If it comes time to eat and you’re like “I don’t want what I planned” ask yourself “What do I want? Do I have access to that?” If you do, sure, go for it! If not?

 It might be a practical decision to eat what you have right now. That might be the best self-care-focused decision! You can make a plan to get that thing another time or something similar to it. (We can’t always go back for the pasta we had on vacay in Tuscany!) Not every meal will be mind-blowingly delish or exaaaaactly what you’re wanting. 

Sometimes we eat just to fuel that bod!

And with practice, this gets a helluva lot easier. 

Make meal planning work for you

Meal planning, when done in an intuitive way, feels good. It is a guide to follow so that you have the structure and resources you need to have on deck when you need them.

It is kind of like going on a road trip and plotting your route. It is nice to have a basic plan for where you’re driving and what to pack in your cooler, but it is best when you have the flexibility to pull over when you need a bathroom break, to fill up the gas tank or just see some cool roadside stand that you want to check out. 

And if you get stuck in traffic, you’re not getting overly hungry because you have a snack option and a few yummy drinks right next to your driver’s seat. 

The right plan supports you, not restricts you. 

I’m so excited for you to get to explore meal planning in an intuitive way. If you haven’t had a chance to download my One-Week Binge-Free Meal Plan, click here to grab your copy! 

XOXO

-Colleen