Stop overcomplicating the weight loss journey. In this article, you’ll learn how to simplify your fat loss meal planning to see real success.

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One of my favorite shows growing up was watching the rag tag team of mercenaries from A-Team concoct schemes every single week to save the day.

Each week, they’d need to figure out how to solve a problem by utilizing whatever (often limited) resources they had available.

Sometimes that meant getting creative and building things like forts out of scratch.

Other times, that meant maneuvering cars, trucks or even aircraft to escape the evil doers.

Either way, they’d always find a way.

And each week, they’d excel to make it work with careful planning, thanks to the leader of the group, Lieutenant Colonel John Smith, aka, Hannibal.

At the end of each episode, a victorious Lt. Col. Smith would smoke a big ass cigar to celebrate and hit us all with his catch phrase, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

This is a long and drawn out way to say that having a plan is the key to victory.

It worked for the A-Team, and it will work for you in your fat loss journey.

What you are able to plan for will be prioritized. And if something is a priority for you, it will get done.

In this article, we’re going to talk about the strategies I use to help my clients simplify their fat loss meal planning.

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You don’t need to Prep, but you do need to Plan

For starters, let’s go ahead and clarify that meal planning in the sense of this article is simply that. You are planning for what to eat in a way that will align with your fat loss goals.

This is not meal prepping.

For the sake of this article, at least, meal prepping is not only having a plan, but then preparing those foods ahead of time––for whatever arbitrary set of time and amount of meals that you determine––so you have food already created through the week.

To be fair, there is nothing wrong with meal prepping. It’s just not something that I particularly enjoy doing for myself, despite being the one that cooks that majority of meals for my family.

Some of my online coaching clients have used meal prepping strategies for success.

Instead, this is about planning ahead for what you’ll eat throughout the week.

Why is this so important?

Because life is crazy and will throw a ton of crazy things at you throughout the day and week. From kids randomly getting sick, to a coworker inviting you to a last-minute happy hour.

There will be obstacles that arise throughout the week that could present difficulties in sticking with your fat loss approach. When that happens, you’ll need a plan to understand how to maneuver those obstacles, but using whatever limited resources you have available.

Just like the A-Team.

There’s a bit of a fine line to the meal planning approach.

On the one hand, having meals planned out for a few days or even your week can build more structure into your routine and take the decision fatigue out of making nonstop food choices. When left to our own devices, those food choices in the moment tend to be the ones that will throw us off plan.

However, on the other hand, planning out meals in advance can lead to some obsessive compulsive behaviors. It can build rigidity in your plan and lead to you being unable to handle the random occasion where the plan will fall apart.

And understand that even the best developed meal plan will blow up from time to time. From a sick kid to a random late night in the office or a late flight. There are dozens of reasons why you might not be able to fully execute what you have set out for yourself. It’s just life.

The hope is to have a plan in place, execute it to the best of your ability and then have the opportunity to freelance when necessary by making the smartest choices available.

The strategy I’m about to lay out will show you how to do just that.

Fat Loss Meal Planning Step 1: Find your nutrition target

You won’t be able to determine what you eat until you figure out how much you can eat. Too many people do this backwards and get into a mindset that some foods are good or bad.

No.

Remember, a calorie deficit is what will drive weight loss. Handling your calories and eating adequate protein are the two most important factors here.

Check out my article on how to create that calorie deficit for yourself.

Meanwhile, here’s the basic set up for you:

Multiply your CURRENT bodyweight (IN POUNDS) by 10-12

• 10 = completely sedentary (i.e., and office desk job or just sitting on the couch watching way too much Netflix)
• 11 = somewhat active
• 12 = moderately active

Is this a perfect equation? Nope. Is it close enough to get you started? Absolutely.

For example: If you weigh 150 pounds and you consider yourself somewhat active (8,000-10,000 steps per day plus strength training twice per week), you’d aim for 1,650 calories for your deficit (150 x 11 = 1,650).

From here, it’s time to move on to the second step.

Fat Loss Meal Planning Step 2: Determine your meals and snacks

I don’t really care how often or how many meals you eat every day. Remember the first rule of fat loss (calorie deficit).

So you can settle in with one meal a day. Or it can be more like six meals, even 10 meals per day. It does not matter.

What matters is that you determine how many meals and/or snacks you’d like to eat every day based on your lifestyle, preferences and schedule.

One of the more popular setups that my online coaching clients tend to stick to is the idea of three big meals and a snack. This is your traditional breakfast, lunch dinner and one snack setup.

Whatever it is that you’d like to go with, pick it … and let’s test it out for a bit to see if it works. If not, you can always come back to this exercise and make tweaks.

That’s what building a lifestyle is all about. There are no hard and fast rules. Do what works for you.

Fat Loss Meal Planning Step 3: Split up your nutrition targets

​This can be as simple as taking your calorie deficit target and dividing it up across the number of meals that you decide will work best.

For example:

Let’s say your calorie target is 1700 calories and you’d like to split that across three meals.

That’s roughly 560 calories per meal at your disposal.

You also know that protein is the next important factor in the fat loss game. So, you’d like to aim for about 120 grams of protein per day.

We do the same calculation here and split up the protein over those three meals, which comes out to 40 grams of protein per meal.

You’ve now got your nutrition targets per meal figured out.

Each meal will be roughly 560 calories and you’ll need to satisfy 40 grams of protein per meal.

Keep in mind that the rest of the calories can come from whatever combination of carbs vs. fats that you prefer.

You have the flexibility here to potentially make one meal higher in fats and the next higher in carbs. This is totally up to you.

Now, you don’t necessarily need to split things up evenly, either. Let’s say you’re not the biggest fan of a big lunch or a big dinner. You could conceivably make breakfast a larger meal and borrow those calories from lunch and dinner to make up for it.

But, for the sake of simplicity, if you are just starting out, I’d stick with the standard, even-split setup to start things off.

Then as you get the hang of this, you can explore some more advanced options.

Fat Loss Meal Planning Step 4: Find staple meals and snacks

Staple meals are a preferred option and rotation of foods that check a few boxes:

• You enjoy these foods
• They are quick and easy to make
• It will help you hit your nutrition goals

I encourage all of my online coaching clients to come up with one to two staples per meal. This gives you a solid foundation of options that you can turn to in a pinch.

Start small here.

You must earn the right to be creative and flexible.

So get good at creating a few things and stick with them for a little bit.

Doing it this way removes decision fatigue, because you do not have a ton of options to think about when it’s time to eat.

But it also trickles down to other areas like shopping. You know exactly what you need to pick up at the store to hit your meal targets.

Eventually, you’ll build up an entire menu of options that check all of the boxes. This is how you build your own fat loss meal plan.
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And it’s the same practice that I coach all of my clients. I do not deliver meal plans, nor do I ever tell my clients exactly what to eat and when. They have the agency to determine this themselves.

And doing so is so much more rewarding and promotes a more sustainable approach to building a lifestyle.

Fat Loss Meal Planning: Additional Tips and Strategies

A few things to help simplify this process even further or to help navigate potential pitfalls along the way.

And it starts with your support system. So, make sure you get buy-in from your significant others on this strategy.

Sit down with your husband and talk about why this is so important to you and how you’ll be framing your meal planning going forward.

There’s always a way to work around different eating styles and preferences, you just might need to plan a bit deeper and compromise.

Avoid Macro Tetris

Ever get stuck at the end of the day with a bunch of random calorie or protein targets to hit and you’re left scratching your head on how you’ll do it? This is common. It comes from lack of planning.

The solution?

Sit down today and plan out every single thing you’ll eat for tomorrow.

I promise you that you have the time if this health thing is a priority for you. Doing it this way will provide a built-in accountability partner in the form of a roadmap for hitting your calorie deficit.

Protein first

Build your meals around your protein sources and options. It’s a simple mindset switch.

Instead of aiming to have pasta with some chicken for dinner, you’ll want to prioritize chicken with a side of pasta.

​Find room for the fun foods

Remember that calorie deficit and protein are the two most important factors here. Everything else is secondary. Which means you have wiggle room to enjoy things from time to time.

If you like having a piece of chocolate every single day, awesome. Build that into your daily routine and account for those calories.

Of course, the majority of your meals should look like lean proteins and nutrient-dense foods. But restrictive eating is not the answer, and it’s not sustainable.

Have some fun. In moderation. You have the room for it. Promise.

Never miss twice

Some days will be better than others. You’ll execute the plan to the fullest.

Other days, shit will hit the fan and you’ll eat like an asshole.

This is okay. You are human.

And when that happens, do not beat yourself up over it. Instead, vow to get back on track with the next meal. Try to avoid being off-plan for two consecutive meals, or even two consecutive days, if it comes down to that.

Let me help you learn how to simplify your fat loss meal planning … 

I’m here to help you out. 

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “Fat Loss Meal Planning” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

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