Hack your Meals and Lose the Belly Fat

For many of you, the biggest hindrance to following a Trim Healthy Mama fat loss food plan is..the plan?

Not that you don’t know what to eat or how to fuel your body well. 

But the basics of choosing what to eat each meal and then planning it out becomes very complicated and overwhelming.

It doesn’t have to be this way!

Let’s make this easy & brainless. None of us in midlife need to be stressed about feeding our families or ourselves. It is time for you to make a plan for yourself. I know most of you are diligent to make sure your family and work have systems and plans set up, but I bet you don’t always make time to create the plan you need for yourself. 

Your brain might be telling you that this will be hard, or that you don’t need this but we are going to override those unhelpful thoughts. “It’s too hard” limits you, and “I don’t know what I’m going to do” shuts down your creative mind. Stop. Right now grab a piece of paper or a sticky note and write 2 thoughts to help you move into action & confidence and away from confusion and defeat. Maybe it’s you setting a timer for 1 hour, 1 day each week, and cooking food. 

You can override those unhelpful thoughts and create new neural paths even for food planning and prep. 

After you have written down your helpful thoughts your next step is to break everything down into easy steps. You need a plan. You don’t need charts and graphs and printables. Grab a new piece of paper or some handy sticky notes and choose 2-3 meals you want to eat for breakfast. If you are in midlife then you want at least 1 of those meals to be an E (energizing) meal. 

Here are some ideas:

Eggs & Hash (S)

Eggs & Greens (S)

Auntie Pearls Muffins (E)

Creamy Dreamy Quinoa Porridge (E)

Now you are going to plan to rotate these 2-3 breakfast meals. Make this brainless. Write it on your calendar, keep the ingredients on hand, and spend 15 minutes on the weekend prepping what you need to make every morning a breeze.

Good job! That wasn’t so bad. 

You are going to do the same thing for lunch. Choose 2-3 meals you want to eat for lunch that work well with your schedule. Add the ingredients to your grocery list and write these meals on your calendar. Don’t let your brain start over-complicating things. Leftovers can be one of your options and you don’t have to stay with the same 2-3 meals forever. Let this be your plan for 30 days and then choose new meals or maybe you make this your plan for the winter season and choose new meals for the spring season. 

Two meals down, 2 to go!

It’s snack time. I know you’ve seen the lists and the Pinterest pins but let’s keep this real and doable. Pick 4 snack options. Or 1. Know every single day what your snack options are and stick with your plan. Eliminate decision fatigue and you will cut your feeling of overwhelm.

Supper can be tricky, you probably have to consider more than just your likes and dislikes when you plan for this meal. Me too. So here is how I make it work. I theme every night of the week. Monday - Italian, Tuesday - Taco, Wednesday - soup & salad, Thursday - crock or Instant pot, Friday - Pizza, etc. My goal is to have protein and a carb available for my family at each meal. Then, I will take the protein and make my meal with that. My favorite day is probably Saturday because that’s when I pull everything out of the refrigerator and we eat the leftovers from the week. 

Look at that, just a few minutes of your time and you have a meal plan for your week. You might even have a grocery list! 

Now let’s make a few tweaks to make your plan perfect for getting rid of extra belly fat and midlife weight gain. 

During your 1-hour food prep session you are going to make 3-4 things that will uplevel every single meal you eat this week without giving it a thought.

First, make a veggie hack. Next, cook up a protein or snag a rotisserie chicken from the store. Last, cook up your carb. I like to keep cooked brown rice and quinoa in my fridge and freezer so I can throw together a grain bowl whenever I want. You can create your version of the veggie hack, my favorite is baby Bok choy with Kale. This is what I do for myself every single week and it saves me so much time, thought, and energy. 

Snag your copy of 10 Trim Healthy Mama hacks HERE for more ideas.

Meal planning & prep isn’t that hard but it is an essential habit that you need so you can create your best over 40 life. 

During your perimenopause and menopause years, your estrogen levels decrease and your cortisol levels rise. This creates an uptick in your insulin and all of these changes cause an increase in your waistline. Having a plan for your meals can help reduce your stress (think cortisol) by eliminating decision fatigue and help keep you consistent in eating foods that support your hormones.

Gaining weight during menopause may be common but it is not inevitable. Meal plan & prep is a key tool you need to get weight loss results and shrink your belly.