A customizable meal plan is a structured eating guide that allows for adjustment to suit personal needs, goals, preferences, and changes with time. The purpose of this flexibility is to cater to individual needs and personalized nutrition where everyone can adapt and adjust what’s in the plan to suit their personal goals, lifestyle, and other individual preferences.
Unlike a fixed diet plan, this is just a template that guides what you eat daily in terms of calories and nutrients, but you have the ability to adjust everything to suit even the changing times. For example, if your health condition changes, you can adjust the meal plan to suit your changing body and health needs.
What Are the Main Benefits of a Customizable Meal Plan?
There are many benefits that you get when using a meal plan that you can adjust to suit your individual needs. Unlike a fixed meal plan, a customizable one comes with the following benefits:
- Personalized Nutrition
One of the benefits of using a customizable meal plan is the ability to adjust calories and nutrients to suit your individual health goals, age, activity level, budget, and dietary preferences. Whether you want a personalized nutrition plan that supports weight loss or muscle gain, it’s possible to achieve it with this type of diet plan.
- Better Health Outcome
Custom meal planning also helps you achieve better health outcomes. You can adjust your meal plan to support the specific health goals you want to achieve. Whether it’s macronutrient ratios for carbs, proteins, and fats or calorie management, it’s possible to achieve this with a custom diet plan.
- Flexibility and Consistency
Being adjustable means it’s flexible and you can customize it to suit specific goals you want to achieve. In addition, it’s easier to adhere to a plan you can adjust than one that’s fixed, and you can adhere to it for as long as you want.
- Saves Time and Money
It works as a template that’s ready to use and you can adjust the things you want to include or omit. Having a guide to eating makes things easy for you and saves a lot of time when it comes to shopping for groceries and money as you only buy what you need. You can also take advantage of on-sale or in-season ingredients when your plan is flexible. For more details about the healthy meal plan with grocery list, take a look at our prior publication.
- Variety Options
As the plan isn’t fixed on specific foods, it allows you to adjust and include a variety of foods you want to eat to achieve the nutrition goals you’re pursuing. It gives you a variety of food options that are rich in various nutrients, but you can also adjust it to suit your needs.
Read more: Healthy Fitness Meals to Fuel Your Workout Every Day
What Makes a Meal Plan Truly Customizable?
As mentioned, a customizable meal plan is one where you can adjust almost everything to make it suitable for your individual needs, goals, and preferences. Therefore, what makes a plan truly customizable includes the following:
Ability to Adjust Calories
A plan where you can adjust the number of calories by swapping food options without altering the entire plan is what makes it customizable. To control calories, you should be able to control the portion sizes and the number of meals you can eat in a day.
Variety of Food Choices
Each meal should be packed with a variety of food options and there should be the ability to swap those foods. The variety of foods for swaps prevents boredom and promotes nutrient diversity.
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Personalized Health Goals
A custom diet plan should also give you the ability to align your diet with the health goals you want to achieve. For example, if you want to lose or gain weight, build muscles, or boost your energy, a meal plan should allow you to personalize these goals.
Caters to Intolerances and Allergies
A plan that caters to the needs of people with intolerances and allergies with the ability to make adjustments and replace food choices is one that’s truly customizable. You should be able to make adjustments based on your sensitivity to different foods, intolerances, medical conditions, and allergic reactions.
Why Choose a Customizable Meal Plan over Fixed Diets?
A customizable diet plan will give you the freedom to ensure the meal plan is personal and caters to your needs and preferences. The reasons why you should choose this plan are as follows:
Goals Personalization
You have the freedom to adjust the goals to suit your individual needs and what you want to achieve. For example, to lose weight, to build muscle, to boost energy, or to lower your blood sugar level, among other goals. With a personalized meal plan, it’s also easy to manage and improve conditions for people who are living with chronic health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease (1).
Adherence and Sustainability
A plan that you can adjust to suit your needs is a plan you’re more likely to adhere to. This makes it sustainable and easy to implement, which makes it good for long-term use. Therefore, whether you want to use it for weeks, months, or years, you can make it your lifestyle without needing to live on a fixed diet plan.
Enjoyable
You won’t get bored with specific food options that you can’t swap when a plan is customizable. You can change foods and even timings to make it a lifestyle plan that’s not boring to follow.
Adjustability with Time
With time, things may change and you might need to adjust your meal plan to suit changing health needs or goals. For example, if your health condition changes, a customized meal plan will allow you to adjust foods or even the entire plan to suit your emerging needs. This isn’t the case with a fixed diet plan.
Can a Customizable Meal Plan Work for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain?
Yes, a customizable meal plan can work for weight loss and muscle gain. This is because you can adjust the food choices to make them suitable for your goals. When it comes to weight loss, you can make a plan that creates a calorie deficit, while for gaining muscle, you can make your diet have more calories and protein.
The nature of a customizable diet plan also makes it easy to adjust the meal timing and frequency so you can eat the right amount of calories for your goals. To lose weight, you can adjust or reduce the number of meals you eat in a day, and to build muscle, you need a calorie surplus and you can consume meals more frequently. If you’re curious about the healthy high-protein meal plan, check out our earlier article.
The BetterMe: Health Coaching app will provide you with a host of fat-frying fitness routines that’ll scare the extra pounds away and turn your body into a masterpiece! Get your life moving in the right direction with BetterMe!
Are Customizable Meal Plans Good for Long-Term Use?
Yes, customizable meal plans are good for long-term use. The sustainable nature of these meal plans lies in their ability to be adjusted. If you can adjust the goal, food options, timing, and everything to suit your individual or personal goals, then the plan is sustainable and can be suitable for long-term use. As previously mentioned, if your condition changes in the future, you can adjust the plan to suit your current health or medical condition.
Read more: How Do Nutritional Needs Change Over Time?
Does a Customizable Meal Plan Save Time on Meal Prep?
Yes, a customizable meal plan saves a lot of time on meal prep. This is one of the advantages of a customizable meal plan over a fixed diet plan. It helps reduce the daily decision-making regarding what foods to prepare for the entire day. It also helps reduce your grocery shopping time as you only buy what you need or what’s in the plan.
Of course, with a plan like this, you can prep meals for the entire week. Therefore, there will be no time wasted thinking about meals you might have forgotten to prepare.
What’s the Simplest Way to Start a Customizable Meal Plan?
If you’re looking to start a customizable meal plan, it’s important to put all the things that make a plan great, easy to implement, and sustainable into perspective. Here are some of the things that make it easy to create one:
- Personal Goals – a diet plan is all about personal goals and preferences. You decide what you want to achieve, whether that’s losing weight, building muscles, lowering blood sugar, or just for better health – you need to define that first.
- Understand Your Calorie Needs – if you want to lose weight, cutting calories should be the aim. Therefore, it’s important to know your calorie needs so you know what foods, portion sizes, and meal frequency you will adopt.
- Create a Food List – you also need a simple food list with your favorite foods. The list should include all nutrient categories, such as lean proteins, whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats.
- Plan 1 Day ataA Time – rather than writing a whole plan, do it for the first day, and if it works, adjust or tweak it for the next days with alternative food options.
Of course, the best and simplest way to create a customizable diet plan is to plan as you go. Just start simple, then adjust, and ultimately come up with a plan that suits your personal needs and goals. Our previous post goes into great detail about the sample high-protein meal plan.
How Does the BetterMe App Make Custom Meal Planning Easier?
The BetterMe app simplifies the process of creating a custom meal plan and makes it easier. It bases it on your dietary goals, preferences, and lifestyle. In addition, it’s packed with easy-to-follow recipes and smart lists with grocery options and flexible meal swaps.
On average, men should eat around 2,500 calories per day and women need around 2,000 daily calories to maintain their weight (2). However, individual needs vary due to other factors such as activity level, body size and composition, age, and health conditions. Calorie needs can be adjusted in a meal plan based on personal goals, body composition, activity level, age, sex, and health conditions. You can adjust your calorie intake without completely changing your meal plan by increasing or decreasing the portion sizes. Snacks should be incorporated into a meal plan by first understanding the purpose of the snack. Whether it’s to prevent you from becoming incredibly hungry, gain energy for a certain physical activity, or boost your nutrient intake, you need to decide when to take the snacks and make sure they’re balanced. Two people with different goals may not be able to follow the same meal plan, depending on what their goals are. Therefore, different individuals can apply different eating strategies or different meal plans to achieve different goals (3). However, they can use the same meal plan structure, particularly if the meal plan is customizable, then adjust it to suit their personal goals. For example, if their weight management goals are different, the same meal plan can be used by either increasing or decreasing the portion sizes. Frequently Asked Questions
How many calories should I eat per day?
How can calorie needs be adjusted in a meal plan?
How should snacks be incorporated into a meal plan?
Can two people with different goals follow the same meal plan?
The Bottom Line
As we’ve discussed, a customizable meal plan is a structured eating guide you can adjust to suit your personal needs, preferences, and health goals. It’s evident that being able to adjust a meal plan has a number of benefits.
A customizable meal plan can help you achieve better health outcomes, save you time and money, enhance variety and enjoyment, promote adherence and consistency, and support the changes that come with time and health conditions. Therefore, whether you want a customized diet plan for weight loss or any other goal, this is the way to go.
DISCLAIMER:
This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not serve to address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on for making any kind of decision-making. Any action taken as a direct or indirect result of the information in this article is entirely at your own risk and is your sole responsibility.
BetterMe, its content staff, and its medical advisors accept no responsibility for inaccuracies, errors, misstatements, inconsistencies, or omissions and specifically disclaim any liability, loss or risk, personal, professional or otherwise, which may be incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and/or application of any content.
You should always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or your specific situation. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of BetterMe content. If you suspect or think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor.
SOURCES:
- Personalized Flexible Meal Planning for Individuals With Diet-Related Health Concerns: System Design and Feasibility Validation Study (2023, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- Calories (2022, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
- Healthy eating strategies: Individually different or context-dependent? (2022, sciencedirect.com)
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