I’ve wanted to plan and share a 7 Day Diet Menu for some time now. Why have I held off? Simply put it takes more time and effort to plan a nutritionally balanced low calorie diet for a week than a single day. I hope you have found the one-day sample menu plans that I offer on this site to be helpful but I think you will find my 7-Day Menu Plan to be better.
If I weren’t concerned about nutritional balance creating a 7 Day plan would be easy. Getting the right balance is not. Do be careful of the menus provided online because many I have seen have not been designed for health.
I also wanted to incorporate ease of preparation along with nutritional balance and a reasonable cost. Although my primary goal as a Nutritionist is nutritional balance, ease of preparation is a close second because as I have shared before I don’t want to spend my life in the kitchen. I’m guessing you may not either. Also, given that all too many Americans are feeling a financial pinch with the downturn in the economy I wanted to do my best to minimize costs.
Where to start?
I thought I would first share with you my thought process for planning the week’s menu to give you a guideline to follow should you decide to plan your own menu. There are a series of steps to follow to make it all work out more quickly and easily. Planning for a 1200 calorie diet , which is my goal, is tough. But if your goal is to have a 1300, 1400, or 1500 calorie diet plan it’s a bit easier.
If you like my sample meal plan and you’d rather not create your own, I’ll tell you how you can easily add additional calories to the basic 1200 to meet your needs.
What to keep in mind
First and foremost whether we like it or not calories count! Contrary to what you have heard or may have read online or elsewhere, the ONLY way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you expend. I am not aware of any research studies to have EVER demonstrated weight loss with unlimited calorie intake over energy needs.
I can’t recommend Tom Venuto’s books and articles highly enough for how thoroughly he covers this concept. You can choose to eat any combination of food you like for weight loss as long as your calorie count is less than your daily energy needs. However, if you want to not only lose weight but to look better and feel better as well, you will want to keep track of the quality of those calories. Am I starting to sound like a broken record? Sorry. I am adamant about this. When it comes to health, nutritional balance matters!
What’s nice about following a basic guideline for nutritional balance such as the plans I share on this site is that you have some control over the nature of the balance as long as you stay within certain guidelines. (See my 1200 calorie diet plan and 1500 calorie diet plan)
You can choose to increase the fiber content of your diet to improve your chances for weight loss success. You might choose to have a somewhat higher protein and lower carbohydrate intake (assuming you get enough carbohydrates! Read Dietary Fiber: Can it Help You with Weight Loss? ). Or you might choose a higher intake of complex carbohydrates with plenty of fiber and less fat. If you follow the guidelines you will be more likely to get enough of all the nutrients you need.
Here’s what the National Academy of Sciences recommends for most people to meet nutritional needs:
10-35% Protein
20-35% Fat
45-65% Carbohydrates
Another benefit to planning ahead, or simply keeping track of what you eat whether you have a plan or not, is that you learn so much about the strengths and weaknesses of your daily choices. Dieters who keep food records are much more likely to succeed with weight loss than those who don’t. (Keeping Records: Best Chance for Weight Loss Success) Does that mean you need to keep tedious notes for a long period of time? No. Just try it for a while, I can guarantee that you will learn something helpful. I know a lot about nutrition and weight loss but I keep learning!
What comes first with creating a 7-day menu plan?
1. Choose protein foods.
Getting enough protein can be a problem on a low calorie diet so I start with choosing the high protein foods around which I will build the rest of the plan. Two to four high protein foods for the week should be enough. I’ve chosen chicken, eggs, hummus, and black beans for my main protein foods.
2. Select the accompanying grains (breads and cereals).
The grains I’ve selected are oats (to make oatmeal) and whole wheat bread (actually I’m considering whole wheat pitas).
3. Add vegetables, fruit, and milk products.
Now I need to get creative about the meals and snacks I might enjoy eating for 7 days that won’t take too much time to prepare. As I come up with recipes and meals I do my best to include enough fruits, vegetables, and milk or milk products to round out the balance. If milk does not work for you by preference or necessity you can incorporate other sources of calcium and B vitamins. (Stephanie Gail, R.D. has an excellent article on the health benefits, nutrition, and availability of non-dairy milk)
4. Pick meals and snacks.
I look at my own recipe file to see what I have already made in the past that might work. If I’m not inspired I then go to one of my favorite recipe sites online for new ideas. I often use RecipeZaar.com. I like the way I can drill down to find recipes that combine specific ingredients. Another potentially good site is EatingWell.com, which I only just found in the last few weeks. For a list of other potentially helpful recipe sites you may want to read one of my previous articles: Healthy Low Calorie Recipes: 8 Super Sites to See
5. Create a rough outline
After doing a little bit of searching I have lots of great ideas. Now I need to rough out a basic outline of meals and snacks for the week. I try to keep in mind the approximate calories for each menu item. If I’m not sure of the calorie count for a food item or dish I have certain sites I check for calorie counts.
My favorite free online nutrition/calorie calculator is CalorieLab.com. This site provides a great service because you can see at a glance which commercial brands have the fewest calories per serving for a given product. (It’s also wonderful for researching the calorie count for restaurant food.)
If you need the calorie count or nutrient information for whole foods such as fruits or vegetables I recommend the USDA National Nutrient Database for a free database or MyFoodDiary.com for a paid service (I subscribe to this service.). The best site I have found if you need to determine something very specific such as the calories in a single grape then you will want to use DietandFitnessToday.com. (For easy access to these sites, I provide the links with my free 1200 calorie toolbar that you can download from the 1200 calorie diet page.)
A couple of other sites to keep in mind are Calorie King and Nutrition Data. Calorie King provides a good source of information for brand name products (not as good as Calorie Lab but worth remembering.) Nutrition Data is a wonderful resource if you need to find foods/brand name products that are good sources of specific nutrients. To read more about these and other nutrient databases online you may want to read my review: Nutrition Calculators: Review of the Best Sites Online
6. Check your plan for the calorie count and nutritional balance. Revise as necessary.
Once I have my basic outline of meals and snacks, I then go to MyFoodDiary.com to check and revise each menu for nutritional balance. I love the feedback I receive at this site when I plan a menu. It helps me to make revisions and come up with the best balance I can achieve before I post a sample menu on this website.
[Note: You don’t have to use a paid service. I believe you can set up a menu on a service such as FitDay or FoodCount for free. I like MyFoodDiary because I can keep my favorite recipes and other foods in a “refrigerator” for quick access when I am menu planning.]
So there you have it. Planning a week’s worth of meals plus a grocery list isn’t easy but with all of the online resources it is so much easier than it was many years ago. I hope you will check back to see what I purchase at the grocery store (probably this weekend) and follow along with me as I share the menus and recipes over the coming weeks.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Lori
Yes you are correct, I am 38 years old and will turn 39 in the next two months. If I alternate jogging and walking for 5 miles per day and try to do this 5 days a week should I stick with the 1400 calories plus 100-200 on the days I do exercise? Do you recommend for someone like me who has battled with weight loss and now gained 15 pounds after losing it gradually over the last 9 years (but at the same time I never go a week without exercising at least 4 days) to try the 1400 calorie diet and exercise? Do you feel I need to exercise 6 days a week since my body is used to exercising? I greatly appreciate your help and advice.
Chris
Hi Chris,
It’s always hard to suggest a specific formula for an individual so you may have to try different approaches to see what works best for you.
That you are exercising at least 4 days a week and switching up the exercise you do is good. I am not a physical trainer but my understanding is that our bodies do become used to routines and as such will burn fewer calories doing the same exercise over time. I like that you throw Zumba into the mix from time to time. You also mentioned the weights. I would give weight lifting some serious thought because you can increase your muscle mass somewhat and that will help to slow down the change in basal metabolic rate as you age. The higher your BMR the more calories you burn. With women the additional muscle mass helps tone and firm our bodies and not make us muscle bound.
I like doing yoga routines during which I have to support my body weight rather than lifting external weights. The reason I find this to be so helpful is that I can do yoga anywhere even when traveling and I don’t need special equipment. But you don’t need to do weight lifting more than 2-3 times a week to gain the benefits so that may not be an issue for you.
Something else you might consider doing that helps burn fat faster is to do some kind of interval training.
As for diet, I would say yes do try the 1400 calories with 100-200 extra on the days you exercise. If you are successful in losing weight you may need to reduce that calorie count by a bit when you have lost 10 pounds or so.
What you eat also matters. Whenever possible choose whole foods. Do your best to drastically reduce or eliminate “added” sugars and refined carbohydrates. This should help anyone. But if you find this to be especially helpful it is possible you may do even better on a low carb diet instead of the more well-rounded approach that I share here. A certain percentage of the population will do much better on low carb than high carbohydrate.
I genuinely hope one of these suggestions will help your situation.
Good luck,
Lori
Hi Lori,
I have tried to lose weight for years but not enough GOOD food to make me have enough drive to switch. I don’t have money to spend on a nutritionist or a personal trainer, so THANK GOD for your website!!!! It is helping me tremendously! So far I’ve lost 9 lbs in three weeks! I can’t thank you enough for your ideas. The only thing that would be better is, there are soo many links within articles but it would be better if they were organized into drop down menus and renamed very specific titles on the first home page. That way, you would see a list of all 7 day menu ideas, all of the other useful websites that you recommend and how much they cost if anything, all recipes according to breakfast lunch dinner and snacks and how many calories. On the 7 day menu for busy people, I followed it, but not all calories were next to the item, so if I didn’t like coffee for example but wanted to switch it for something else, I would not be able to do so unless I saw the calorie content. Anyways, thank GOD for you and your website! It is sure to help so many like myself lose weight. I was headed towards diabetes for certain. I will let you know how I’m doing in the future and how much I’ve lost.
I’ll check in! 
Hi Stephanie,
What a pleasure to hear from you! I have had many nice comments but yours is the first to tell me specifically how I might change things on this website to be more helpful. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that!
I absolutely agree that the placement of links and navigation is not good. My site has grown to be quite BIG and I haven’t had the time to keep up the way I would like. I am not telling you this as an excuse but rather to share that I hope to be making improvements in the near future. My life has been overly busy and complicated for a couple of years now but I am hoping things will be getting better soon.
I completely understand not having the money to afford a personal nutritionist or trainer! Like you I cannot afford to hire the kind of help I need to stay on top of things the way I would like.
I have a question for you that might provide you with additional support at no cost. Would it be o.k. for me to send you a personal email directly rather than through this site? I genuinely want you to succeed.
Thanks!
Lori
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