Creating a meal plan

Please note: If you are underweight or believe you have an eating disorder please consult your GP, nutritionist or medical professional before creating a meal plan.

Start slow

If you do not eat much then please don't feel forced to eat more than you are used to. Your stomach might need a while to re-adjust and this can take time. It is very important to make an appointment with your GP before changing your diet.

Normalizing eating does not happen overnight, therefore you need to take things easy and not be too hard on yourself.

Remember take baby steps and make small gradual changes, this is the way forth for recovery.

Because normal eating is the main goal for recovery - making the transition to normal eating is your top priority. Structured eating involves making yourself available to do planned eating at planned times each day.

Starting to normalize food intake can be scary. You should consider this stage an experimental stage. Remember if you are dissatisfied with the results you can always resume back to your former eating style - although, I can assure that you will not want to do that!

Helpful tips before you begin

Try not to react to small fluctuations in body weight
Keep your food plan simple - obsessively counting calories can cause compulsive food behaviors
Take things slow
Only eat what you feel comfortable with at this early stage
Remember food planning is work-in-progress aimed at normalizing food intake and normal eating behavior
By keeping a record of all your food in your food journal, you are able to self-monitor and look for problems and obstacles in your meal planning as you go along.

Creating a structured eating plan

Creating a plan involves planning meals in advance of what will be eaten, when and how much.

Planning your meals and snacks in advance

Planning meals and times in advance takes the stress and strain away from deciding what to eat and when.

To do this you should plan tomorrow's meals and snacks the night before.

How to do this

Print off your planning sheets meal planner
Think about what you will eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and what snacks you will eat in between
Choose foods you feel comfortable eating, avoid trigger foods at this early stage
If you do not have your food available, then it is a good idea to do a grocery shop
Packed lunches can help - plan them and prepare tomorrow's meal
Plan the times when you will eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and your snacks. See the print off for examples
Try to keep as close to your structured plan as possible.

Your structured eating plan should include eating:

A full breakfast
A full lunch
A full dinner
Snacks in between meals to stop you getting too hungry

Structured eating time

The importance of meal spacing

You can choose when to eat but there shouldn't be more than a 3-4 hour gap between meals

This is an example of a time frame based on waking at 7.30am. Please alter times to suit you, leaving no longer than 3-4 hours between meals and snacks.

07.30am wake up
08.30am eat breakfast
10.30am mid morning snack
1.00pm eat lunch
3.30pm mid afternoon snack
4.30pm another snack
6.00pm dinner
8.30pm evening snack
11.00pm Time for sleep

Meal spacing is important in preventing underrating and overeating. This involves not leaving longer than 3-4 hours in between eating. This period is to do with the emptying process of your liver to maintain blood glucose levels with stored carbohydrate. Depletion of this storage is associated with signs of hunger.

At the beginning it is difficult to interpret and act on internal sensations of hunger (Garner et al 1997). If you still binge between planned intervals then you can experiment with shorter intervals or eating more at each mealtime. Later down the line you will be able to respond to your own hunger and satiety levels instead of a structured eating plan.

Self-monitoring

Use your food journal daily to enter in all foods, binge episodes and times.

If you are binging then try to increase the amount of food you are eating at meal times

Review

Each week review your progress and eating patterns. Ask yourself the following:

Am I still binging?
Is enough food being consumed during meals and snacks?
Am I timing my meals and snacks accordingly and not leaving no longer than 3-4 hours in between?

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The information provided in this website is for information purposes only. The information on this website is NOT a substitute for proper diagnosis, treatment or the provision of advice by an appropriate health professional. Please refer to the full disclaimer and copyright. If you do think you might suffer from an eating disorder, it is important that you talk to your General Practitioner, as there are many physical complications that can arise from being at an unhealthily low weight or from losing weight very quickly, or from purging. We advise you to seek professional help with working on an eating disorder.