Meal Plans or Intuitive Eating: Which is Best for You?

While meal plans offer a high degree of accuracy and control, intuitive eating allows for more variety and enjoyment. Both approaches can be equally as effective or ineffective, depending on the individual and their goals, needs, and lifestyle. Discover which is best for you —meal plans or intuitive eating?

What’s the Difference?

Meal Plans

These are personalized nutrition programs containing pre-calculated meals with specific measurements to achieve precise macronutrient and calorie targets. The program is then adapted overtime based on how the individual responds and progresses.

Intuitive Eating

This is essentially an anti-dieting method that focuses on internal awareness and food freedom to establish healthy eating behaviours. Through this approach, mindfulness and self-regulation are encouraged, while guilt and shame are removed.

When Meal Plans Work Best

Assuming that you adhere, meal plans allow for your coach to have complete control over as many variables as possible in the your diet!

Which sounds great —but only, of course, if your coach has personalized the meal plan to YOUR goals, needs, and lifestyle. An effective plan for one person may not be the best for someone else.

So, when should something which so much control be implemented?

• Contest prep — meal plans are essential for bodybuilding preps! You need an extreme level of precision and predictability.
• Bodybuilding off-season —especially if you have another contest in mind within a year or so. A meal plan is most likely needed to maximize this time period as much as possible.
• Short-term weight loss — if you’re getting ready for an event such as a wedding or photoshoot, a meal plan might be required. It is best for achieving results in a short time window.
• Other aesthetics-based fitness goals —if you are someone who can adhere to a meal plan and you have another specific physique goal, this could be the best option to help you get there.
• Sometimes other competitive sports —any sport that requires precise nutrition, extreme weight cuts or bulks, or that is judged based on aesthetics in addition to performance.

When Intuitive Eating Works Best

On the other hand, intuitive eating gives you the power and freedom to decide what you eat. By having no hard rules are restrictions, you must learn to be more in tune with your body’s hunger and fullness cues!

Overtime, this allows you to develop healthier eating habits that will stay with you for a lifetime. While results may be slower, this method doesn’t require you to spend time measuring or tracking everything you eat.

Read my full post about the Adapted Plate Method for Fat Loss to learn more about how to make intuitive eating optimal for your health and fitness goals.

So, what does this approach work best for?

• Long-term weight loss — building healthy eating behaviours will set the foundation for you to not only successfully lose the weight, but keep it off long-term and lead a healthier lifestyle!
• Weight maintenance — maybe you’re already happy with the weight you’re at. But you want to learn the skills to keep it that way, and perhaps improve other aspects of your nutrition.
• Long-term muscle growth or retention — without a well-balanced diet or adequate exercise, you run the risk of losing muscle tissue.
• Overcoming disordered eating patterns — the principles of intuitive eating reject diet culture, helping you make peace and neutrality with food.

Other Approaches

Meal plans and intuitive eating are not the only strategies when it comes to improving your nutrition. However, the following methods are not ones that I typically utilize with my clients for different reasons.

If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM)

A dieting framework where you are given a target for each macronutrient —protein, carbohydrates, and fats—as well as calories sometimes.

IIFYM does allow for freedom of choice and variety. But, it can be quite time-consuming, especially for beginners because they need to calculate and log all their food, usually using an app such as MyFitnessPal.

Moreover, this approach doesn’t ensure that you’re consuming adequate amounts of important micronutrients either.

But the main reason why I personally don’t use IIFYM with my clients is because it doesn’t provide them with any real value alone. It takes seconds for anyone to search up what their macronutrients should be for a particular goal…

…I give my athletes and clients a lot more than just numbers. Numbers on their own don’t add any convenience, support, or value to your life, nor does it teach anything in regards to eating behaviour.

Flexible Dieting

This structure is similar to IIFYM, except usually the coach is more active in monitoring your food intake and making changes as needed. Hence, there is definitely more merit to this style of nutrition planning than IIFYM.

That being said, it still relies on you having to track your food and stay within the macronutrient parameters. This again, takes a lot of time, and also increases the likelihood of inaccuracies due to human error.

Time-Restricted Eating

Intermittent fasting has gone up and down in popularity over the years. Essentially, the primary reason that this may work is because by restricting the window in which you can eat, ends up meaning you eat less overall each day.

This approach typically isn’t sustainable long-term. It goes against the principles of intuitive eating because your eating schedule is based on time rather than internal awareness of hunger and fullness.

On the other side, it also doesn’t have the predictability of a meal plan because you can theoretically eat whatever you want and as much as you want within the allowed time window.

So, I tend to stray away from time-restricted eating for those reasons.

Which Method is Best for You?

As with anything, there are always exceptions to these recommendations. In the end, it’s important to choose which method will suit your lifestyle and preferences best. The most effective approach will always be the one you can sustain and adhere to!

If you value structure, routine, and precision, then you might be best suited to follow a meal plan.

If you value food freedom, intuition, and variety, then intuitive eating might be the right plan for you.

Need More Guidance?

I’m here to help! I offer meal plans, intuitive eating programs, and hybrid options through 1:1 online fitness coaching. Together, we can determine which method will best suit your lifestyle, and work towards your health and fitness goals.

Click below to apply for a free phone consultation with me!

4-Week Plant-Based Intuitive Eating Guide

In my 4-week handbook for intuitive plant-based fat loss, you’ll learn how to prioritize protein and create balanced, satisfying meals WITHOUT tracking, measuring, or restricting!

You’ll develop internal awareness and build healthy eating patterns to ensure that you not only lose fat, but KEEP it off long-term.

PLUS, you’ll also get a customizable workout program, supplement recommendation list, and cardio regimen in the book as a bonus!