Balanced Meal Challenge.
Introduction
Learning how to create a health and balanced meal is one of the biggest contributors to improving your over all health, making sure that you are consuming essensial vitmains and minerals to keep your immune system strong to keep you healthy and your body functioning optimally, and that you are providing enough fuel for your body to ensure you have an abundance of energy throughout the day.
In this challange you will learn how to create balanced meals that tick all the boxes form a health perspective, how to tailor them to meet your individual energy requirements, how to help ensure you are meeting all your vitamin and mineral needs, and much more!
Building a Balanced Meal
In this section you will learn how to put together a balanced meal based around whole foods to help ensure you meet all you vitamin, mineral and energy needs.
To create a balanced meal you want to ensure that your plate consist of a mix of both Macronutrients and Micronutrients. Macronutients being; proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and Micronutrients being vitamins and minerals. Big terms I know, but essentially to meet out micronutrient needs we need to make sure we are including a variety of different vegetables, and to meet out energy needs we need to make sure we are getting a serving of protein, carbohydrate and fats on our plate.
To break it down further, a balance meal consists of 2-3+ different vegetables, a serving of lean protein, a serving of fats and depending on your goals and energy needs, a serving of carbohydrates. What is a serving? We will cover what a serving of each looks like in the next section.
For now, we will take a look at some examples of proteins, fats and carbohydrate, and take a brief look at the role they play in our bodies.
First, to meet our vitamin and mineral needs we need to make sure we are eating our fruits and vegetables. Multivitamins and other suppliments can aid us to meeting out needs, however we should be aiming to get most of our mirconutrients through the foods we eat. What are the best foods for this? Well... fruits and vegetables! Mother nature is a wonderful thing, and she has blessed us with pre-packaged bursts of vitamins and minerals in the form of fruits and vegetables. These beautiful substances take the complex task of making sure we get the right vitamins and minerals, in the correct combinations for digestive and absorbtion purposes mind you, and made it as simple as crunching down on a tasty nutrient filled morsel.
So step one of a balanced meal is to ensure we include 2-3+ different vegetables in our dish. It is best to include a variety of colourful vegetables throughout our daily meals. A helpful tip would be to eat the rainbow! Now that we have met our vegetable needs, it is time to meet our protein requirments for our meal.
Protein plays some vital roles in our body. Some of these include the building of soft tissues such as muscle, and connective tissues like tendons and ligaments. It also plays many other roles that include; enzyme, hormone and cell signaling molecule productions. In short, proteins are used in building strutures and transporting nutrients around the body... so they are pretty important. There are also key proteins that cannont be produced by our bodies that have to be ingested through consuming food to keep our bodies functioning. So it is important to regularly consume sources of protein throughout the day.
So what foods contain proteins? Well pretty well all of them in small amounts. However, we need to make sure we consume foods that contain essential amino acids so we can optimally function. Essential meaning cannot be produced by the body, and amino acids meaning proteins. So the foods we should be aiming for are things like lean meats, fish, poultry, eggs, tofu, beans and legumes (if you don't consume animal proteins in your diet), yogurt and vegan meat alternatives. There are many other options but those are just a few to get you started. If you would like some more, CLICK HERE and head to our templates section to find a shopping list with different protein, fats and carbohydrate options.
To meet our protein needs of a balanced meal, we should include a serving of protein. Aim for minimally processed, whole foods where you can.
Now lets check out fats in our balance meals.
Fats also play some vital roles in our health and proper funtion. In a per meal perspective however, as fats are quite energy dense (contain a high amount of calories per unit), you don't need a large serving to meet our needs form a health perspective. From a enegry needs and personal preference perspective you may include more.
Fats are used as one of the primary energy sources of our bodies, along with carbohydrate. Fats tend to be the preferred fuel source of our bodies whilst at rest, and carbohyrates are the preferred fuel source during high intensity activities such as lifting weights and running. However, fats are essenetial in other funtions of our bodies and carbohydrates are not. So it is important to regularly consume an approtiate amout of dietary fats throughout the day.
Some other roles that fats play in our bodies include; providing the raw materials for hormone production, cell protection and transporting certain vitamins and minerals. All of which are extrememly important for health.
So as part of a balance meal, we should include a serving of fat. Some fat sources we can choose are vegetable and nut oils, fish oils, avacados, nuts and seeds, butter, as well as other foods of this nature. As with proteins it is best to aim for minimally processed, whole foods for dietary fats.
That covers the basics of fats, now lets check out carbohydrates.
Carbohydrates are not essintial for our health and key body functions, though they do play a big role in optimising our energy levels and movement. Carbs are the preferred fuel of the brain as they are easier and quicker for our bodies to break down and use for fuels. For the same reasons, they are also our bodies preferred fuel during exercise activity. So if you live and active lifestyle and/or have an active job and/or like to perform high intensity exercises such as HIIT, weight training or running, prioritising carbs in our meals may be the way to go.
Like the other macronutrients, it is best to eat sources of carbohydrates that are minimally processes. Some sources of carbohydrates include; whole pastas, rice, brown rice, potato, cous cous, oats, lentals, sweet potato and whole noodle. Believe it or not, vegetables are also a source of carbohydrate. They just don't contain as many carbs as the previously mentioned foods.
As part of a balance meal, whilst not essential, a serving carbs can be included. If you are an active person, it is a great idea to include carbohydrates in you diet.
Before we move onto how much of each nutrient you should include on your plate as part of a balanced meal, if you would like to learn more about Macronutrients and Micronurtients check out our E-Books on them. You will learn more about the roles of each nutrient, as well specific recommendaitons to optimise your health, performance and body composition.
Serving Size.
Knowing how to put together a balanced meal is a big step to ensure we are consuming a healthy diet and are doing out best to optimize our health, immune systems and bodily functions. The next big contributor is know how much of each nutrient to include in our meal. Knowing this will ensure we are getting a sufficient amount of nutrients for our health and also help to ensure we are not over consuming and risking negitive health consiquences and/or chronic diseases such as hormine imbalances, nutrient deficiencies and toxicities, heart disease and other metabolic illnesses.
It is important to note that everyone is different and will have different energy and nutrient requirements. It is also important to note that we are NOT medical professionals here at Melbourne Outer Eastern Fitness. Before using our fitness, nutrition and wellbeing advice, it is important to get clearance and advice form your medical professional to see if it is a suitable option for you. Any recommendations are NOT a replacement for medications or other therapies. Melbourne Outer Eastern Fitness (and Daniel Moynihan) are not responsible for anyone who has not spoken with there Medical Professional before using our recommendations. The following are recommendations based of research and are just a general guide so some adustments may have to be made to suit individual needs.
Enter the hand guide model. When deciding how much of each nutrient we should include in our meals, we can use our hands to helps us to decide what is enough for us. They are protable, easy to use and come custome made to our bodies. We will start with some visual tools, then move to a discussion on how to use the visual tool to help us portion out our meals appropriately for our health and energy needs.
Using the images above we can start to piece together how to construct a balanced meal.
To build a balance meal we shoud include:
1-2 fists of vegetables, but in our opinion the more the better. Remembering to in include 2-3+ different kinds of colourful vegetables.
1-2 Palms of protein, preferably lean protein.
1-2 Thumbs of fats.
1-2 cupped hands of carbs, which are optional but recommended. If you choice to not have carbs as part of your meals, the exeption being from vegetables, we would recommend adding and extra 1-2 thumbs of fat to your meal and some extra veg.
These recommendations are based off of a 3-4 meal per day eating schedule. If you eat less daily meals, consider adding an extra unit (based off the specific hand measurements) of each nutrient type to the quantity of the meal. If you eat more frequently, maybe stick to 1 instead of 2 units per meal.
There you have it! Now you have everything you need to be able to build your own balanced meals to optimise your health, immune system and improve your energy. Helping you to stay fit and disease free.
Now it is time to challenge youself and set some goals! You can do this through two options which will be provided bellow.
Option 1.
Join the Melbourne Outer Eastern Fitness Group on Facebook an find out when the next Balance Meal challenge is. The challenge is a bit of healthy competition between the members of the group where the first person to post the set number of balanced meals wins a prize. The rules of the challenge are that there is no time limit, the meals do not have to be consecutive, and who every post the set challenge number of meals wins the prize. To participate in the challenge make a post in the group with a picture of your balanced meal, a list of ingredients and if you would like some feedback from a coach simiple add "FEEDBACK" at the end of the ingredient list. For the meals after, simple post a picture of your next meal in the comments section of your original post and add the list of ingredients as a comment as well. If you are the first person to reach the target number of balanced meals, you win! This group is ideal for people who are not confident in their motivation and would like some support in meeting their goals.
For a meal to be considered balanced it must have:
At least one fist size serving of vegetables (consisting of at least three different vegetables).
1-2 palm size servings of a source of protein.
1-2 thumb size servings of a source of fat.
(optional, but recommended) 1-2 cupped hand size servings of a starchy carbohydrate source.
Option 2.
Challenge yourself!
This is where you challenge yourself to a month of practicing the creation of Balanced meals. The time period is not only restricted to one month, we strongly encourage making balanced meals a regular part of your routine. The one month time period is intented to place the foundations to your journey to a healthier life by allowing you to put things into motion and aquire the skills to build your own balanced meals.
This can be achieved a few ways depending on what stage you are at in your personal journey to a better, healthier life.
Beginner: as a someone who is relatively new to the idea of building balanced meals, we strongly encourage the first steps to be as managable and realistic as possible to your personal circumstances. If you consider yourself to be in this category, here is how you should take the challenge: pick three meals throughout the week (preferably on different days as this has been proven more effective in habit aquisition), they can be breakfast, lunch or dinner and whatever days of the week you prefer (all though it would be best to choose meals that you tend to over indulge in the most). For one month, commit to sticking true to at least those three balanced meals per week. It can be helpful to take note of how you feel after consuming those meals. Don't be surprised if you feel more satisfied and energised!
Intermediate: someone who has tried to commit to eating regular balanced meals but tends to lose motivation after a while. Here is how you take the challange; commit to a month long balanced meal habit of creating a balanced meal for dinner for at least 6 days per week. Why dinner? Well this tends to be the meal where people over indulge the most. Pro tip: don't be afraid to prepare meals in advanced for your balance dinners. It can make the transition a whole lot easier knowing that you already have your balanced dinner ready for you after a long day.
Advanced: This if for people who already eat fairly balanced meals, but still have a tendancy to over indulge a bit too frequently. To complete the challange as someone in this category you must commit at least 80% of your meals to being balanced. So if you eat 3 meals per day, only 3 or so meals per week are allowed to fall outside of the Balanced category. This may require some pre palnning and thrifty organisation.
Don't be afraid if this sounds a bit intimidating, there is a reason it is labeled advanced. This is something to gradually build towards, not jump right into. If you start at the beginner stage and work to the intermidiate stage over several months, before you know it you may find you have fallen into this category already.
Good Luck!
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