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Sally Bee's four-week meal plan

While you are busy Living to the Max in every area of your life, good, healthy food should be at the top of your list of priorities! On the Living to the Max eating plan, beside being gluten aware, you are going to be concentrating on meal matching.

Below are your breakfast, light and active meal plans! Start by downloading your personal four-week meal planner, and using Sally's expert tips and guidelines select your three meals a day from the options in the plans below. It's time to start your journey to a much healthier and happier you in 2016!

Breakfast planLight meal planActive meal plan

Get all the recipes you need here

The rules are simple on Living to the Max:

  • Look at every plate of food before you eat it and ask yourself, ‘what can this plate do for me?’ Every mouthful of your main meal should be offering your body healthy nutrition.

  • How hungry are you? Is this a ‘need’ or a ‘greed’ plate of food? Meal match your food to your activities. If you are being super active, you can go for an ‘active’ dish. If you are having a quieter day, maybe sitting at your desk, go for a ‘light’ dish.

  • Always eat breakfast - this is the meal that breaks your ‘fast’. Hover your hand over you plate to check your portion size. Your carbohydrate and protein should fit under your hovered hand. You can then fill the plate with as much salad or veggies as you wish.

  • Listen to your body. When you have eaten enough - STOP EATING!

  • Cut out all chemicals! It is impossible to listen to the messages your body is giving you when it is filled with chemicals from processed food and fizzy diet drinks. These chemicals confuse the messages - so eat clean and listen up!

  • Have a 12-hour stomach break at night. If you have breakfast at 7.30am - don’t eat later than 7.30pm. This will give your system a proper, much-needed break. Going to bed feeling a little hungry may take a bit of getting used to, but you will wake up feeling fresher, lighter and more energised!

  • We are not counting calories on Living to the Max - we are simply eating ingredients that offer us a health benefit and eating the right amounts. Of course, Maxine is going to have us dancing around like jellybeans - so any unused calories will soon disappear!

  • If it isn’t good for you - DON’T EAT IT! Yes, snacks are allowed (check my list of suitable snacks) but they should be little bundles of nutrition … not sugar loaded, processed rubbish!

  • Before you eat anything, ask yourself are you ‘tummy’ hungry or ‘head’ hungry?Tummy hungry is when you haven’t eaten for a few hours and it's meal-time. Therefore, a plate of nutritious gorgeousness to see you through the next few hours is what is needed. ‘Head’ hungry is when you have eaten recently, but you are getting hunger pangs. This is because your blood sugar levels have dropped and a survival instinct kicks in telling you to eat. This is often when you will make bad choices and reach for the biscuits! At this stage, try to recognise that you are ‘head’ hungry and not ‘tummy’ hungry and just go for a small, nutritious snack. This will be enough to lift your blood sugar levels and get rid of the hunger pangs until it's meal time again. Eating less gluten will help regulate your sugar levels so this shouldn’t happen quite so much.

  • Treats are important! Living to the Max is not only about losing inches and pounds, it’s about getting the most out of life. So the odd treat here and there is perfectly acceptable - just not everyday!

Helpful related articles:

Stock up on those essential ingredients with the Living to the Max shopping list

Living to the Max: Six steps to stay on track

Sally Bee's healthy eating tips

Sally Bee's journey to gluten free-dom

Sally's healthy tomato recipes and cooking tips

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itv |

Weekdays 9am