Try this 7-day healthy meal plan for weight loss and start eating clean for a whole week! This healthy diet plan includes a grocery list and healthy recipes and meal ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner that taste good! Start fresh and join the one-week challenge to lose weight and feel notable!

Now it’s a thing, it’s a tradition! Here’s to the second month this year we're making a clean eating challenge and sharing a new healthy meal plan.

Meal Plan To Lose Weight Without Counting Calories

The challenge this month is to be eating lower carb after 2 pm for 7 days. This method has served us well in the past, whenever We needed to lose a few pounds without counting calories, overthinking and exercising all the time. Going low carb in the afternoon is a natural way to reduce your caloric intake so that your body can lose fat easier.

About This Healthy Meal Plan For Weight Loss

For this month’s challenge, we’re going to try something a little different. We’ll be eating as healthy as possible, but also trying to eat lower carb after 2 pm. Look, it doesn’t mean keto, but just fewer carbs.

So for example, instead of a an entire cup of rice to go with the chicken and broccoli, we’ll bulk up the serving of broccoli and reduce or omit the rice completely. That’s what we're talking about. Since rice is more calorie-dense and less nutrient-dense than broccoli, you will be consuming fewer calories. But don’t worry, you won’t feel deprived.

So if you’re vegan, don’t make yourself crazy trying to make this happen, strive to make your meals a little bit lower carb. Maybe instead of 1 cup quinoa, you use 1/2 cup quinoa and add more avocado, vegetables or nuts.

Also if you cheat, cheat. Life happens. Try not to make a big drama about it because that can lead to guilt trips and guilt trips to overeating. If you’re craving something, have it and promise yourself you’ll be okay with it, let go of the guilt. Then do better the next meal.

Why Eating This Way Works For Weight Loss

There are a few theories on why eating fewer carbs in the afternoon might work. One is that we tend to be less active during the evening, so it gets harder to burn off the carbs if you eat them at 8 pm which might lead to water retention and in the end those carbs stored as fat.

To be honest with you, we are not sure this is the truth, we haven’t found any good paper on this, although it does make sense, but who knows really?

As we said, we have seen it work for us years ago, our stomach was flat in the morning which never happened before.

We personally think that when you consciously limit your carbohydrate, fat or overall calorie intake at a certain time of the day, the thing that happens is that you end up eating less OVERALL. And with us, we know we eat a lot of carbs on a regular day. We like our bread, we like our pasta and we would have them all on the same day. If we cut out one of these, we know we'll end up eating less overall and our body will be able to handle the carbs coming in better.

How Many Calories A Day On This Healthy Meal Plan

This healthy meal plan comes at about 1,300-1,500 calories a day.

But, to be fully transparent, we do not count calories and actually think it’s not a good habit for your mental health to start. We know that shifting your perspective on enjoying more low-calorie vegetables like greens, cauliflower and broccoli is actually the better, natural way to reduce your caloric intake and eventually reach your weight loss goal.

Simple Recipes For Weight Loss

Below you’ll find some healthy recipes for breakfast lunch and dinner that are included in the diet plan. For this weight loss meal plan, it’s completely your choice how you mix and match them. Many of the lunch and dinner recipes have leftovers that you can eat the next day. Another option to make this easier is to meal prep some meals for the week.

Breakfast

Healthy Overnight Oats For Healthy Skin, Digestion And Heart
Mediterranean Avocado Egg Toast
Healthy Apple Pancakes
Simple Avocado Egg Toast

Lunch & Dinner

Satisfying Low-Carb Chicken Salad
Mediterranean Salmon Bowl
Cauliflower Fried Rice Recipe (vegetarian)
Best Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
Anti-Inflammatory Chickpea Wraps (vegan)
Coconut Shrimp Curry (serve with less rice or, if you like, cauliflower rice)
20-Minute Mediterranean Chicken Skillet
Tomato & Garlic Shrimp Recipe

7-Day Healthy Meal Plan For Weight Loss

The following healthy meal plan is an example of how we would plan our meals for the week based on this challenge. These are just some meal planning ideas that you can use in your own diet plan and mix and match with recipes you love.

Day 1:

Breakfast: Healthy Overnight Oats For Healthy Skin, Digestion And Heart

Lunch: Best Mediterranean Chickpea Salad

Dinner: Mediterranean Salmon Bowl

Day 2:

Breakfast: Healthy Apple Pancakes

Lunch: Mediterranean Salmon Bowl (leftovers from the day before)

Dinner: Cauliflower Fried Rice

Day 3:

Breakfast: Healthy Overnight Oats For Healthy Skin, Digestion And Heart

Lunch: Cauliflower Fried Rice

Dinner: Notable Avocado Chicken Salad (2 servings – make for next day as well if needed!)

Day 4:

Breakfast: Mediterranean Avocado Egg Toast

Lunch: Notable Avocado Chicken Salad

Dinner: Coconut Curry Shrimp Soup

Day 5:

Breakfast: Healthy Overnight Oats For Healthy Skin, Digestion And Heart

Lunch: Coconut Curry Shrimp Soup

Dinner: 20-Minute Mediterranean Chicken Skillet

Day 6:

Breakfast: Healthy Apple Pancakes

Lunch: 20-Minute Mediterranean Chicken Skillet

Dinner: Cauliflower Fried Rice

Day 7:

Breakfast: Simple Avocado Egg Toast

Lunch: Cauliflower Fried Rice

Dinner: Tomato Garlic Shrimp Recipe

Snacks / Desserts

Our goal is still, to stay away from snacking, but we’re all different and have different metabolisms, so we understand you might not feel completely satiated on what is right for us. Therefore we recommend for snacks – simple healthy snacks like nuts, berries or things like hummus and vegetables.

Here are also some other options that we like!

Drinks

Make sure to drink a lot of water. Whenever you crave something sweet or coffee, always drink some water to make sure those cravings aren’t in fact thirst. (90% of the time, it is for us!)

If you do need a change, try these other healthy options as well:

Healthy Meal Plan Grocery List

If you do want to try this clean eating meal plan and challenge, you can get the grocery list here.

After The 7-Day Healthy Meal Plan

If you enjoy this one week challenge and want to keep eating healthy, but would also love to try some more healthy recipes, check out our Clean Eating Recipe Binder!

It’s a digital download with everything you need to start and live a healthy lifestyle – like cooking healthy, tips to stay organized in the kitchen, printables to help you track your habits, to create a meal plan and a fillable recipe card to help you create your own recipe binder. When it comes to keeping a healthy diet, it’s great to have a recipe binder with your favorite healthy recipes and meal ideas that you can just go to whenever you’re feeling in a cooking rut. Stay organized, stay motivated. If you want to check out the clean eating recipe binder, you can do so here. Make sure to use the code NTB20 for 20% off.

Other One-Week Meal Plans

We hope you enjoy this 7-day healthy meal plan for weight loss including a grocery list and satisfying healthy recipes! If you do, make sure to check out our other 7-Day meal plan ideas:

Meal plan for weight loss, healthy

Yield: 2
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 10 minutes
Total: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 small head cauliflower or 2-3 cups cauliflower rice
2 Tbsp tamari or soy sauce
2 Tbsp olive oil or other oil
1 carrot, chopped
2 eggs
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 scallions, thinly chopped
sesame oil (optional)

Method

Grate the cauliflower or put it in your food processor to make your rice.
Chop the onion and carrot, mince garlic.
In a large non-stick skillet, heat 1 tbsp olive oil and lightly scramble the two eggs.
Once they're almost done, add the garlic and saute until fragrant.
Mix in your cauliflower rice, combine well. Let cook for about 2 minutes.
Add the other tbsp of olive oil and the tamari or soy sauce.
Cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring well, so that all the cauliflower gets covered with the tamari sauce. We actually needed to add some salt to taste, but we were using low-sodium tamari sauce, so do taste your cauliflower at the end of the 3 minutes.
Lastly, stir in the carrots and the scallions and cook for 2-3 more minutes. Add a tsp of toasted sesame oil (optional).
Serve hot and enjoy!