Here’s how I dropped from 180 to 165 lbs. in a month and kept it off. 15 lbs. doesn’t sound like much, but that’s the heavy ball at a 10-pin bowling alley I’m not toting up the stairs anymore. There’s a new lilt in my step and surer balance and nimbleness hopping between rocks on hikes, so more hiking.

I discovered the weight-loss benefit of this daily meal plan while building my way back from a liquid diet onto solid foods after a brief digestive disorder. You don’t need to have that experience to try its weight management effects.

No matter what, you will be eating great home cooked meals every day, because, aside from the eating pattern, the key is an emphasis on using fresh ingredients cooked at home. I firmly believe that cultivating a daily routine of preparing these meals is the key to establishing an effective rhythm of desire and satisfaction that adds a special depth of pleasure to a commitment to healthy moderation of consumption that goes way beyond mere weight control. Too busy? Put down that damn phone and discover an unlimited horizon of hands-on life-long learning.

You will see that almost all food types and styles are included. The secret is not exclusion, but rhythm and balance. The goal is delight. One Firm Rule: Do not reverse the solid and soup meal in the daily cycle.

Top Recommendation: Discover and prioritize the more immediate fulfillment of your culinary drive and you won’t eat to feel full. You won’t even want to feel full ever again. Instead convert that satisfaction into imagining preparing the next meal and you will feel a pleasant, growing desire to cook rather than a growling desire to merely consume. You will also find that smelling, tasting, working with your food as you prepare it already engages you in its enjoyment such that sitting down to savor what you have accomplished and the first few bites consummate the act of feeding yourself and your mates.

The Daily Plan: Modest solid mid-day meal and hearty soup for supper.

7 or 8 am: Breakfast Options w/tea or coffee

• small bowl of cold cereal.with milk or oat milk and some fruit.
• small or 1/2 piece of pastry
• 1 slice of toast w butter and jam

Noon or 1pm: This is your main meal of the day, but with Portions 1/2 of your habitual dinner sizes. Eat light, but delicious solid foods.

Hot plates: (protein in order of emphasis)

• Main – fish, tofu, chicken, lean pork or beef, vegetarian or vegan
• Starch (occasionally) – rice, cooked grains, low carb pasta
• Veg: side salad w/dressing or green vegetable

Lighter Lunches:

2 slices (1/3) of 14” diameter pizza with home-made sourdough crust rolled-out thin. All the veggie toppings you wish, light on the meat.

• Sandwich on whole grain bread with handful of chips
• tuna, egg, chicken salad, sliced chicken, BLT, grilled artisan cheese Salad
• Garden, Green, Roasted Beet, Caesar, Wedge, Antipasto, Fruit Breakfast for Lunch
• 2 eggs, slice bacon, slice whole grain toast w/butter and jam
• omelette, slice whole grain toast w/butter and jam
• matzoh brie w/unsweetened applesauce and tbsp yogurt
• corn tortilla migas, small side of beans, salsa Charcuterie plate

Smoked and pickled fish plate with garnishes

Dessert:

• fresh fruit, small dish yogurt with fresh fruit, small or 1/2 piece pastry, or 3 cookies
• Coffee or Tea Drink
• water, seltzer, healthy unsweet or very low sugar beverage, 4 oz. wine or 8 oz. off-dry or bone dry artisan cider. (No artificial sweeteners.)

Links to Lunch Plate Recipes:

• Cod Sorta ala Sagres
• Linguini with Saffron Shrimp
• Pork with Bean Sprouts
• Smokey Aromatic Lamb Riblets
• Double Tea Chicken
• Croquetas
• Cebolla Rellena (Stuffed Onion)
• Hake or Cod a la Sidra
• Chicken Piccata
• Linguini with White Clam Sauce
• Family Style Tofu
• Hake or Cod a la Romana
• No Hot Pepper Hot Chili

6 or 7pm: Supper

This is your liquid meal. I suggest that a great soup will sustain your commitment far better than your favorite smoothie as a savory dish settles into your sense of well-being much more deeply. Don’t even bother with canned soups. They don’t satisfy. You can easily make great soup in large batches, eat some that evening, and freeze at least one more meal’s worth. Within a week you will have another week’s worth of prepared supper ready to reheat.

Keep adding new soups to your rotation and you will never be bored. I have nine in my rotation currently and I can’t wait to revisit each. Their base should vary from light, clear broth, to rich but clear long simmered bone or meat stocks, vegetable-based broths and vegetable purees. They should have satisfying chunks of fish, meat and vegetables. Modest amounts of rice, grain or low carb pasta can be added to the lighter broth soups.

Single slice of whole grain bread or light, a couple of light, crisp crackers, nicely paired with the soup style is fine (Recommendations accompany soup recipes.)

Drink:

• water, seltzer, healthy unsweet or very low sugar beverage, 4 oz. wine or 8 oz. off-dry or bone dry artisan cider. (No artificial sweeteners.)

Dessert:

• fresh fruit, small dish yoghurt with fresh fruit, small or1/2 piece pastry, or 3 cookies
• Coffee or Tea

Links to our soup recipes:

• Caldo Gallego (artisan bread w/butter)
• Roasted Chicken (matzoh ball, saltines)
• Cabbage Borscht (rye crisp w/ butter)
• French Onion in Bone Broth
• Cream of Celery (sesame cracker)
• Vichyssoise (sesame cracker)
• Split Pea with Fatback (oyster cracker)
• Light Mediterranean Saffron Fish (baguette for dunking)
• Sopa Castellana