Summer is almost here! And that brings fresher and brighter foods to our menu.
Personally, I cannot bring myself to turn on the oven when the temps outside are so high. And the thought of eating a hot or heavy meal doesn’t sound appetizing either.
During the warmer months, I adjust my eating to include foods that can be eaten cold or can be prepared without a lot of heat.
Today, I’m sharing some of my favorite recipes for the summer.
I’ve also included some tips about each recipe to help you meal plan and prep!
The following meal plan is designed to help you lose body fat and gain muscle tissue by eating mostly lean proteins, complex carbohydrates and fat intake not exceeding 30% of daily calories.
Breakfast
Power Berry Smoothie
1 cup frozen berries of your choice
1 cup almond milk
½ cup nonfat plain greek yogurt
½ cup old fashioned oats
½ banana
Katie's Tip: Place the old fashioned oats into the blender and blend until the oats look like flour. Add the rest of the ingredients and enjoy! You can add protein powder to increase the protein content.
AM Snack
Eggs & Toast
1 hard boiled egg
1 piece of toast
Katie's Tip: Make all your hard boiled egg that you could eat in a week at one time to save time! And don’t peel the eggs in advance. By slowing your snack time down, you feel more full.
Lunch
Pineapple Chicken Salad
From: Martha Stewart
Katie's Tip: On Monday, I will prepare 5 servings of this salad. I will make enough dressing to accommodate for 5 salads (usually means to quintuple the ingredients). For the chicken, I will make an extra two chicken breasts whenever I’m cooking chicken another time in the week.
Add quinoa or roasted potatoes to this salad to make this more filling and to increase your carb intake.
PM Snack
Tuscan Mashed Chickpeas with crackers & veggies
From: Ina Garten
Katie's Tip: This recipe allows you to create enough dip to eat for the entire week. You can eat it cold or put a serving size (about ½ cup) into a bowl and warm it up in the microwave.
Take your favorite crackers and look at the serving size. Those are the amount of crackers you can eat during snack time. If you have some dip remaining, use vegetables (carrots, cucumbers, bell peppers) to eat what is left over.
Dinner
Grilled Shrimp Tacos with Avocado Salsa
Katie's Tip: You could use either flour or corn tortillas. If you need to decrease carb intake for that day, you could put the shrimp and salsa over ½ cup cooked rice. But please don’t be a tortilla hater just because they have carbs. You need carbs!
Thank you for taking a look at my Hot Summer Day Meal Plan!
I hope that you will enjoy one of the recipes I have provided for you!
If you need help designing a meal plan for longer than one day, schedule a free consultation with me.
Together, we can build a more realistic, results driven nutrition plan.
Thank you again for reading!
