5 Steps To Create A Healthy, Balanced Meal

There is a misconception that making a healthy meal needs to include expensive ingredients and ‘superfoods’, however this is far from true! To have a healthy relationship with food, we need to be okay with providing our body all foods and not feeling restricted. See below our step-by-step framework to create a healthy and balanced meal for sustained energy. This framework can be applied to breakfast, lunch and dinner.

1. Choose a protein, vegetable, carbohydrate and fat source

Pick you choice of protein, carbohydrate, fat and vegetables! See our examples below:

• Protein
  Sources: Eggs, chicken breast, beef, prawns, lentils, chickpeas, beans, yoghurt, salmon, pork, tofu.
• Carbohydrates
  Sources: pasta, potato (white or sweet), brown rice, quinoa, couscous, barley.
• Fats
  Sources: extra virgin olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds.
• Vegetables
  Sources: ANY vegetables – lettuce, capsicum, carrot, tomato, corn, onion, broccoli, zucchini, beans, peas, etc.

2. Portion your ingredients

Serving sizes are typically based on averages. Learn to understand your hunger and fullness cues to understand how much energy your body needs and adjust accordingly.

• Protein
  Women – 1 palm
  Men – 2 palms
• Carbohydrates
  Women – 1 cupped hand
  Men – 2 cupped hands
• Fats
  Women – 1 thumb
  Men – 1 thumb
• Vegetables
  Women – 1 fist
  Men – 2 fists

3. Choose spices and garnishes

Select a flavour below and choose three or more ingredients from the list to create a certain cuisine.

4. Cook the food

Cooking tips to create flavour:

• Add fresh herbs to the dish throughout cooking and at the end of cooking.
• Add dried spices (more budget-friendly).
• Squeeze lemon or lime over the dish.
• Sprinkle preserved foods (olives, picked onion) and/or chopped nuts and seeds over
  the dish at the end.
• Sprinkle dried chilli flakes.
• Saute onion and garlic with vegetables.

5. Put it all together

Put together the protein source, carbohydrate source, fat source, vegetables and garnish with herbs at the end. See this weeks recipe as an example of combining all of these elements together!

You can download your nutrition guide from your dashboard today!

Reference: Create the perfect meal with this simple 5-step guide. Hundreds of healthy meal
combinations made easy. (2022) Precision Nutrition. Available at: