You can lose weight without embarking on an expensive endeavor. Take advantage of resources that offer free meal plans if you want to slim down. Don't let an overabundance of choices discourage you. Look for a meal plan that doesn't eliminate or greatly limit essential nutrients from your diet. The best plans focus on well-balanced, nutritious meals full of vitamins and minerals.
MyPyramid Plan
Created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2005, the MyPyramid Plan was designed to make it easy for people to get free customized meal plans. MyPyramid's information is based on proven nutritional research on healthy eating and weight loss. MyPyramid can help you lose weight by showing you how many calories you should eat each day to reach a healthy weight. The plan also points out which foods you should focus on; the primary food groups recommended by MyPyramid are taken straight from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans report. MyPyramid recommends a diet of grains, low-fat dairy products, lean meats, vegetables and fruits. It provides one of the most comprehensive free online tools available for weight loss.
DASH Diet
Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH, is a meal plan designed by the American Heart Association to help people lower their blood pressure by reducing their sodium intake. As it turns out, this diet also has helped individuals lose as much as 10 to 35 lbs. within a few months of starting the meal plan, according to DASHDiet.org. The complete DASH diet plan is available in book form, but you can follow the basic meal plan for free online. Based on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, DASH recommends consuming seven to eight servings of grains; four to five servings of fruits; four to five servings of veggies; two to three servings of low-fat dairy products and no more than two lean meats. The plan also recommends four to five servings of nuts, seeds and legumes a week. DASH allows for a limited amount of fats and sweets. This meal plan provides a low-sodium, highly nutritious choice that's low in calories and high in fiber.
Vegetarian Diet
The vegetarian lifestyle is a healthy and nutritious way to live, according to the American Dietetic Association, or ADA, and MayoClinic.com. The key to getting all your essential vitamins and nutrients from a meatless diet hinges on proper planning. MayoClinic.com offers free advice to vegetarians for planning an effective vegetarian diet. A vegetarian diet commonly lacks such key nutrients as calcium, iron, iodine, omega-3 fatty acids, protein, vitamin B-12, zinc and vitamin D, according to MayoClinic.com. To get a healthy amount of these nutrients, consume plenty of leafy vegetables; vitamin-fortified cereals and soy products; nuts; legumes; a variety of fruits; tofu and limited iodized salt. The basic diet plan for vegetarians includes six servings of grains a day; five servings of legumes, nuts and protein sources; four servings of veggies; two servings of fruits and two servings of fats, according to the ADA.
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