Looking For Healthy Personalized Meal Plans? Here’s Where to Find Them

by Hannah Ash on

Are you following a personalized meal plan that’s optimized to your body’s individual nutritional needs? If you aren’t yet, chances are you’ve heard of what a game-changer personalized meal plans have been for so many people looking to eat healthier, feel more energetic, and safeguard against diet-related diseases.

So...why are personalized meal plans held in such high regard by nutrition professionals and dieters alike?

What is Personalized Nutrition?
Nutrition is a science, yes...but it’s not one-size-fits-all. In fact, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics made it official by stating, “the quality of life and nutritional status of older adults in long-term care, post-acute care, and other settings can be enhanced by individualized nutrition approaches”. As to how a personalized diet can help change or boost your health outcomes, the possibilities are endless and the research is still rolling in. Personalized meal plans have been shown to help combat troubling skin disorders such as psoriasis; the ketogenic diet can help prevent seizures in epileptics who do not respond to medication; sugar-reduced diets paired with unrefined carbs can help control Diabetes Type-2, a plant-based diet can help combat heart issues...and the list of ways in which individual and personalized meal plans can help health just goes on and on.

How far can you take the concept of personalized meal plans? Apparently, as far as you want. Precision nutrition and individualized diets can even be recommended based on your DNA, thanks to some new startups.

Though DNA-based personalized meal plan recommendations may be the wave of the future, the truth is that so much of what really matters when it comes to getting and staying healthy is what you do and what you eat every single day. If you have a personalized meal plan that looks good on paper but you can’t replicate or keep up with (or simply dislike how it all tastes), then you have a useless personalized meal plan...or, you have an expensive piece of paper.



What Makes a Personalized Meal Plan Effective?
Data shows that the healthiest lifestyle is the one you can keep up with, however, a truly healthy diet and a full life don’t always go hand-in-hand. For those of us who have busy lifestyles, or hectic jobs, or the demands of parenthood, or extracurricular commitments...or all of the above, coming home each night and planning a week of food, shopping for it, prepping it, cooking it, and cleaning up after it is almost a second full-time job that’s all but impossible to meet.

Buying prepared meals, frozen meals, or freeze-dried meals from a national ‘diet’ company doesn’t make much sense, either. So much nutrition (and flavor) can be lost as meals are processed and shipped -- it can actually defeat the purpose.

Luckily, there’s a new and growing alternative that’s growing in popularity: prepared meal plan services and delivery. For example, if you’re local to where we are here in the St. Louis area, you can simply order your meals and have them delivered to your door -- that’s right: meals made with clean ingredients, and sourced using organic and local produce whenever possible.



What are Personalized Meal Plan Providers?
Meal plan delivery services such as our own (Pure Plates in St. Louis) eliminate the hassle and lack of realism when it comes to eating the right foods for your individualized health needs -- and we replace that hassle with a seamless service that fills your refrigerator with BPA-free, easy-to-heat, fully prepared, freshly prepared, local meals -- meals that follow your personalized meal plan and health needs/preferences. 

You should find a personalized meal plan provider that makes meals for your diet -- you should not have to change your dietary needs and preferences to fit in to what a provider offers.

For example, at Pure Plates, we offer a full suite of personalized plans, such as:

If you live in St. Louis or the surrounding areas, the Pure Plates team specializes in helping you meet your diet needs through personalized meal plans alongside individualized wellness coaching that keeps you focused, on task, seeing the progress, and most importantly: feeling the results.

We create meal plans that support your health and that you want to eat. Because not everyone needs or wants the same plan, we offer a variety of options and we even cater our meal plans to meet your specific calories needs, such as our 1300 calorie meal plan, our 1500 calorie meal plan and our 1600 calorie meal plan.

Our customers tell us that the complementary wellness coaching that comes with our Fresh Start 30 program has helped them to truly see the benefits of personalized nutrition and meals. Our wellness coaching team help you create a plan that you actually want to follow and look forward to.Pure Plates nutrition coaches don’t want to give you a quick fix that won’t last: they help you craft personalized strategies for wellness that are sustainable and create long term change (and health).

Where to Find Personalized Meal Plans?
If you live in St. Louis, Pure Plates is a great option (although, obviously...we may be a little biased): we deliver to your door or office, or you can pick up meals from one of our many locations including Chesterfield, O’Fallon, Weldon Springs, and University City.

If you’re not local to the St. Louis metro area, there’s a good chance you can find a quality meal plan that’s personalized for your needs in a nearby metro area. Personalized nutrition and meal plans are gaining steam and more and more providers are opening their doors to fill the growing demand.

That being said, not all meal plans and so-called “nutrition” gurus are the same. As the saying goes, your health is your wealth so make sure you do some homework before you sign up for a plan. Ask about the quality of the ingredients that will be used, check out the reviews and testimonials customers leave for the company, and you should also be able to try or buy a single meal to check out the taste and quality...before you buy an entire plan. 

Your primary care provider, nutritionist, health club, or personal trainer may be able to make suggestions on finding local meal plans that are personalized and of a high quality.

Personalized Meal Plans: Conclusion
Bottomline? A personalized meal plan can do wonders to help you meet your health goals, optimize your nutrition, boost your energy, and minimize disease-related problems. If you live in St. Louis or nearby, consider Pure Plates (you can check out our delicious meals here -- for example, a typical day of meals with Pure Plates could include our Very Berry Crepes, BBQ Pork with Sweet Potato, Beef Tenderloin, and our famous Coconut Fudge). If you’re not near St. Louis, ask around, get reviews, and find a quality meal plan to help you change your health -- for the better.