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Cool stuff – we’re looking forward to inspire you with tasty high protein recipes and helpful tips and tricks!
JUST RELEASED — a more advanced version of our free meal plan PDF!
It’s the perfect upgrade to the meal plan.
Vegetarian Meal Plan Pack for Beginners
Perfect to complement strength training, sports enthusiasts and a generally active lifestyle.
These are the problems that many active vegetarians face:
Not eating enough food doesn’t just reduce the results of your training, but can also exhaust your body (and mind).
This is also a major reason why people fail in fitness or lifestyle goals – they simply don’t have the right energy levels to keep up, and they don’t even know it.
Interestingly, as vegetarians we are probably the skinniest group of people (apart from vegans), indicating that we have to “work a bit harder” than omnivores to take in enough calories and proteins.
Over the years we’ve had tons of feedback from our readers, and asked them many questions. We also struggled with this ourselves:
→ Many vegetarians want to gain weight, ideally in the form of muscle. There seems to be a struggle with getting enough food in. And if we do, it’s often lacking enough protein for our fitness goals.
Attention: This is a Brand New Service. We want to evolve it with you!
This service is brand new and you might see that we are trying out some ideas over the coming weeks.
We’re starting this service and we want to evolve it with your feedback!
We take any feedback seriously and are happy to discuss ideas. We want these meal plans to be a time-saving, stress-free way for vegetarians to get enough protein and calories.
So, we would love to know about your lives and how these meal plans fit for you so that we can adjust them as much as possible. Only that way will they really work.
Meal Plan Benefits
You’ll receive a new 4-Day Meal Plan every week. Follow the meal plan 4 days a week to get optimal nutrition. You can easily expand the plan to 6 or even 7 days.
In our experience and intensive testing, 4 days of meal planning is the sweet spot. It’s much easier to maintain and accommodate family and work life.
Our plans take away the stress of calorie counting. They’re designed to give you the optimum amounts of calories and protein to help you with your goal, so you can follow them and forget the numbers – we’ve done it for you!
High Protein Meal Plan Nutrition in Detail
We’ve created a very simple 3-tier system.
Base meal plans are at 1800kcal/day (tier 1) with just breakfast, lunch and dinner. You’ll always get at least 75g protein with these base meals.
For active females: We recommend getting around 400kcal on top (2200kcal total, tier 2).
Our meal plans offer snacks for you to get there. This includes a protein shake (see FAQ about why). You’ll always arrive at a minimum of 95g of protein per day that way – this puts you into the ‘gold standard’ amount of protein for optimal muscle growth.
For active males: We recommend getting around 900kcal on top (2700kcal total, tier 3).
You can get there with snacks or a double serving of one of the base meals. You’ll always get a minimum of 115g of protein that way.
| 1800kcal (base) | 2200kcal (female) | 2700kcal (male) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protein | Min 75g | Min 95g | Min 115g |
| Fat | Max 79g | Max 85g | Max 95g |
| Sat Fat | Max 20g | Max 25g | Max 30g |
| Carbs | Makes up rest | Makes up rest | Makes up rest |
How it works
Who we are
Dave: Food for Strength Training
I’d been hitting the gym for 10 years and wondering why I hadn’t seen more success. With the help of James I realised both my calorie and protein intake were far too low. Since then I focused on improving my diet with those two factors in mind.
I focus on strength training and general fitness, in that order. I’m now stronger at 37 than I have ever been, and my current goal is to be stronger at 40 than I am now. I follow the “Tactical Barbell” series by K. Black for my strength and conditioning workouts.
James: Food for Cardio Training
NOTE: Even the maximum (tier 3) of these meal plans – 2700kcal/day is not enough fuel for serious endurance athletes. In my case you’d be looking at 3500-4000kcal/day with the amount of hours I spend training – in the gym as well as swimming, cycling and running. I usually have an additional big meal and high calorie snacks throughout the day to help get enough calories.
That being said, these plans are an excellent base for the majority of active people including if you do some regular cardio exercise. However, if you do more than 4 hours of cardio per week or 2 hours of cardio and strength training as well, get in touch with us so I can check that the plan would be suitable for you. If it isn’t quite we can help tailor it to you.
I joined HurryTheFoodUp in 2020 as their nutritionist. I’m a Sport Nutritionist (SENr registered and MSc Sport Nutrition) and I’m also a Great Britain Age Group Triathlete.
Hauke: Food for General Fitness and Hiking
I’m probably the stereotypical vegetarian – always erring towards the skinny side.
I would consider myself a sports generalist: I run, play footie, do yoga and have phases where I hit the gym for strength training. Also, I like to go on longer hiking trips.
When I don’t have an eye on my diet I tend to eat too little making me feel depleted at times with too much exercise going on. Luckily our website HurryTheFoodUp is a perfect help to up my calories and protein – in a healthy way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you use soy products in your meal plans?
You’ll notice there is a reasonable amount of soy food within our plans. Historically soy has had a controversial reputation with links to thyroid dysfunction, breast cancer and male problems like decreased sperm count.
We’re happy to tell you that the current evidence does not support this! A large review of over 400 studies suggest that soy products do not seem to negatively impact the body’s normal functions – instead, it might actually be doing a lot of good!
As the aim of any diet is balance and moderation, we tend not to go above 1 or 2 servings a day. This seems to be well within the limits of current recommended intake of soy and helps to keep the meal plans full of variety.
That being said, whenever we suggest soy milk or yogurt, you’re free to choose alternatives made from oats, peas, dairy or other.
If you’d like to know more you can always get in touch with us or read through the study yourself, but until new evidence suggests otherwise soy seems to be a brilliant addition to a vegetarian meal plan.
Neither soyfoods nor isoflavones warrant classification as endocrine disruptors finds this technical review of the observational and clinical data.
How much protein per day do these plans have?
This meal plan is focussed towards active individuals who want to either maintain their muscle mass or build more muscle. So of course how much protein you eat in a day is hugely important.
Currently, evidence suggests that consuming between 1.6-2.2 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight per day is the optimal amount of protein (about 0.75g-1g of protein per lb of bodyweight). This is based on studies that have investigated the rates of something called muscle protein synthesis (essentially, new muscle being created) and how it differs depending on protein intake.
Some meal plans or fitness gurus out there might have you eating upwards of 3 grams of protein/kg/bw/day but it really isn’t necessary. Even eating over 2.2 g/p/bw/day doesn’t seem to be helpful, so we don’t aim for that.
Our plans are designed to give you at least 90 grams of protein per day. This covers the 1.6 spectrum for our females, and as you may have noticed males still need to add in another meal or large snack, and so should easily be able to get past the 1.6 threshold.
If you would like to know more then you can always give us an email and we’d be happy to chat!
Recent Perspectives Regarding the Role of Dietary Protein for the Promotion of Muscle Hypertrophy with Resistance Exercise Training (link).
Eggs?
Eggs are a phenomenal tool for vegetarians to build muscle. They have a good amount of protein in, they’re easy to cook and can be used in pretty much any meal.
They’re another one of those foods which got a bit of a bad reputation over the years but current evidence doesn’t seem to support that view.
A recent large scale review suggested that although there may be some negatives to consuming eggs, the positives seem to outweigh them.
When looking at it as a whole, our opinion is that eggs do fit in a diet as part of a healthy lifestyle. That is, in someone who generally has a good diet and exercises regularly.
Egg consumption and health outcomes: a global evidence mapping based on an overview of systematic reviews
Do you use protein shakes?
You’ll see that a protein shake is included in most days of these high protein meal plans. This was an intentional inclusion rather than a ‘no thought’ inclusion.
It is harder to have a high protein diet which is best for building muscle (1.6-2.2g of protein per kg of body weight per day) without following a strict diet or eating repetitive food groups.
We wanted to create a balance of healthy, tasty food with an optimal approach to building muscle, so we decided to include a protein shake to do this.
Protein shakes are just powdered forms of protein, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with them. As vegetarians it helps us to have a higher intake of protein whilst staying within nutrition guidance for things like fat intake.
Just to be clear, if you prefer to you can drop the protein shake and you will still be able to build muscle. You might just fall outside of the gold standard protein range for muscle building.
We would always recommend buying from reputable brands, and if you are an athlete who may undergo drugs testing we would suggest buying batch tested products through certification programmes like informed sport.
If you would like any further information on this then don’t hesitate to contact us!
Can I gain muscle and lose fat with your plans?
Ok, so there’s something we need to be upfront and honest with you about. You can’t build muscle and lose fat at the same time.
We feel it’s important to highlight this to you and be transparent about our plans. The two processes (building muscle and losing fat) are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
In order to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. In order to build muscle, you need to be in a calorie surplus. So, it’s difficult to do both.
There are examples of people being able to do both, but this is not a regular occurrence and for the average person this is just not possible. It is far better to pick one of these, focus on it, and do it well! When people focus on both, what normally happens is that they do neither.
Our meal plans are not designed with fat loss in mind. We do have meal plans for weight and fat loss though, so if you’re interested in that you can find these here.
How much does it cost?
The membership is $7/month after a 7-day trial period. You can cancel anytime, no questions asked.
Can I get a refund?
No, but you can try it out for 7 days for free and see what you think. After that you can cancel monthly. It takes just a click in the dashboard! No emails or phone calls necessary.
Do you deliver the food?
No, we don’t deliver, nor do we provide the food! We’ll make your shopping lists but you’ll still have to buy/order your groceries yourself. That goes for the cooking, too.
Are the shopping lists updated automatically?
Yes! Depending on which recipes you choose to make, and for how many people – everything is changed automatically. You don’t need to change a thing yourself.
Is it complicated to adjust meal plans to more or less people?
Happily every single recipe can simply be toggled for as many servings as you like!
Will it be possible to do these meal plans in the UK – I mean will measures and weights be easy to convert? I’ve seen you use the American ‘cup’ measurements.
Yep, absolutely! We have metric and imperial measurements for all of our recipes – you can just toggle between them on each recipe.
What is everything you incorporate? Is sugar/honey forbidden? Bread bought at the grocery store ok? Must I make everything myself?
Sugar/honey/maple syrup? No, it’s not forbidden, some recipes call for sugar or maple syrup, just in smaller amounts.
We look at overall calories, fat, protein and saturated fat when we create meal plans and recipes.
Everything from scratch? No, not necessary either. We don’t doom processed food per se. A tin of tomatoes is processed. And it’s absolutely fine to use. Same as store-bought pesto or hummus. Yes, bread bought at the store is absolutely fine!
Is it complicated to use?
We’ve designed our plan to be as simple to use as possible! If there are any problems then Hauke will jump right in to help you individually (and not just a generic tutorial video).
Disclaimer
We would like to take a moment to note that this book is for information purposes only. It does not claim to provide medical advice or to be able to treat any medical condition. It makes no claims in respect to muscle gain or weight loss, either in terms of the amount or rate at which either could be achieved. The calories, fibre, protein and other nutritional information is worked out as closely as possible and we have checked the information as accurately as possible.
However we can’t be held responsible for mistaken listings: the nutritional information is given as a guide only. If you have any concerns regarding your health please contact your medical practitioner before making changes. The recommendations to increase your physical activity are general and non-specific. If you have any injuries or conditions which may restrict your ability to increase your physical activity, please seek medical/professional advice before making changes.
