I’m thrilled to be sharing today’s post all about my dairy free wedding meal plan! It has been highly requested (and teased, sorry!) on my YouTube channel for months. I like to periodically vlog, which is a more casual video featuring snippets of my everyday life. In a recent vlog I scrolled through some photos from our honeymoon and shared how I felt looking back at them.

I distinctly remember being disappointed in the moment those photos were taken, because I thought I hadn’t reached my fitness goals by the time of our wedding. I must have lost a wee bit of perspective along the way, because looking back at the images a few short months later, I can see I was more toned than I’ve ever been in my life! Today I’m going to share the exact dairy free meal plan I followed leading up the wedding, as well as my real experience and results. Getting in better shape is always a two part equation, so my follow up post will feature all the workouts I implemented.

I want to be very careful when discussing diet and weight loss because I am not a doctor nor a dietician. In full disclosure, as great as I felt on this program I didn’t keep it up after the wedding, and guess what? I immediately put on 8lbs. Mind you, this was on our honeymoon which was rather glutenous, but still. 8lbs!! I’m currently easing back to a modified version of my pre wedding diet, and incorporating more dairy free meals again.

I lead a pretty healthy lifestyle overall, so I was actually surprised when I started losing weight and physically and mentally feeling better when I started following this regimen. After I went dairy free, I lost 9lbs in less than 8 weeks going from 117lbs to 108lbs on our wedding day, and I dropped at least a dress size and a half. (I know this because my dress didn’t fit properly on my wedding day. Whoops!)

The greatest thing about this plan was I never got to the point of obsession, which can happen when I try a new diet or cleanse. I haven’t always had the healthiest relationship with food and quite frankly it’s taken work to get to a point where I can follow meal plans without putting too much pressure on myself. With that said, I would never want to be the catalyst for anyone else’s skewed body image, or to urge someone towards a potentially unhealthy path.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt (fleur de sel if you’re feeling fancy) and stay in tune with your own body and mental state. I never felt starving or dizzy while on this program, but that’s not to say that wouldn’t be the case for someone else. I don’t believe in deprivation, and cut myself slack often, so you should too!

I promise I’ll get off my soapbox soon, but the thought that my words could cause harm to anyone, especially women, especially especially young women who are already at such a disadvantage when it comes to body image, makes me sick to even think about. Bottom line…your mental and physical health comes before all else! And sometimes you really do need that slice of pizza or bite of cake. Take it from me. 🙂

Ok now onto the plan. Here is what I did.

1. Cut Out All Dairy

I started paying more attention to my diet practically the minute we got engaged. I ate overall cleaner by avoiding processed foods and prioritizing foods that contained only whole, real ingredients. Knowing we had 18 months of wedding planning ahead, I didn’t kick my diet it into high gear until about 4 months before our wedding.

The biggest change I made overall was cutting dairy completely out of my diet. I was/am a huge cheese lover, so this was a fairly radical effort on my part. After the withdrawals subsided (cheese addiction is a real thing, I swear!) it became surprisingly easy to put meals together without totally disrupting my life. I opted to omit dairy ingredients or avoid dishes that contain dairy altogether rather than incorporate dairy-free alternatives. My coffee was the main exception here. I had to find a tasty way to add a little cream to my other obsession- coffee! As you’ll see in my meal plans below, I found several.

I heard that going diary free could help to clear up acne, so this was another big motivator for me to give it a try. The bad news is, diet had little impact on my skin, and wedding planning stress was the main culprit when it came to my acne woes. My skin was in terrible shape on my wedding day. The good news is, I thought about it for a max of 5 minutes and promptly got over it and moved on. There were much bigger and better things to focus on that day like my family, friends, oh and my brand new husband. 🙂

2. Eat Often!

Another big change I implemented was I started eating all.the.time. It may sound counterintuitive to eat more while trying to slim down or tone up, but my metabolism was faster than ever eating this way. I was eating something every 2.5-3 hours like clockwork, starting about 45 minutes after I woke up.

I am the type of person who doesn’t even get hungry until about 3 hours after I get up, so fitting breakfast in every single day took some serious coercion. I choked down a Luna bar even though I wasn’t hungry the first few mornings. Fast forward to a week later…I packed up my steel cut oats to-go and happily shoveled in spoonfuls at stoplights on my way to work, ha!

Another huge benefit to this meal plan was it forced me to eat smaller meals because I wasn’t waiting until I was ravenous to eat. I filled up quicker and felt satisfied after smaller amounts. I never understood this “grazing” style of eating before, but once I got the hang of it I loved it. My appetite lived permanently in homeostasis, rather than swinging wildly from starving to gorged on a regular basis like before.

3. Get Your Protein In

As you’ll see in my sample meal plan, I started eating meals higher in protein and healthy fats, and lower in refined carbs and saturated fats. This happened pretty naturally for me. I think this is mostly due to the fact that my favorite carb-filled foods are useless without cheese, so they lost their ability to seduce me! 😉

I found myself eating a lot of the same foods with a slight twist on them. You’ll notice I also didn’t avoid carbs or sugar altogether, something that people often recommend when you’re trying to slim down fast. I didn’t want to be miserable, especially in those stressful weeks right before our wedding, so I found a happy medium that worked for me, rather than cutting them out completely.

4. Drink Lots of Water

There is ample research stating how important water intake is. We all know we should be drinking a good amount! I never drink juice, soda, or anything other than water, coffee, and wine (lol) on a regular basis, so this wasn’t a huge change for me. However, I found it helpful to up my intake anyway, because I was doing a lot of cardio at the time and sweating daily. It’s worth noting because often times people mistake thirst for hunger and turn to snacks rather than refilling their water glass, so it’s definitely something to be aware of.

5. Meal Plan

Ok, onto the meal plan! I’m going to list out 4 sample days of eating as well as put together a shopping list to make it easy. I was working a lot during the weeks leading up to our wedding, and as a nanny, that meant long days on my feet in addition to my workouts. Kids are the best bonus workout!

A few things to note:

*I don’t eat red meat or cooked fish (I’ve never liked either!) so any meal I’m eating chicken or turkey could easily be swapped out for a different protein. You could also make this plan vegetarian or vegan pretty easily.

*All of the lunch meals can be homemade, take-out, or picked up from a grocery store deli section. I did a mix of both based on my schedule. Homemade is certainly the healthiest and most cost effective choice, but sometimes store bought options are just too dang convenient to pass up.

*I also included a glass of wine on one of the weekend sample days because I’m being realistic and honest. It is not a must obviously, but I drank occasionally and still slimmed down. I know I looked forward to my time to unwind with a glass of chardonnay with my fiancé, especially during those stressful moments obsessing over minuscule wedding details. So don’t beat yourself up if you indulge this way like I did. 🙂

6. Shopping List

I’ll include the brands of some of my favorite items, but this will vary depending on which grocery store you shop at. All of these items should be available at any market, though. There’s no need to go to a special health foods store or any highly specialized ingredients. With one exception…my favorite dairy free milk for my coffee is Oatly Oat milk! It is so creamy, I actually prefer the low fat version. Whole Foods usually has it, but if your local market doesn’t carry it, you can substitute for whichever other dairy free option you prefer! I couldn’t stand the taste of almond milk when I first went dairy free, so I started with coconut. I’ve adjusted and like almond milk just fine now, though!

I hope this is clear and easy to follow, I really wanted to be as detailed as possible in order to answer all the questions I receive! If you decide to go dairy free and want some more meal ideas, I have a board dedicated to it on Pinterest, so feel free to explore!

I would love to hear from you if you end up following this meal plan, any and all feedback is great. I’m going to continue to share different fitness and health related tips and tricks, because optimal health is something I always strive for, but is flexible and ever-changing. Next up, my pre-wedding workout plan! 🙂