Trainer Jessie’s DietTribe Meal Plan

For those of you who have been watching Lifetime’s new reality show DietTribe, which features five close friends’ weight loss journey, you may have been amazed at how quickly most of the girls have made their 30-pound weight loss goal a few weeks shy of their deadline.

Jessie Pavelka from DietTribe

So how did they do it?

One of the key features with the DietTribe’s success has been their diet. With the stringent but encouraging support of the their trainer, Jessie Pavelka, the ladies have managed to drop some serious pounds.

Here is  Jessie’s plan for eating less, eating healthy while still staying satisfied. His guidelines are fairly straight-forward making it easy for you to adopt some of his effective strategies into your own eating routine.

1) Clean Eating: Only consume foods that are whole foods and are preferably organic. Fruits, veggies, lean cuts of protein, and whole grains comprise the staples of the DietTribe diet. The women shun all processed and pre-made foods, which tend to be high in fat, sodium, and sugar.

2). Plan Ahead: Jessie strongly advocates that his trainees (and you too) take the time to prepare their own meals and snacks. Ideally, he encourages that you cut, dice, and pack your food each evening so that when tomorrow arrives, it’s easy for you to grab and go! His mantra is make yourself and your diet a priority.

3.) No More Than 1,500 calories a day: This seems to be the magic number of calories that all of the DietTribe members successfully lost weight at. If you’re on the petite size, you may need to decrease it more depending upon your activity level.

4.) The 3/2 Rule: Everyday, eat three meals and two snacks. Eating regularly protects your metabolism from dropping and it keeps your blood sugar even, two necessities for effective weight loss. Here is Jessie’s caloric breakdown of this 3/2 rule. Breakfast: 350 Calories, Morning snack: 150 calories, Lunch: 350 calories, Afternoon snack: 150 calories, Dinner: 400 calories.

5.) 50/30/20: Focus on getting 50% protein, 30% carbs and 20% good fats for your daily intake. All of the DietTribe members stuck to a high-protein diet, which was essential for not just losing weight but for building muscle. Muscle burns more calories than fat (and it looks a lot better, too) so eating protein at every meal and combining strength training in each of your workouts helps to shed those pounds.

Jessie with the DietTribe contestants.

Jessie also created a food list which includes refrigerator and pantry staples that will help you stay on track with your diet goals and resist the danger of reaching for something too calorie or fat-laden. His list includes antioxidant-rich veggies, lean proteins, healthy fats, desserts like low-fat/sugar-free cereal bars, low-cal air-popped popcorn,  sugar-free jello, whole grains like oatmeal, brown rice, and high-fiber cereal, fruits like strawberries and apples and low-fat dairy (Jessie is a strong advocate of low-fat cottage cheese). He also had all of the DietTribe ladies drink at least 8 glasses of water each day, eat at least two servings of veggies a day and pop a daily multivitamin.

Just because you’re not a contestant on a diet reality show doesn’t mean that you can’t lose weight just as quickly and effectively as your favorite DietTribe members. With these nutrition tips from Jessie,
you can still incorporate many of the successful dieter’s weight-loss behaviors into your own life and meet your diet goals just as well as they did.

On this past Monday’s episode (the finale), the girls shopped for new clothing that fit their new 30-pound-less frames. They also checked in with their therapist, Stacey, to discuss how their weight loss progress has affected them so far and how they feel it will continue to affect them.

You can catch all of the DietTribe’s episodes on myLifetime.com if you missed out. An encore of the finale will air this Friday at 8pm EST.