7-Day GLP-1 Meal Plan (High-Protein, Small Appetite)

Knowing what to eat on GLP-1 medication is one thing; deciding it every single day on a small appetite is another. A simple, repeatable plan removes the daily guesswork. Here is a balanced 7-day GLP-1 meal plan built around protein, gentle textures, and meals small enough for a reduced appetite on Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro or Zepbound.

This is general information, not medical advice or a prescription diet. Calorie and protein needs vary — check targets with your prescriber or dietitian.

How this plan works

Three principles run through every day:

• Protein first. Aim for roughly 25–35g of protein per meal so you protect muscle while you lose weight. See how much protein you need on GLP-1.
• Small and gentle. Portions are deliberately modest, and textures stay soft and moist — easier to eat when appetite is low or nausea hits.
• Fibre and fluids. Each day includes fibre-rich foods and a reminder to sip water, which helps with the constipation many people experience.

You do not have to follow it rigidly. Repeat the meals you like, and lean on make-ahead options on busy or low-energy days.

The 7-day plan

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snack
1	Greek yogurt breakfast bowl	Tuna & white bean salad	Garlic butter chicken & greens	Protein bites
2	Overnight oats	Red lentil soup	Lemon herb salmon traybake	Greek yogurt
3	Cottage cheese scrambled eggs	Leftover salmon over salad	Turkey meatballs with courgette	Handful of nuts
4	Protein berry smoothie	Tuna & white bean salad	Slow cooker chicken chili	Cheese & apple
5	Greek yogurt breakfast bowl	Leftover chili	Garlic butter chicken & greens	Protein bites
6	Overnight oats	Red lentil soup	Turkey meatballs with courgette	Edamame
7	Cottage cheese scrambled eggs	Leftover meatballs	Lemon herb salmon traybake	Protein berry smoothie

What each day actually adds up to

Most meal plans wave at "high protein" without showing their working. Here is every day totalled from the per-serving protein in the linked recipes, with the non-recipe snacks estimated at typical supermarket portions — a 150g pot of Greek yoghurt, a 30g handful of nuts, 30g of cheese with an apple, 80g of shelled edamame.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snack	Total
1	30g	32g	42g	8g	112g
2	24g	20g	35g	~15g	~94g
3	28g	35g	38g	~6g	~107g
4	25g	32g	34g	~7g	~98g
5	30g	34g	42g	8g	114g
6	24g	20g	38g	~9g	~91g
7	28g	38g	35g	25g	126g

That averages about 106g a day, ranging from roughly 91g on the lightest day to 126g on the heaviest — which sits in or slightly above the 80–120g absolute range commonly suggested during the rapid weight-loss phase. Two things follow from actually doing the arithmetic.

Day 7 is the outlier. It stacks a full protein smoothie as a snack on top of three protein-dense meals. If you're aiming nearer 100g, make the day-7 snack a piece of fruit and move the smoothie to a day you skipped a meal. Nothing bad happens if you eat 126g of protein — it isn't a dangerous number for most people — but it is more than you need, and on a small appetite that protein is displacing fibre and vegetables you'd rather have.

Days 2 and 6 are the light ones, both built on red lentil soup at 20g. If those days feel short, the soup takes a spoon of Greek yoghurt stirred through or a handful of shredded chicken, and you're back to the high 90s.

Calories sit deliberately on the lighter side, which suits a suppressed appetite, but the plan leans on protein and fibre rather than sheer volume so you're not left hungry between meals.

If you find you're losing weight faster than you'd like, or feeling weak, that's usually a sign to add rather than cut — a bigger snack, an extra spoon of nut butter, a fuller portion at dinner. Rapid loss isn't the goal; keeping muscle while the loss happens is.

Scaling it to your own appetite

The plan above assumes you can manage four eating occasions. Plenty of people on a higher dose genuinely cannot, and the honest adjustment is not to force it.

• If you can only manage two meals, keep breakfast and dinner and make both protein-led. Two meals at 30–40g plus one shake lands you near 90g without a lunch you'd have pushed around the plate.
• If mornings are impossible, move breakfast later and treat it as a brunch. There is nothing magic about eating within an hour of waking.
• If you're leaving food, halve the portion at the point of serving rather than at the point of giving up. A cleared small plate does more for your relationship with eating than an abandoned large one.
• If a meal is going to be missed anyway, make it a liquid one. A smoothie you finish beats a chicken breast you look at.

The plan's totals assume full servings. If you're eating roughly two-thirds of everything, expect around 70g a day, which is where a shake or a pot of skyr earns its place.

Working around your dose

If you inject weekly, the days are not interchangeable, and the plan gets easier if you line it up with your cycle.

The day of your injection and the day after are, for most people, the least forgiving. Those are the days to put the soup, the smoothie and the overnight oats — soft, moist, undemanding. The back half of your week, when appetite usually returns a little, is where the chicken, the meatballs and the traybake belong.

Practically: if you inject on a Sunday, start this plan on a Tuesday rather than a Monday, so the lighter days 2 and 6 land on your roughest days rather than your best ones.

The week after a dose increase deserves the same treatment as your first week on the medication. Tolerance built at one dose doesn't reliably carry to the next.

Notice how the leftovers work

The plan isn't seven separate cooking projects. Sunday's salmon becomes Monday's lunch; the chili you make once feeds two days; the meatballs stretch across three meals. That's deliberate — on GLP-1, the low-appetite, low-energy days are exactly when you least want to cook, so the plan front-loads the effort onto the days you have it and coasts on leftovers when you don't.

There is a second reason it matters. Cooking a full recipe when you'll eat a third of it is the single most common way people on GLP-1 end up eating badly: the effort-to-mouthful ratio gets so bad that they stop cooking and start grazing. Planning the leftovers in advance turns that from a failure into the design.

A rough shopping list

For the week above, you'll mostly need:

• Protein: chicken breasts, salmon fillets, turkey mince, two tins of tuna, eggs, Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, a block of tofu or a bag of edamame.
• Store cupboard: tinned white beans, red lentils, tinned tomatoes, rolled oats, chia seeds, a protein powder, nut butter, a bag of mixed nuts.
• Fresh: salad leaves, courgette, broccoli or greens, lemons, berries, apples, an onion and garlic.

Buy once, cook across the week. Most of the store-cupboard items carry over to the following week, so the second shop is smaller.

Buy the fresh protein for the back half of the week frozen, not chilled. Salmon and chicken bought fresh on a Saturday for a Thursday dinner is a bet on a version of yourself who might not feel like cooking on Thursday, and it's the bet that produces the sad bin-clearing at the end of week one.

Making it vegetarian or dairy-free

The bones of the plan hold up with swaps:

• Vegetarian: replace the chicken, salmon, tuna and turkey with tofu, tempeh, eggs, beans and lentils. You'll rely more on a protein powder to hit the same totals, since plant sources are less protein-dense per bite.
• Dairy-free: swap Greek yoghurt for a high-protein soya yoghurt, use a plant milk with a scoop of protein in the oats and smoothies, and skip the cheese snack in favour of edamame or nuts.

Be realistic about what the vegetarian version costs you in volume. Matching a 42g chicken dinner with beans and lentils means a substantially bigger plate — the exact thing a slowed stomach handles worst. Tofu, tempeh, seitan, egg whites and a protein powder are the plant options dense enough to keep the portion small. Expect to land nearer 80–90g a day than 106g, and treat that as fine rather than as a failure.

Tips for sticking with it

• Batch on the weekend. Make a pot of chili and a few jars of overnight oats so the low-appetite days look after themselves.
• Eat the protein first, even if you do not finish the plate — that is the part that matters most.
• On nausea days, swap any meal for a smoothie or gentle eggs. See foods that help with GLP-1 nausea.
• Keep sipping water through the day, especially if you have added fibre.
• Drink between meals rather than with them. Filling a slowed stomach with liquid alongside food brings on fullness before the protein is in.

Common questions

How many calories is this meal plan?

Deliberately unspecified, because the honest answer depends on your portions. The plan is built to hit a protein target and let appetite set the volume — which is how eating on GLP-1 medication actually works. If you need a calorie number for medical reasons, your prescriber or a dietitian should set it, not a web page.

What if I can't eat this much?

Then don't. Almost nobody manages four full eating occasions in the first weeks, or after a dose increase. Keep the protein-dense items, drop the volume, and use a shake to close the gap. See the scaling section above.

Can I repeat the same day over and over?

Yes, and many people do. Variety is nice but it is not a nutritional requirement over a week, and decision fatigue is a bigger threat to eating well on GLP-1 than a repetitive menu. If day 1 works, eat day 1 five times.

Do I need protein powder?

No, but it makes the plan considerably easier, and on the vegetarian version it's close to necessary. A scoop is roughly 20–25g of protein in a volume your stomach barely registers, which is exactly the problem you're trying to solve.

Should I still eat if I'm not hungry?

Broadly yes, at least for the protein. Appetite is the thing the medication suppresses; your muscle's need for protein is not suppressed alongside it. That's the central awkwardness of eating on GLP-1, and it's why "protein first, volume second" runs through this whole plan.

How Basilino helps

Basilino turns a plan like this into something automatic: it sets your protein goal, scales every recipe to your appetite, and tracks what you eat against your target — so a week of eating well stops being a daily decision.

Related: GLP-1 diet and nutrition and our free GLP-1 recipes.

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