The meal plan looked achievable. Colour-coded, portioned, photographed beautifully. The person promoting it had a large following and confident language about results. I downloaded it, bought the ingredients list, and started on a Monday.
Where it fell apart
By day four, the plan assumed I had 45 minutes to prepare lunch. I had a tutorial at noon and a part-time shift at 5pm. The recipes required ingredients I had never cooked with and could not find at my local IGA. By week two I was improvising so heavily that the plan was effectively abandoned.
The content was not necessarily wrong about nutrition. Some of the food choices were reasonable. The problem was that it was designed for someone with a different schedule, kitchen, budget, and cooking skill level than mine. Social media diet content is rarely contextualised for students sharing a four-burner stove with six other people.
What I did instead
I found three meals I could actually make consistently: a lentil and vegetable soup, scrambled eggs with spinach, and a chickpea and rice bowl. Not exciting. Genuinely useful. Each had adequate protein, cost under $4 per serve, and took under 20 minutes.
Consistency with simple meals outperformed the elaborate plan within about six weeks. The evidence on dietary adherence supports this: complexity reduces compliance, and compliance is what produces outcomes over time.
Always consult a qualified health professional before making significant changes to your diet.