Meals plans and hitting macros

Sprite Goblin

Sprite Goblin

Senior Member
It's time for me to get my shit together when it comes to diet. What I mean is, monitoring and tracking my food, in order to monitor progress, so that I can make informed adjustments when necessary.

I'm good with MyFitnessPal for recording everything, aside from when that gets tedious, thats not a problem.

I want to hit 50% carbs, 30% protein, and 20% fat. I haven't calculated my predicted calorie needs just yet, but I am going to start at 3000 a day, and adjust accordingly. I've got some AccuMeasure body callipers on their way as the most cost effective / accurate way to monitor BF levels - upgrading from some digital scales which I cant trust.

What i'd like, is to know how those of you that do it, go about planning your meals out for the week. Ideally, I'd like 1 cook day where I get everything that i'll need for the week ready and prepped. I think that provided ive done that, i'll know what each days food is, it will be available, and this should make sticking to it a hell of a lot easier.

I don't mind some repetition, but I cant eat the same meal, at every meal through the day, for days on end.

What I did yesterday, to take care of carbs and veg intake, was to boil up 3 large sweet potatoes (about 1.5kg) along with a 1kg bag of mixed veg, and then mash it up and keep it in a big container.

all in, I calculated this to be: 158 cals, 0.9g of fat, 32.6g of carbs, and 4.9g of protein per 100g.

I can add that as one of my custom foods in MyFitnessPal.

Todays diet has been as follows:

Meal 1:

Milk protein Smooth: 60g

whole milk (topped up with water!): 100ml

omega 3 liquid: 10ml

sweet potato & veg mix: 250g

(this meal was almost bang on with my macro ratios)

Meal 2:

omega 3 liquid: 10ml

sweet potato & veg mix: 250g

Golden Acre Quark: 250g

Meal 3:

Mighty Malties: 80g

Skimmed milk: 200ml

Liquid egg whites: 150g

omega 3 liquid: 10ml

Meal 4:

Avocado: 100g

milk protein smooth: 60g

sweet potato and veg mix: 250g

Meal 5:

Golden Acre Quark: 250g

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now yes, there is A LOT of reliance upon the protein shake today, but that is because I forgot to get my chicken out, and, wouldn't have had time to cook it anyway, but on a day to day thing, there will be more chicken breast, lean turkey mince, and steak etc.... some fish too.

I've hit my macros, and calorie requirements today, and I wasn't just sat around the house either, actually had very little opportunity to prep any food today..... but, it has taken considerable effort, and, as you can see is not particularly appetising (meal 3 was particularly rank) egg whites and watery milk on budget shreddies!

Any suggestions for making the day in day out slog any easier? I know its a case of getting into the habbit, and once this is achieved it'll come, or seem much easier. Seems like I was just throwing the above together as and when just to make it hit the macros. How can I plan that out a bit better?
 
What I tend to do is write out a base diet in terms of Macros and then put a few food choices around each meal.

Usually 3 whole meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) with the rest whole food shakes (protein blend egg whites with a carb source such as oats blended).

Lunch keep it very simple like wholemeal wraps and a chicken breast.

Dinner a bit more effort but still simple like a microwaved spud or pasta.

Cook your meat for that meal and lunch the next day. Prep your shakes in the morning.

Works for me.
 
ive always cooked all my stuff up on Sunday morning. Usually done by about 11 depending on what I'm cooking. I keep it simple to two different meals. Bag the carbs, meat and veg into portions in separate bags. Then bag a days food in a carrier.
 
I buy whole chickens and roast them through the week, the oven is usually on so its easy to stick one in and this makes up my through the day meals. 

they're quartered/halved and I either add steamed veg (if its at work then those micro-steam packets are good) or just shed loads of low fat coleslaw. 

evenings are with the Mrs so they vary more... but may well be more fricking chicken lol. 

its worth adding that I'm following an intermittent fasting diet of sorts though so 2/3 meals max a day. 

Although macro breakdowns are important overall, I recon its good to throw them out of the window from time to time to add in stuff that you like too. I have to be honest, if my 'make do' day was like the one above, id rather not eat. 

its important to enjoy your diet to a degree too, the times when I've fallen off it before have always been because I ate what I thought I should rather than what I enjoyed in portions to suit.
 
Too true Andy... if every day was like the one above, I'd last less than a week, maybe 3 days max!

I do like to cook, and do like to make enjoyable meals. I think where I have been struggling is recording and monitoring where that fits in to my pre determined macros.

Last night, I made myself a simple excel spreadsheet which allows me to enter the macros from an ingredient per 100g, then, I can weigh each ingredient, and it then tells me the macros per 100g of the total recipe. I had to build my own, as I couldn't find anything else like this out there. Myfitness pal seems to suck hard at that.

Now, I can cook anything, and won't have to sit there with a note pad doing all the calculations each time!
 
Roy@/_ said:
I used to do this but find its pretty un pleasant mid week on!
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Lol yep you are right it does get a bit grim. Especially as some things just don't take well to freezing. But hey ho its only a couple of meals.

@Sprite Goblin Last time I used myfitnesspal I'm sure it allowed me to adjust my macros if that's what you mean?
 
StevieB said:
I used to do this but find its pretty un pleasant mid week on!



Lol yep you are right it does get a bit grim. Especially as some things just don't take well to freezing. But hey ho its only a couple of meals.

@Sprite Goblin Last time I used myfitnesspal I'm sure it allowed me to adjust my macros if that's what you mean?
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Not quite, myfitness pal let's me adjust my macro goals, and keep track of them just fine...

However, say I want to make up a batch of food, like chilli or what ever.

An example would be, 1500g of meat, 1kg bag of veg, may add some kidney beans, plus the sauce, and then if I also want to factor in eating it with rice, what I need to do in my fitness pal, is add all that as a custom food. They have a recipe section, but all that will do is ask how many portions, and what calories are there per portion - useless for me, unless I miss understand?

I want to know the nutritional data for my combined cooking effort, so I can then measure that out into targeted portions... so, for instance, if I then measure out say, 362g of my food, I know exactly what I've eaten.

Normally, I'd have to write it all down as I go, but the excel takes out all the calculations now, and all I have to do is input the macros and weights, the rest is done... then I can add that data to myfitness pal, and I'm away
 
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Im a bit confused... are you searching for whole meals rather than specific foods mate? 

when im cooking, i add each ingredient as its own part of that meal individually. Before long they're remembered and at the top of the list for next time too. 

IIRC you can even copy one meal and then add in your extras (i.e the rice) for the next one. 

i made a couple of recipes up at first but I found this way easier. 

*edit* the per 100g measure can be changed to per g too. 
 
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andyboro said:
Im a bit confused... are you searching for whole meals rather than specific foods mate? 

when im cooking, i add each ingredient as its own part of that meal individually. Before long they're remembered and at the top of the list for next time too. 

IIRC you can even copy one meal and then add in your extras (i.e the rice) for the next one. 

i made a couple of recipes up at first but I found this way easier. 

*edit* the per 100g measure can be changed to per g too. 
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Sorry if I am confusing. I'm not the best at explaining exactly how I mean without rambling on!

Sometimes that works, adding each ingredient as you create the meal, but surely, only if what you are making amounts to one portion?

example, I can add 4 weetabix, then 300ml milk, and 10ml omega 3 oil.... Boom, 1 meal done. Fantastic. All individual foods listed, and all macros known. No issues there.

But, what if you are making a large batch of food? I can't see how that would work?

Say you make something, be it a chilli, curry, stew etc, and the final product totals 5KG.... you cant (or at least I cant see how to add all the ingredients for that) and then, as the next few days pass by, one time I may want to eat 500g, another time 300g and so on..... so, in order to do that, the only way I have seen is to "create a new food" where you give it a brand name, so for example, we'll call this "Sprite Goblins Curry Of Wonder" you then fill out the details of the macros for your new food. So, having measured out, and calculated all your ingredients, you establish that the curry comes to something like 18g of protein, 10g carbs, 4g fats and 148 cals per 100g. Now, on myfitness pal, you can enter one food, now known as "Sprite Goblins Curry Of Wonder" You can then weigh out a completely random amount, like 218 grams, that then, is no different to weighing out (for example) a glass of milk, it's just one food, one entry.

Hopefully thats clearer as to what I'm trying to explain?
 
Aah right, im with you. Yeah, I guess thats the only way.

Ive only used the 'my recipes' section once and that was for that bodybuilding staple - yorkshire puds lol.

They are in specific servings so they fit. I guess when quantities change you'd end up faffing about with decimal places.
 
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