How to Create a Meal Plan in Five Steps

Define your goals

Set up your goals. Maybe they are related to your physique or you just want to eat healthier and add better nutrients to your diet. Whatever the reason for making the meal plan is, having a specific idea of what you want to achieve is crucial, especially at the beginning.

Your current state

Be realistic, and see your current state, most importantly, what are you doing wrong. A good way to do this would be to write down your eating habits for a week. While doing this try, to be honest, and neutral.

The solution can come to surprisingly fast when you write it all down and look at it from another perspective.

Define the needed steps

If you want to lose weight you should be in a caloric deficit and if you want to gain weight you should increase your calories. There are online calculators which will help you to find the best caloric intake – these sites will take your age, weight, height, activity, and goals into consideration.

When you count your calories, also see your macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats) to see which percentage of each you need.

If you want to eat healthier or have a specific health issue you want to work with, explore the subject and choose the steps for your goal. For example, if you feel like you are not eating enough vitamins, include at least five different colors of fruits and vegetables every day. This will automatically result in a higher intake of vitamins and minerals and make you feel healthier and more energized.

Choosing food for the meal plan

Now that you have your goals and defined steps, it is time to write the plan. There are more ways to do it but it is important to simplify the process for yourself at first because too many information could make you lose motivation. Write down a list of the foods you like to eat and would like to include in the plan. Then invest some time in exploring each thing on the list. If you are just focused on counting your calories, then write down how much calories a certain amount of that food has. On the other hand, if you want to focus on taking enough protein daily then write the protein quantity.

Creating the meal plan

Now when the hard part is done, start adding the foods from the list to your meal plan. Combine them to achieve your daily intake of desired calories, macronutrients, etc. You can choose to make a different meal plan for each day of the week, or just write one meal plan, with three variations for each meal of the day. Be sure to write down the main courses and snacks alike.

When you have completed the plan, stick to it as much as you can, but don’t be afraid to change it up and add new things over time. The goal is to have an understanding of good, healthy food, that, one day, you might not even need a meal plan to stay healthy.