How to Create Your Own Customized Meal Plan
Before I show you everything you’ll need to know about making your customized meal plan, I’m going to make a few assumptions.
I know you want to learn more about eating healthy, and meal planning. I’d wager that you also want a flexible approach so you can fit in a cheat meal here and there.
Regardless if your goal is weight loss, muscle growth, and/or staying consistent with your nutrition, then this article is for you.
If I’m right, this might be the most important meal planning article you’ll ever read.
I know I know…… but seriously. That’s not hyperbole.
By the end of this article, I’ll show you how you can create your own customized meal plan filled with all the foods you love and enjoy WHILE having the occasional snack food here and there.
You’ll know how to have the body you want while eating the foods you love… for the rest of your life.
At Mack Performance, I firmly believe that the best diet is the one you enjoy while making long term, objectively based progress. I take pride in my ability to empower you through education so you can sustain your results long after working with me.
Do I have your attention now? 🙃
Good. Let’s begin.
Why Traditional Meal Plans don’t work
Meal plans have long been a staple of the fitness and nutritional industry.
Clients often ask for a recommended food list or meal plan to follow. Due to this demand, coaches have been asked to provide taught to create them.
On the surface, this makes sense. You might be thinking, “Good! I want a plan. I’m sick of trying to figure all this stuff out! Just tell me what to eat!
Unfortunately, prescription meal plans just don’t work. You see, traditional meal plans are explicit prescriptions.
You have to eat this exact thing, in this exact amount, at this exact time.
As an example, you’ll often see:
Breakfast: 7:30am
3 eggs, scrambled
1 cup vegetables
1 piece whole-grain toast
1 cup coffee
1 glass of water
Morning Snack: 10:30am
1 protein bar
1 handful of mixed nuts
Lunch: 12:30pm
4oz skinless chicken breast
2 cup salad
1 handful seeds
1 glass of water
Post-workout: 4:30pm
1 scoop whey protein
½ cup of fruit
2 Fish Oil
12oz water
Dinner:
6oz steak 1 cup cooked veggies
1 baked potato
1 glass water
Unfortunately, when we try to follow rigid prescriptions like this, lots can (and often will) go wrong.
Scenario #1: You just don’t stick to the plan
No matter how enthusiastic you are, meal plans are just extremely difficult to follow.
This is normal.
Life can get in the way and life throws curveballs that we cannot always predict or control. Things like your boss expecting you to work late, it’s always someone’s birthday (or anniversary) kids get sick, or meeting run late so you cannot eat (or just don’t) want to eat a protein bar at 10:30am.
Time and time again, I’ve repeatedly found clients rebelling against their customized meal plan in subtle and non-subtle ways.
That meal plan you hoped would help you lose weight could actually encourage you to lose weight can actually encourage you to gain weight instead.
This is also normal.
Scenarios 2: You follow the plan perfectly.
Let’s say you follow the meal plan perfectly.
In fact, you follow it too well and too long.
That too is one of the downsides of a meal plan.
You see, meal plans are meant to be temporary, not how you should eat for the rest of your life.
They’re designed to help a person get to a specific short term goal, like dropping a few extra pounds before a wedding, cutting weight for athletic competition, or preparing for a bodybuilding show.
If you are too stick for too long, you could wind up with disordered eating habits and lasting health (mental, metabolic, hormonal, emotional) consequences.
—-> Click here to discover the metabolic blowtorch that burns off belly fat like magic!
Scenario #3: You follow the plan for a while, but you hate it.
Sure, it’s something you can do for a few weeks, yet it’s not sustainable.
It doesn’t make you feel better and it definitely doesn’t keep you sane.
While you may see some short term results, but you’ll hate living and eating this way. You’ll never want to see another fucken plate of chicken, rice, and broccoli again.
Eventfully, you’ll become so turned off by the process that you regress or quit altogether. You’ll conclude that “eating healthy” sucks.
However, the worst thing is that you missed your big chance to learn how to make a healthier, more enjoyable, and more lasting and real chance by learning a solid nutritional foundation that allows you to be flexible.
—-> Click here to learn how to make Meal Planning simple and easy.
How Customized Meal Planning can Save you from Dieting
The main problem with the listed meal plan above is that it doesn’t teach how to sustainably keep your results.
What happens if you want something different than steak? What will you do if you go to happy hour with friends? What if you’re craving pizza?
You need to learn the basics of nutritional principles in order for a nutritional plan to truly work for you. When you gain insight into what you’re really eating during the day, you’ll be able to have more control over your habits.
Remember that what and how much you eat has a big effect on your health.
In short, by spending the time to develop awareness and knowledge to develop a solid nutritional foundation you can improve the rest of your life.
With that knowledge, you’ll know exactly how to fit in that extra slice of pizza when you don’t want to have chicken for the millionth time that week.
The honest truth is there is no one true diet.
The truth is simple: The best diet is the one you enjoy while making long term consistent, objectively based progress. When you can fit in your favorite foods while enjoying the occasional treat yo left meal, then this whole dieting thing gets sooo much easier.
—-> Click here how to discover your perfect diet
Step by Step Guide to Creating your Own Customized Meal Plan
Step 1: Determine Your Energy Balance: How to Lose/Gain Weight
The key to understanding those “shocking” statements is understanding the concept of “energy balance” which is the relationship between the amount of calories you eat and the amount of burn.
To Lose weight - When you burn more energy (calories) than you consume, you lose weight. This is called a negative energy balance or a calorie deficit.
To gain weight - when you take in more energy (calories than you burn. This is called energy balance or a calorie surplus.
To maintain weight - When you’re taking in the same amount of calories as your burning, you’re maintaining your weight. This is technically energy balance or your maintenance calories.
So, if you want to lose or gain weight, you simply manipulate energy by:
Changing calories in aka increasing/decreasing the calories you eat
Changing calories out aka increasing/decreasing the calories you burn
This isn’t theory either. This is an immutable, indisputable, scientific fact. This is why every single controlled weight loss study conducted has concluded that meaningful weight loss requires energy expenditure to exceed energy intake.
—-> Click here how to discover your perfect diet
Step 2: Macronutrient Balance
Once you grasp energy balance, the next part of effective meal planning is macronutrient balance.
So what exactly are macronutrients anyways?
Macronutrients
- A type of food (e.g fat, protein, carbohydrates) required in large amounts in the human diet.
In other words, it’s the nutrients that build up our calories. Macronutrients contain calories and when we add them up, they equal our total daily intake
Protein has 4 calories per gram
Carbohydrates has 4 calories per gram
Fats have 9 calories per gram
(alcohol has 7 calories per gram)
A frequent question I often get is “why are macronutrients important? Can’t I just track calories?”
The honest truth is you can just track calories and lose weight. As we know back in step 1, energy balance is the biggest mover in fat loss or body composition changes.
In general, if you are in a calorie deficit, you’ll lose weight and if you are in a calorie surplus, you’ll gain weight.
However, when it comes to improving performance, optimizing recovery, creating hormonal balance, and building muscle - macronutrients are important.
For most people reading this, you’re interested in more than just losing weight. You’re probably interested in building more muscle, lifting more weight, performing at your best, and/or becoming as lean as possible.
In that case, macronutrients are very important and you’ll need to consider tracking your macronutrients. Even more important than what I listed above, is macronutrients allows individualization, instead of following a predetermined, dogmatic approach.
Macronutrients are a tool that allows us to divide your personal caloric intake into a ratio that is not only better for your specific goal but easier for you to personally meet on a daily basis. This is key because if you create a macro prescription that great in theory, but not in practice you’re shit out of luck when it comes to long term consistency (see part 1)
Step 3: Food Choice
As I’m sure you realized by now, your nutrition needs to both fuel your body optimally and allow you dietary flexibility to enjoy your life outside of body compositional results.
This can absolutely be a tall order, yet completely do-able. If you're willing to follow and embrace the philosophies I teach my online clients, you’ll not only achieve your dream physique but keep those results for a lifetime by building a solid nutritional foundation.
Overall, my philosophy on food selection is 80-90% whole foods and 10% If It Fits Your Macros
This can be confusing so let me dive into each component and why this specific balance is essential to your results:
→ 80-90% Whole Foods
Here’s the honest truth, it’s too easy to overeat in today’s society. Every day we are surrounded by highly processed foods that designed to be hyper-palatable. This means they were specifically engineered to make us crave them more. Pair this with the fact that they are also very calorie-dense and low on nutrients and you can see how difficult it is to make progress.
This is why it’s smart to follow a nutritional program prioritizing whole foods. This will ensure your food is nutrient-dense, meaning they are loaded with plenty of vitamins and minerals for a minimal amount of calories.
In the simplest terms, 80-90% of your food choices should have either:
Grown from the earth
Had a face at one point
Swam on the earth
Specifically for fat loss, these foods will help you stay full longer than thier highly processed food counterparts. People make getting and staying lean a lot harder than necessary by eating foods that digest quickly and leaving them hungry again in an hour.
Possibly the most underrated fat loss hacks is simply learning how to build your meals around your lean protein sources. I teach all my online clients to build their meals around their protein as this is the easiest way to making this whole dieting thing easier.
Remember, eating like this 80-90% of the time is great for your physique and your health, yet you don’t have to eat like this 100% of the time
→ 10-20% If It Fits Your Macros
As long as the majority of your food choices are going from whole food, you won’t have a problem with insane cravings or constantly overeating. By doing this, your fat loss will come easier because you’ll be full more often, and crushing training in the gym.
This is why utilizing a 10-20% IIFYM approach won’t hurt your results or health. This means you can use your other calorie and macros for pizza, burgers, drinks, or whatever you want.
Seriously whatever you want.
As long as your calories and macros are in check, these “cheat foods” won’t affect your results or health.
Step 4: Nutrition Timing and frequency
Generally speaking, when you eat your food doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. As long as you’re managing your energy and macronutrient balance properly, meal timing and frequency aren’t going to help or hinder your results.
With that being said, there are a few key cravats to maximize your training performance.
There’s good evidence that eating protein before and after your workouts can help you build muscle and strength over longer periods of time.
There’s also good evidence that post-workout carbs intake can help build muscle and strength.
Evenly spacing protein across the day allows you to maximize fullness.
So, if you’re lifting weight regularly, I strongly recommend you have 30-40 grams of protein before and after your workout. In addition, having 30-40 grams of carbs before a workout is great for boosting training performance and aim for 1 gram per kilogram of bodyweight for post-workout carbs needs.
How to Create Meal Plan for Losing Weight
Alright, now that we have covered the basic theory of meal planning, let’s actually get into what you want to know, creating your own meal plan for losing weight.
As you know, the key to losing body fat is being in a caloric deficit over time. So, the first step is determining how many calories you should be eating.
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Know your Energy Balance
The first thing we need to do is determine your maintenance calorie intake (aka the number of calories you maintain your current body composition at).
Here are your options
Use this calculator
Multiply your body weight by 13-17 (13 would be a sedentary office worker. 17 is an extremely active construction worker
Start tracking everything you eat in MyFitnessPal for seven days while taking your weight the first thing in the morning. (this is by far the most accurate method).
Regardless of which method you used, you should now have your baseline maintenance calorie intake.
Step 2: Determine your Calorie Deficit
Within a fat loss phase, we’ll typically be decreasing or increasing your calories based on your rate of loss. I recommend that you begin with a moderate calorie deficit of 10-15% to build consistency and confidence with your meal plan.
So what this means is you want to set your daily calorie intake to 85%-90% of your TDEE. For example, my average daily TDEE is 2536 calories so when I want to lose weight, i set my intake to about 2290 calories.
Step 3: Determine your Macronutrient Targets
The next step is to establish your initial calorie goal. Since we are focusing on fat loss, let’s dive into it.
---> For Fat Loss - multiple you're maintenance intake by 0.85
Science has repeatedly shown that to lose 1 lb of body fat per week, you’ll need to eat 3500 calories below your maintenance intake over the course of a week.
So, you’ll simply use these numbers to determine how many calories below maintenance you should be eating.
Generally speaking, creating a caloric deficit of ~3,500 calories per week will lead to ~1 pound of fat loss. So eating 500 calories before your maintenance calorie intake every day for 7 days should lead to about a pound of fat loss
Keep in mind that this is just a baseline as you’ll likely have to adjust in the near future. Unfortunately, fat loss doesn’t happen linearly in this intake :(
---> Eat 1 gram per pound of bodyweight
We know that protein is extremely important for weight loss, so we want to set our protein intake to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.
---> Eat 0.3 grams of fat per pound of bodyweight
Fats play a critical role in hormonal and metabolism health so we want to set it at 0.3. I do not recommend setting it any lower as it will negatively impact your metabolism and homones.
---> Carbs: the remaining calories does to carbs
The remaining calories go towards your carbs.
It’s that simple. Here’s an example of how it plays out.
Bodyweight: 200 pounds
Initial Fat Loss Calorie intake: 2,100
Protein: 2000 grams (800 calories as 1 gram of protein contains 4 calories)
Fats: 60 grams (540 calories as 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories)
Carbs 260 grams (1,040 calories as 1 gram of carbs contains 4 calories)
—-> Click here for The Definitive Guide for Fat Loss or Muscle Gain
Step 4: Selecting Your Top 5 Macro Food Choices
Now that you have your calorie and macro targets, it’s time to select what foods to eat. Truth be told, this is something I hear quite often, sometimes in desperation.
To add to the confusion, it’s not always obvious how to classify a food.
Is it mostly protein? A Carbohydrate? A Fat? Many people know to eat a mixture of these macronutrients, yet aren’t sure how that looks in “real food”.
The end result?
More desperate questions and frustrations.
That’s why I created this handy visual food guide. It’s designed to help you make healthier choices, no matter your knowledge of nutrition.
Step 1: Know your foods
Instead of thinking of foods on the spectrum of “approved”, “evil”, or “off-limits”, I rather look at it as foods on the spectrum from “eat more” and “eat less”
This approach promotes one of the most crucial philosophies that run through my nutritional coaching philosophy: progress, not perfection.
Not only will this spectrum help you hit your calorie and macro targets, but this spectrum will also help you make choices that are “just a little bit better”, whether you’re eating at home, dining out with friends, or dealing with banquets buffets on a work trip.
Each food’s individual nutritional value will vary, but don’t think of foods as “good” or “bad”
Seeing it on the spectrum of “eat more”, “eat some” and “eat less” helps you make better choices without branding anything as off-limits.
Step 2: Adjust for your preference and lifestyle.
Now it’s time to actually select what foods to eat based on what you enjoy eating. Your “eat more”, “eat some” and “eat less” food choices will be unique to you and may evolve as your goals, likes, and dislikes shift over time.
I recommended that you choose at least 5 food items for your protein, carbs, fats, and veggies. I recommended choosing 3-5 more food items, 1-3 eat some food items, and 1-2 eat less food items for each macronutrient category.
The proportions of your food intake that come from “eat more”, eat some” and eat less’ categories will depend on how you eat now and what your goals are. We want the bulk of our food choices to come from the “eat more” category while providing some flexibility.
Step 5: Creating your Daily Meal Schedule
Generally speaking, when you eat your food doesn’t matter. As long as your managing your energy and macronutrient balance properly and getting the majority of your calories from nutritious foods, meal timing and frequency will not play a huge role.
At this point, you might be wondering how you can exactly fit all your preferred food choices into your lifestyle? Don’t worry, I have you covered as well with a step by step instructions
1) Determine how many meals per day
The first thing we need to figure out is how many meals per day you typically have so we can spread your protein throughout the day. Typically, most clients have 4 meals throughout the day (snacks included) so let’s go with 4 meals
2) Creating your Meals Templates
As for your meals, you want to focus on including the foods you love. That’s why we choose our top 5 macro sources so we can eat and enjoy the foods we love while making consistent progress. Now, you can use my simple meal formula to mix and match foods to meet your goals.
Each meal needs to have the following for your foundation:
---> Protein Source (25-50G or 1-2 palm-sized portion)
---> Veggie/Fruit Source (1-2 fist-sized portion)
---> 1 Herb/spice for seasoning (for variety and taste)
From here, depending on your macros, you can add in:
---> Carb Source (25-50+g or 1-2 cupped hand-sized portion)
And/or
---> Fat Source (5-25g or 1-2 thumb-sized portions)
Once completed, you can add whatever condiments you choose. Just make sure to track those calories as they are usually high in calories and can impede your overall progress.
3) Plan out 2 meals ahead of time.
Lastly, here’s an often overlooked strategy that I think is most important when starting out - planning out at least 1-2 meals the night before. This will help eliminate the guessing game of what you’re going to eat.
I strongly recommended planning out your breakfast and dinner ahead of time.
The majority of my online clients eat 3-5 meals a day (snacks included) and everyone achieves results by keeping their calories in check while training hard.
Real-life Example: Mid 40’s Working Mom
Ok, I know this sounds (and even looks) overwhelming and initiating, but let me walk you through a real-life example.
Let’s say a client is consuming 1805 calories, 160g protein, 64g fats, and 150g carbs. she has decided that 3 meals and 1 snack best suits her lifestyle.
As for her top food choices, she has decided on the following:
Protein: eggs/egg whites, chicken, protein powder/shake, non-fat greek yogurt, 93% ground beef, and pork chops
Carbs: potatoes, rice, granola, apples, oranges, blueberries, salad mix
Fats: Cooking oils, mixed nuts, cheese, olives, avocados, salad dressing
Based on that information, here is what her meals will look like.
Meal #1 (Breakfast) - 43.5g protein, 48.5g carbs, and 5g fat
For Breakfast, she’s having some non-fat greek yogurt with some berries, granola, and half a scoop of protein. She knows she needs to get plenty of protein so that half scoop of protein powder will help get a little bit more protein (plus it tastes so much better). Once she is tired of greek yogurt, she can substitute it with her egg whites/whole eggs to make an omelet or breakfast sandwich of her choosing.
Food items: 1 serving of Greek Yogurt, 1 cup berries, 0.3 cups of Granola, and .5 scoop of protein powder
Meal #2 (Lunch) 32g Protein, 19g carbs, 26g fats
Since she is busy, she either brings a big ass salad or buys ones from a nearby store. She chooses the big ass salad because 1) she enjoys eating them, they’re portable and easy to prepare. She makes sure to either bring extra protein (grilled chicken) or doubles up on the protein if ordering out as this allows her to hit her protein target and keeps her full.
Food items: half a bag of Trader Joe’s Southwestern Salad Kit (w/ dressing), 4oz Grilled Chicken, salad dressing
Meal #3 (Post Workout) 30g protein, 23g carbs, 3g fats
Once she is done with work, she immediately goes to the gym. On her way, she grabs a protein shake so she can fuel her body for her training session. Since she is going to work out, she wants to make sure it’s easily digestible and doesn’t make her feel too full during the working.
Food Item: 1 Premier Protein Shake, apple
Meal #3 (Dinner) 50g protein, 79g carbs, 29g fats
Now, this meal is usually a wild card because it really depends if she is cooking that night or having leftovers from the previous night. Typically, she likes to do some easy cooking as it helps her to destress. After finishing her dinner, she usually likes to have some chocolate as a little treat yourself for a hard days of work.
Food Items: 4oz pork chops, 7oz Brussel Sprouts, 225g of cooked Jasmine rice, 40g of Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Lover’s Bar 85%
And that’s it! That’s what a typical day looks like for her hitting her macros, but more importantly, enjoying the foods she enjoys! While at first it may appear overwhelming, it’s definitely not as hard as you think it is. With practice, you’ll get better and better at it.
Remember, you are the boss!
I’ve given you the tools, knowledge, and template to get started. However, YOU know best what works for you. Sustainable nutrition always prioritizes
The foods and flavors you truly enjoy
The things you know how to cook or prep
The portions that make sense for YOU
Just like anything else, you want to ensure your meal plan works. What we want are diets and workouts that are enjoyable, effective, and viable as a lifestyle while making objectively based progress.
If a program or diet gets results, but it can’t be sustained over the long term, whether due to complexity, difficulty, or anything else, it too should be abandoned.
The Next Step:
Finally, I want you to know….
All the knowledge you absorbed within this article doesn’t equate to change.
If you're fed up with COVID interfering with your progress, invest in a coach.
If you have read DOZENS and DOZENS of guides like this in the past and still haven’t made the change nor confidence you want to invest in a coach.
If you’re overwhelmed by the content within this article, Invest in a coach.
If you cannot be consistent with the strategies within this article, invest in a coach.
If you are ready for change, I’m here to coach you.