I would argue the most important part of any positive lifestyle change (Which includes physique goals, weight loss goals, health goals, etc.) is nutrition– I know I’m not alone in that.
The question is, though, how do you plan your meals? Well, it’s really not that difficult once you get the hang of it– The key is to plan, while simultaneously tracking, rather than simply tracking.
Planning / Tracking vs. Tracking – What’s the difference?
If you only track your food, that means you track is while you eat, and at the end of the day, your macronutrients (Protein, Carbs, Fats) may be way off, and you may overshoot (or undershoot) your Calorie goals
I’m going to share with you how I plan (and track) my meals daily, and hopefully this will help shed some light on how to plan your own day so you can achieve your goals!
Let’s get started!
Typically, I plan my day the night before– Though there are times where that’s not practical, so I plan them the next morning as soon as I wake up. Here’s an important note: I always have my day planned out before I start eating anything. This way I can make sure I hit my macros for the day and haven’t sabotaged myself.
When I start planning, I start with my high protein meals first (Which for me is every meal), so that I ensure my goal for the most important macronutrient is met.
(There’s a lot more that goes into my planning, of course, like getting a variety of foods so I get a broad range of phytochemicals, and other such things, but this is just a basic idea.)
So now, I’ve been awake for about 15 minutes, and here’s what my tracker looks like:
Now, for those who have some level of experience tracking their food, you may say: “How do you know that the banana you have is going to weigh 150g?” “How do you know that your pancakes at Denny’s will weigh 200g?”
The answer to that: I don’t. I put in placeholder values for all of these items, and then I update them throughout the day– In a lot of cases it will be close to the mark, but there are times where there are drastic differences. This is also why I tend to keep some calories open for the end of my day.
As I go throughout my day, I update the values as they’re measured. At Denny’s, a serving of pancakes is 170g, and contains 310 Kcal. Of course, their pancakes are never made to a serving size, and always go over, which is why I not only anticipate that in my tracker:
. . . But I also bring a food scale to Denny’s with me to measure.
Why would you do that!?
The largest variance in serving size I’ve experienced at Denny’s was 62g– That means that someone who looks at the nutrition facts but doesn’t measure them thinks they’re consuming 310 Calories, but really, they’re eating 423 Calories. (Even on the day I’m showing you the pancakes were 32g more than a serving, which is an extra 58 Calories over a serving.) As an example: If you get nutritional counseling from me, I typically set up a 400 Kcal daily deficit, which is slightly less than 1 pound per week of fat loss; if you went to Denny’s and had those pancakes one day, your deficit would only be 287 Kcal– And that’s only from one food having a massive variance. Just imagine if other foods had such variances. Would you even be eating in a deficit? This is why you track.
The rest of the day should be tracked similarly– Update the foods you consume with the accurate measurements as you’re prepare and consume them. As an example, my Massive Fruit & Veggie Smoothie™ has a lot of placeholder values added at the start of the day– When I prepare it, I just leave the blender on the food scale while I measure every ingredient.
By the end of the day, I’ve updated everything, made revisions, and my day looks like this:
And this is why I see results at the rate I should see them. While you can never track your calories with 100% certainty, you can get as close as possible, which I feel I do on a daily basis. The more accurate you are with your tracking, the quicker you will achieve your goals!