Are you among the majority of people who know they need to eat with some precision but are instead just guessing? My free daily food planner comes to the rescue!
I can’t tell you what a life saver this daily food plan spreadsheet will be if you’re like 99% of people who are trying to follow a weight management regime and you’ve been throwing darts at a macronutrient dartboard.
Now, I’m not a big fan of weighing food and counting calories. Firstly it’s too time consuming and secondly we don’t know our bodies precisely enough to warrant concern over a 50-100 calorie deficit/surpluss. We’re always going to be guessing to some degree, so why not JUST guess our food intake?
Having struggled to put on weight (muscle) I realised that I did need to start counting but here’s the deal. There’s a difference between aiming for ‘something’ and pure guess work. I think I’ve struck the perfect balance between OCD calorie counting and looking at a plate of food and going “yeeeeah, that’s a meal. Probably.”
So, bring in my Excel spreadsheet for planning daily food intake. I do like my spreadsheets these days. They’re pretty (well, mine are because I used to be a graphic designer), they work and the info is solid and easy to digest. So to speak.
Why the food planner is good
You put in your daily goals, which may well be the same for the whole week, but this is the cool thing about the food planner – the numbers update in real-time, telling you how many grams you need or how many calories you need to complete your day!
Remember what I said before about striking the balance? Well this is what I’m talking about, it’s so much better to get an approximation of your needs and aim for that each day than purely guess. I found that when I guessed, I’d be out by a SIGNIFICANT amount.
This is where your results will start to show because I am starting to think that one of the main reasons people don’t see results is because they don’t actually know what they’re eating. Even very health conscious people!
How to use the food planner
Start by downloading the Excel file: Three Coaching Food Diary.xls
The Excel file has a sheet for every day of the week. Let’s say you start on Monday. Simply fill in the time of your meals (you’ll notice I’ve seeded the Monday sheet with an example day), then fill in the contents of each meal in protein, carbs, fats and any fruit you may have eaten.
The calories of each meal are worked out for you by multiplying each macronutrient by the number of calories per gram.
Finally you can put in your goals (to the left of your final daily scores) and see if you meet them by watching the ‘Remaining’ column. You’ll notice that in my example I went over my protein budget, my carbs goal was shy by 37 grams and my overall caloric goal was shy by a significant 479 Kcal.
Note: I’ve added the fruit column separately to carbs because they’re monosaccharides (sugars) and so don’t make a contribution to weight management. But those calories DO need to be factored in. Fruit content should be low for people trying to lose body fat.
Some final tips on using the food planner
You’ll firstly need at least a decent idea of your daily macronutrient goals but secondly you’ll need a solid knowledge of what is in the food you’re eating. My next mission is to design a spreadsheet which contains common healthy foods such as breads and rices, meats and oils, which can serve as a reference but can also be added to by the user. This way you’ll just need to refer to the spreadsheet if you’ve forgotten the protein, carb or fat content of your favourite chicken and potato salad. I also intend to make another spreadsheet for calculating your daily macronutrient needs – this is a work in progress.
One other final tip is that you’d do well to write out your day in advance rather than write each meal as you go. The first time I tried this resulted in the Monday example which you’ll see in the Excel file. I fell short of my daily calorie goal by about 15-17% which is enough of a margin to remove any physical change. Usually we’ll deviate from our maintenance calories by that much to either gain weight or lose it.
My Monday example shows why there is a need to keep a closer eye on daily intake. If you’re getting results by guessing, then fine. Carry on. But if you’re not seeing much progress then the least you can do is take a solid look at what exactly you’re doing. In other words – measure.
Again, we’re not talking precision. You’ll notice my daily calories goal doesn’t add up to my combined goals for protein, carbs and fats. That’s ok, I was just experimenting.
Another point is that once you’ve tried a certain volume of food for a couple of weeks, track your body’s progress. If you’re putting on too much fat or losing too much muscle, or not making any changes, adjust accordingly.
So watch this space for future spreadsheets where the focus will be on determining daily calorie intake and also a list of common foods and their nutrient breakdown (for use with this spreadsheet).
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