Strict meal planning, or amending macros later in the day?

Hi there - when it comes to meal planning and tracking macros, do you generally have specific meal plans in mind, so you know in advance that you’ll hit your daily macros, or do you log stuff as you go?

My day time meals through the week generally stay the same (breakfast, lunch, snacks), but when it comes to dinner in the evening this always changes. E.g. last night was spaghetti bolognese, day before was baked potato with tuna, before that was chicken and dauphinoise potatoes. I always try to get protein and some carbs in, and try to stay ‘healthy’ where I can.

How do you guys track your meals? Do you have the same meal plans day in day out, or do it on the fly?

I don’t experience palate fatigue, so this might not work for everyone.

I eat the same lunch every single day on work days, so I know exactly what I’m doing for lunch.

Dinner wise, I typically cook enough food for my wife and me to eat for 2 or 3 days. That part I log as I am putting together the food so that I know exactly how much of everything I’m adding to it.

Basically, I’m boring and just keep things really simple for myself to track. Weekends are a bit harder because we eat out sometimes and that’s really hard to track. Right now I’m trying to do a slow bulk, but on weekends I try to visually undershoot calories because I don’t know what all is really in those meals that we are eating out. So far this strategy has worked.

Thank you - are you able to eyeball stuff to say “that has 20g carbs, 40g protein, 15g fat” etc? I struggle doing this and it would make it so much easier if I could

I only know that level of detail from cronometer.com and the fact that I eat the same thing over and over again. If I am not sure how the food will impact my daily caloric intake, I weigh it, enter it, then adjust quantity based on what cronometer tells me. But, like i said, I am only really strict with meals I eat at home because who the hell knows what’s in restaurant food.

Thems that really control this stuff weigh everything, and frequently will cook a week’s meals all at once, with lots of chicken breasts and white rice and such.

I went for quite a stretch where I used a spreadsheet and the labels and USDA #'s to figure out the macros in the entire pot of what the Mrs cooked, then weighed the entire pot when it was done and my portion and calculated my portion’s macros accordingly.

I’ve had pretty much the exact same breakfast 6 days a week for 4 years with variations only in the amount. Oatmeal cooked in milk, with Whey added to it after cooking (with a little more milk to thin it out and cool it off). 120g oatmeal/12oz milk/1 scoop whey+another 3 oz milk. I bring that down to 80g/8oz when I’m cutting.

Now I just have that breakfast as my foundation, get my protein requirement per meal for MPS initiation, plus occasional Whey and fruit between meals that are 6+ hours apart. Then I weigh myself at night. I lose almost exactly 2# overnight, so I know what I’ll weigh in the morning and if it’s short, I’ll grab a sandwich or bowl of ice cream with my evening whey. (I found out recently that Austin does something very similar, except he loses 3# overnight)

Also, many restaurants have super salty food that result in a lot of retained water the next morning (some refer to this as a sodium bomb). On nights after a dinner at 5 guys, I’ll just expect the scale to fluctuate up the next morning, but even out within a couple days.

My results probably don’t match someone like Jordan, but then, I’m not an internet fitness guru who’s abs are relevant to income and making weight at Nationals. The Mrs is very happy with the results she sees and isn’t complaining about my weighing everything she’s cooking and getting in the way in the kitchen.

@Serack that is a good way of looking at things, I never even thought of weighing myself at night, I just do it most mornings.

Do you generally just follow a healthy diet then, with a focus on getting the right protein amount in? Does this change much when you’re trying to lose body fat other than reducing your breakfast measurements?

Thanks for the reply

Thank you, I wasn’t aware that website so will check it out!

Yea. I agree with @Serack that if you really want to get a firm control over your weight/body fat, you need to weigh everything and basically not eat out. When I say eat out, I literally just mean one time per weekend. And when I do eat out, I deliberately stick to meals that are “single ingredients” for all the components: eg steak and steamed veggies with butter. Granted, I don’t eat carbs (keto for medical reasons) so i have to be strict anyways eating out. I always get weird looks at brunch ordering 4 eggs and 2 sides of sausage.

Also, I lose ~2# every night as well. I measure my stomach in the morning as well.

Morning, after first piss is when I weigh for tracking, as I feel that is the best controlled time of day. The measurement at the end of the day is mostly to check that I’m not surprisingly underfed for the day.

I eat moderately healthy, but probably don’t manage to get the RDA of veggies in, and half the Mrs’ dinners are from a box or use a can of Campbell’s cream of something.

When I’m cutting I also exercise portion control the rest of the day. The smaller breakfast kind of sets the tone.

This is basically the strategy this article calls “relaxed bulk” and isn’t ideal from a maximized lean hypertrophy perspective but I’m very happy with it.

I think the level of attention you give nutrition depends on your goals. If your goals are aggressive then likewise your approach to nutrition must be aggressive. What are your goals?

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My goals are to lose body fat, reduce waist size while ideally getting stronger. I’m not in a huge rush so am happy to do it at a reasonable pace, so I figured just ensuring I’m consistent in the gym and eat healthily should set me on the right path?

Are you following the calorie and macro recommendations of ‘to be a beast’ fat loss template? Are you tracking calories and macros daily? I recommend an app called Carb Manager because it’s free and let’s you set daily macro goals.

It’s really hard to get stronger and leaner at the same time without closely monitoring everything. I think you will need a more aggressive approach to your nutrition to be successful.

Build a history. Track your weight once a day and look at the trend week on week (I track the slope for the past 10 days vs the slope for the block with my current goals using excel). Track your waist about once a week. Over time you will get a feel for the level of effort necessary to get the results you want.

Tracking weight daily is one of the biggest indicators of if an individual will be compliant with a nutrition program.

By eating healthy: To lose weight you must enter a caloric deficit. I.E. eat fewer calories than you are burning. It is possible to get stronger while doing this, especially the more novice and fluffier you are, but it also is more of a challenge and the improvements won’t be quite as robust or may taper off a bit quicker. It is also possible to get more muscular and lose waist size during a “recomp” but I’m not genetically gifted enough, “aggressive” enough with my macro tracking, and/or an effective enough self coach (and I’m not paying someone for 1 on 1 coaching) to accomplish this.

One other thing. The closer you are to 40" or more waist size, the more aggressive you should be, as there are strong enough correlations between better health outcomes for Caucasian males if their waists are below 40" that Jordan almost always says that losing weight should be a higher priority than strength gains for that group. Not that they can’t get stronger too. He generally doesn’t advise “bulking” for anyone with a waist within 10% of 40" which is to say increasing past 36." Plus, adipose tissue (fat) is actually hormonally active. Getting below a certain body fat % can have positive effects on your training sensitivity.

I was 345 pounds last June. Biggest investment I made was a 20 dollar food scale. Just helped so much with realizing how much I was eating. Tracked everything.

I’ve maintained between 190 and 195 for 2 months now (thanks to BBM…maintenance has been the toughest stretch honestly).

I put what I want to eat into chronometer the night before, see where I’m at macros wise, and then know where I have wiggle room.

I weigh every morning and then take an average for the week and then I compare it to my weekly macro and calorie count. As said before, sometimes those high sodium meals might mess with the scale but no worries. I’m more concerned with how my belt fits during lifts.

@William_Welch congratz on your success, and I really hope your journey continues to go well!

Jesus that is a crazy weight loss, congratulations on that you should be really proud of yourself

Thanks for the kind words. Looking back I probably did it wrong (strict keto with low fat also, 4 weeks of psmf, let “injuries” dictate my lifting routine, etc) but I did learn a lot about portion control, self control, and what was in food.

I also doubled and even tripled my calories at one time based on advice from another site and just felt awful.

Started The Bridge 8 weeks ago (literally just finished my last day). Gained around 4 pounds and my waist stayed at around 33 inches. Finally got my squat unstuck (I feel I’m incredibly weak, but got my 1rm up to 275 which for me is great), my deadlift and bench press increased significantly (who would have thought that more volume would work and my cns was OK lol), and I feel more comfortable in my eating habits.

Also, I know it’s boring, but I eat alot of the same stuff. Oatmeal, eye of round steak, ground chicken, ground turkey, tuna, egg whites, kale, green beans, oikos yogurt. Helps me plan days.

I don’t plan out my meals/calories, but i do weigh and track everything i eat on myfitnesspal.com and just try to hit my macros. This allows a lot of flexibility so i’m not imposing my dietary limitations on those around me. If there’s going to be a snack party or something, i can partake and just know i’ll be eating a chicken breast + veggie later that day to stay in my calorie goal range.

For the normal routine, i am fairly boring and don’t need a lot of fanciness to be satisfied. My staple proteins are ground sirloin, chicken breasts, pork chops or pork roast, eggs, and cajun deli turkey. My staple carbs are potatoes, oats, bananas and oranges, and rice, (sometimes bread or tortillas). My staple veggies are broccoli, peas, green beans, romaine lettuce, carrots, and mixed veggies.

My meals usually include some combination of those 3 staple groups and usually some kind of condiments like butter, ketchup, mustard, or dressing, etc.
Breakfast is almost always whey + 1/2 cup oats + water & coffee, and either a serving of peanut butter or 2 eggs.
Lunch is leftovers or random combo of the above staples.
Dinner is same as above.

I do buy my meat in bulk-ish quantities and prep it or cook it once so i can eat it through the week. So for chicken i’ll cook several pounds and have it in a ziplock in the fridge that i use for my meals to make cooking faster each day. Can make salads, casseroles, pasta dishes, etc really easy from that pre-cooked stuff so family can have some more variety if they want. Same w/ ground sirloin. I cook 3 lbs at a time in patties which i can eat as is, or chopped up in various dishes. Same w/ roasts and pork chops. Rice i always use Jasmine (so much more flavor) and cook it in my insta-pot and save it for use through the week. Potatoes i cook in my microwave and they come out perfect on demand.

I will say my go to “eating out” food is Qdoba if just need a quick and easy meal. I have saved item i always order online that’s a bowl with lettuce, rice, beans, 2x grilled chicken, fajita veggies, 2-3 salsas, jalepenos, and minced onions. It comes out to something like 68g protein, 88g carbs, 22g fat, and 22g fiber. If i have extra room for fat or just feel like it, i add sour cream which is an extra 5g fat.

Thanks for this - when you say you plan to hit your macros, I assume you mean hitting the target weights, rather than percentage? So, you aim for say 170g protein for the day, rather than 40% total - thus meaning your daily calories stay more or less the same?

Did this approach take any fine tuning, or have you always just followed this method?

Thanks