Making easy, healthy, and delicious meals that hit your macros doesn’t require spending hours in the kitchen or stressing over complicated recipes. My clients and I follow a simple framework to turn your calorie and macro targets into a variety of meals that you can easily rotate between as desired.
#1. Split Your Day Into Meal Targets
Split your daily total targets into 3-5 approximate ‘buckets’ per meal. These are a reference point, not rigid targets. It doesn’t matter if you’re over or under at any given meal, but you’ll know that if you have a larger breakfast, you’ll need to have a smaller lunch or dinner to hit your daily targets.
I recommend starting with 4 meals for most people, this balances a regular eating pattern with reasonable sized meals.
Imagine these are your daily targets:
2030kcal (If you’re wondering why the extra 30kcal, it’s because total calories are calculated from the sum of your macronutrient targets, with protein and carbs providing 4kcal per gram, and fat providing 9kcal per gram. For simplicity’s sake, you could call this a target of ~2000-2100kcal.)
140g protein
210g carbs
70g fat
Then we’ll split them evenly across 4 meals of:
508kcal
35g protein
53g carbs
18g fat
I’ll say it again - these are not rigid targets you have to hit, but they should form an approximate guide for the size of your meals. You know that on average, your meals will be about 500kcal and 35g protein. Calories and protein are most important, so focus on these first before worrying about carbs and fats.
If you have 4 meals that roughly hit these targets, you know you’ll be close to your total by the end of the day, rather than getting to dinner and realising you only have 200kcal left, or realising you’ve undereaten protein and need to fit in another 60g before bed somehow.
Based on this example, your daily intake could look like this:
Breakfast: ~500kcal, 35g protein.
Lunch: ~500kcal, 35g protein.
Pre Training: ~500kcal, 35g protein.
Dinner: ~500kcal, 35g protein.
There’s no reason some meals couldn’t be larger and others smaller than this average, for example:
Breakfast: 300kcal, 25g protein.
Lunch: 700kcal, 45g protein.
Pre Training: 300kcal, 25g protein.
Dinner: 700kcal, 45g protein.
Equally, you could have 3 meals of ~675kcal or 5 meals of ~400kcal. But let’s stick with 4 meals as your starting point.
At the end of the day, your daily totals matter most, but breaking them down into manageable steps helps.
#2. Choose Your Foods
Now you roughly know how big each meal should be, you need to pick the foods to make your meal. These foods and ingredients fall into the below categories:
Proteins
Veggies
Carbs
Fats
Flavourings (Seasonings, Sauces, Condiments)
Here are some lists for each meal component to give you some inspiration and a starting point.
Proteins
Vegetables
Practically, I recommend making a large salad with lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and any other salad veg of your choosing. You can add some lemon juice to help maintain freshness and store in the fridge for 2-3 days. This means you can easily grab a few handfuls at each meal for simplicity.
Carbohydrates
Fats
Flavourings
Fresh & Dry Herbs and Spices
Salt
Pepper
Fresh herbs (e.g., parsley, coriander, basil, mint, dill)
Dried herbs (e.g., oregano, thyme, rosemary, basil)
Ground spices (e.g., paprika, cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, chilli powder)
Seasoning mixes (e.g., taco seasoning, jerk seasoning, all-purpose seasoning, Cajun spice blend)
Sauces, Condiments, and Dressings
Pasta sauce (tomato-based)
Soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Fish sauce
Store-bought marinades (e.g., teriyaki, BBQ, peri-peri)
Salsa
Guacamole
Sour cream
Yoghurt (plain, low-fat or Greek)
Chilli sauce (e.g., Sriracha, peri-peri, Tabasco)
Chilli oil
Low-sugar ketchup
Low-sugar BBQ sauce
Reduced-fat mayonnaise
Low-fat salad dressing
Standard vinaigrette
Toppings
Olives (green or black)
Pickled vegetables (e.g., gherkins, pickled onions, kimchi, sauerkraut)
Cheese (e.g., cheddar, feta, parmesan)
Nuts (e.g., almonds, cashews, pistachios, walnuts)
Seeds (e.g., sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, chia)
Crispy shallots
#3. Make 5-10 Meals For Your Menu
Having a go-to rotation of these simple meals will take much of the stress out of your daily cooking. You can even add commonly eaten meals as recipes/meals in your tracking app, to simply add and tweak portions as needed each day, to save time and energy when tracking your food.
You can use whichever cooking method you prefer, such as sautéing in a pan with a little oil, air frying, baking, grilling, etc. If you use cooking oil, ensure you track it for accuracy.
Here are some example meals using this framework.
As you get more experienced, or grow bored of your meals, add new ones into your rotation. Try salmon or pork instead of beef, noodles instead of rice, try different seasonings and sauces, you get the idea.
#4. Add A Pre-Training Snack
This is an optional extra step.
If one of your meals is within 1-4 hours before training, then you’re already fuelling with that meal and adding an extra snack is not essential.
However, if you want a further boost on top of your regular meals, you can add a pre-training snack 1-2 hours before training on top of this.
This can be helpful if you’re training twice per day, wanting to fuel a hard session, or you simply prefer to include a snack in your daily routine.
The only required macronutrient for these snacks is carbohydrate, you can include protein if it’s convenient, but hitting your daily target across 3-5 servings is what matters most.
We want to keep fats and fibre fairly low in these final 1-2 hours before training as they both slow down your digestion, hence the focus on ‘white’ carbs over my usual wholegrain carb recommendation.
A good reference point is 1g carbs per kg bodyweight. So, if you’re 65kg, aim for ~65g carbs. This can be lower if you want something small before an early morning session or are on low calories, or higher if you have the calorie and carb budget, but it’s a good reference point nonetheless.
Example Pre-Training Snacks
30g Coco Pops (or other cereal) + 150ml low fat milk + banana. 271kcal, 60g carbs.
2 slices white toast + 40 g strawberry jam. 285 kcal, 64 g carbs
1 medium bagel + 25 g honey. 321 kcal, 64 g carbs
60 g instant oats + 200 ml semi-skimmed milk + 1 tsp sugar. 327 kcal, 66 g carbs
2 rice cakes + 50 g banana + 60 g dried mango. 302 kcal, 65 g carbs
50 g pretzels + 1 medium apple. 294 kcal, 63 g carbs
250 ml chocolate milk + 40 g jelly sweets. 314 kcal, 68 g carbs
3 medjool dates + 60 g dried apricots. 284 kcal, 68 g carbs
2 crumpets + 30 g honey. 292 kcal, 66 g carbs
Example Day Including A Pre-Training Snack
Breakfast: Oats + Milk + Whey Protein + Peanut Butter + Strawberries
Lunch: Chicken Breast + Mixed Salad + Tortilla Wrap + Sour Cream + Sriracha
Pre-Training: Cereal + Low Fat Milk + Banana
Dinner: Salmon + Asparagus + New Potatoes + Butter
#5. Go Food Shopping With Your List
You can do a huge weekly shop if you like, but personally I’ve found doing a smaller shop 2-3 times per week buying food for a couple of days at a time leads to less stress and overwhelm, less food wastage, and a greater variety of foods eaten. Find an approach that works for you, that you could stick to forever.
Write out a 1-3 protein sources, 1-3 carb sources, a variety of fruits and vegetables, and if you need to top up on seasonings, sauces, or dressings then make a note of that as well.
Example Shopping List: keep it simple, focus on the next 1-3 days.
The good thing about this approach is that once you learn it, it's like riding a bike, you never forget it. The skill is with you for life.
If you want to look and perform like a pro athlete, no matter your starting point, click here.
I'll set you up with a personalised nutrition and training plan, and we'll check-in every week to overcome any challenges you face on the way to achieving your performance and body composition goals.
No minimum commitment, love it or your money back.