Tip For Planning Your Next Day

Hello Everyone!

Thought I would pass this idea along in hopes it may be of some help!

All the diet pros say that planning your NEXT DAY'S MEALS is very, very important. I was playing around with the website today (I'm new so I have been reading every word of it this afternoon.....I should probably be on my treadmill instead!) Anyway....... I found that you can actually go into the Food Diary and change the date at the top to the NEXT day. You can go ahead and plan out your breakfast, lunch and dinner to see how the totals end up. If you see that the lunch you have planned is more calorie heavy than you planned then you can adjust it or maybe plan a smaller breakfast or dinner.
The next day you can look at your menu for the day and try to stay on track. If you end up not eating on the plan you can easily remove it and add what you did eat.
Hope this helps :)
Anita

Replies

  • DivaLisa
    DivaLisa Posts: 29
    great idea

    i know this is old, but it is good, i hope that by replying it bumps the message back to the top (im new here so not totally sure)
  • Coach2010
    Coach2010 Posts: 209
    I'm in! I normally only focus on Breakfast and Lunch...now I'll add dinner! Thanks!
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    I do this but for the whole week, in combination with meal prepping (bulk cooking a week's worth of breakfasts and lunches all at once, and dividing up portions into individual containers - it's like having leftovers but on purpose). That lets me see how much "wiggle room" I have, since I prefer to look at the whole week rather than focusing on the day-to-day.

    So, for example, if Thursday night is date night, I can see that my planned menu leaves me with a hundred calories on Monday, two hundred calories on Tuesday, etc etc throughout the week, that aren't accounted for already between my planned breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner, and dessert. I can "save" those few hundred calories from the other days to "spend" on Thursday when hubby and I go out for pizza and beer. This allows me to fit things like pizza and beer into my diary, while still maintaining a deficit for the week and not derailing my weight loss. Additionally, if plans change suddenly (forgot to thaw something, miscounted how many servings there were of something, just not interested in whatever the plan originally was, etc), I know how many calories I had set aside for the meal and can use that as a guideline when figuring something else out.

    I've found that for me personally it also staves of the feeling that any opportunity for treats is my Last! Ever! Chance! at doughnuts or whatever (even if intellectually I know they aren't going to go burn down the donut factory tomorrow if I turn one down today) - this kind of mindfulness and thinking in terms of the week makes me aware that actually, no, work brings in doughnuts like 2-3 times a month, and also if I want it that badly I can find a way to make it fit in my budget.