Has anyone made up their own food plan?

Isn't that what most people do every day?

Wouldn't it be easier to prelog your meals to ensure you hit your macros? I know a really cool app that lets you do this...

OliveGirl128 wrote: »

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

Isn't that what most people do every day?

Maybe I'm an odd duck here because I've never really followed a set plan, as far as food goes, until earlier this year, (except for a very short lived experiment with paleo eating back in the day, and that was very focused on what foods not to eat vs what I'm trying to do now and add/increase foods that I think could be beneficial)

I don't do a specific plan, and honesty every time I think about writing down what I plan to eat for the week I feel rebellious and bored.

What I do is have a plan in my head that is extremely flexible:

Usually 1 main breakfast with a couple of alternatives, all of which are built around multiple vegetables (including cooked or raw greens) and the amount of protein I like at breakfast.

Lunch and dinner (lunch is often dinner leftovers although sometimes I cook lunches ahead for a few days and I change the vegetable sides) are based around protein (meat, eggs, dairy, or beans/lentils -- I know this is different for you, obviously) and a couple kinds of vegetables, at least.

What specific proteins and vegetables I use is something I know even though I don't sit down and plan it. I get my meat from a farm, so usually think about what I will want in the next few days and get it out of the freezer accordingly. I also might decide to do something in the slow cooker or plan ahead a dried bean based meal (that will be multiple meals, of course).

For vegetables, during this time of year I get them from a CSA (a box from a farm) and simply work with what I have. I know what I have, so think about how to use it. For me this is more fun and creative than trying to plan meals around specific vegetables and usually you can use a huge range of different ones, it does not matter. If I have something I need to use that I am less familiar with (rare now), I might pull out a good vegetable cookbook to get ideas. (Off season I buy the vegetables that are on sale/look good to me every few days and use those -- being practiced with the box, it's easy.)

I usually have misc things -- fruit, avocado, nuts -- that I regularly include in my day. This time of year I have seasonal fruits, so include them as I desire, perhaps as a finish to the meal I'll eat cherries or I'll put apricots on a salad or I'll cook peaches as part of a sauce for pork chops. Avocados I will use as a side when I have them. Nuts I usually eat at least once a day (different ones) -- either as a finisher to a meal or maybe I'll put some nut butter in greek yogurt (I'm currently obsessed with walnut butter) or I will use them as part of a meal preparation.

Olive oil and the like I use as salad dressing or for cooking.

I like pickled foods, so often use those as accents.

I love fish and think it's good to include in my diet, so I have it quite frequently but don't feel compelled to plan it in. On the whole with nutrition I think it's not necessary to overcomplicate it and just try to balance having a diversity of foods and eating seasonally when possible. The only real rules I have have to do with getting a decent amount of protein and multiple vegetables/decent sized servings in all meals and making sure to combine cooked and raw vegetables, and to have greens (chard, kale, collards, spinach, arugula, beet greens, and on and on) in some form often, ideally a couple times a day, which is really easy since these are the vegetables that always seem to be in my box no matter the time of year (varying, of course) and which are reasonable inexpensive even off season.

That said, if planning more specifically seems fun to you, I think that's great. I just would find it ruined the fun of cooking for me, and I tend to agree with Pollan (over Fuhrman, maybe) on nutritionism.

Like you, I don't log every meal day in day out only occasionally. Knowing your portion size from the days when you were weighing and logging pedantically, really helps. Knowing your personal needs.

For me, its been about discovering what worked for me. I try to keep things as varied as possible veg and fruit wise, home prepared meals for the most part. There is increasing research into our digestive biome which is indicating strong results, from a positive "well being" aspect as well as digestive comfort area. Eating as varied a diet as possible is beneficial particularly when the foods are fibrous, to generalise, we are not eating nearly enough fibre to support our essential microbes in variety or numbers we require. It is thought they outnumber our human cells times over ideally. I wonder if your, aid memoir, has scope for this consideration.

I second your concern for a diet which is too low fat, fat not only helps absorb many vitamins it is also required for the structure of many of our hormones.

I encourage you to do what works for you. If this or that idea chimes with your ethos go for it. At this moment in time I don't think we benefit by following someone specific thoughts on what they think is "a good diet", we only get one go at this so, make your own way and be happy.