Macro Pattern Meal Planning

Do you mean that every meal has a set ratio of P/F/C? That's overkill and totally unnecessary.

I plan all my meals around my protein to insure I meet that macro. Fats and carbs tend to fall into place pretty well when I do this.

That sounds like a lot of work! I eat almost the same stuff everyday except for dinner so keeping my macros in place isn't too difficult. Good luck!

But what we're saying is that you can make this as complicated or as simple as you want.

I have a spreadsheet. It used to have all manner of unnecessary columns of tracked stuff. Now I have Calories, Exercise, Net calories, weekly average, weekly totals, and my weight.

On MFP I try to hit protein and calories. Over many years I made that "protein and five vegetables a day in my calories." That has been the most helpful thing I've done, I think.

I'm not a proponent of eating the same thing every day or using supplements, and I have about thirty different meals I switch around.

Keep it simple.

lots of work. I am conscious of getting a decent amount of protein in each meal but not anal with each meal P/C/F - I leave that for overall day.

I track my macros, and almost find too much planning to be the enemy.
What if I accept an office snack in the morning, and that means my prepared lunch is now too carby?

I track as I go.
If I have a coffee and a pastry for breakfast, I balance out by having a chicken salad or something for lunch, to leave me with sensible macros to have a fairly normal dinner with my boyfriend in the evening.
I do 3 meals + 2 snacks, and my snacks are protein heavy to make sure I hit that.
I also try and have flexible food in the house so I can tweak my dinner macros if I need to - we'll plan the main meat dish, plus veg, but I can add the exact amount of pasta/cous cous etc that I have left in my carbs for the day, or skip it completely if I had something crazy earlier.

Then there's the concept of a "flex bowl" to use things up at the end of the day - for me, normally random combinations of 0% fat greek yogurt (or Skyr), peanut butter, jelly beans... It's fun!

I used to meal plan for breakfast and lunch much more than I do now, but I found I was eating really odd dinners based around what I had left.
The way I do it now means I can flex my lunch to leave me with a "normal" dinner to enjoy.

I have a macro goal of 40P/40C/20F on 2100 cals/day.

I seldom reach this goal exactly during any particular day but I come pretty close overall.

My breakfast each day is pretty much the same - - protein powder, soymilk and a banana shake.

If I plan to eat lunch and dinner at home, I preplan the meals so that I meet my protein goal while staying below my cal limit w/what I have available in the house or buy at the store for the meaks that I want to prepare.

If I eat out for lunch, I plan dinner based on what I ate for breakfast and lunch.

If I plan to eat out for dinner, I try to maximize my protein intake earlier in the day while keeping my cal intake as low as possible to allow more food/drink flexibility during dinner and then choose what 2 eat for dinner based on how many cals that I have available and how many grams of protein that I still need.

If I'm low on protein and high on cals, I row for 15 mins to burn 150 cals which allow me to drink a whey protein beverage that provides 42g of protein in just 190 cals do that I can stsy under or at leadt close to my cal limit.

The carbs and fat take care of themselves. I always make low fat choices, so excess fat intake is seldom a problem.

This approach may sound complicated to others but I've done it so long now that it's 2nd nature to me.