When Do You Decide... ?

My snacks are adjustable and will depend on hunger, how many calories I have left over and what I feel like eating (I usually only snack in the evening, sometimes in the afternoon when I'm really hungry and dinner won't be ready in the near future.

My main meals are planned out for shopping purposes, usually 3 or 4 days at a time: I know what I'll eat, but not the precise quantity.

Bread and toppings will be according to what I feel like at that time (or prepared in advance when I'm working at the office).

Warm meals: my precise portion will depend on how calorific it is (I try to calculate it beforehand, if possible) and how much my boyfriend wants to eat 🙂

The only meals where I know what and how much I'm going to eat in advance is when I have leftovers (for one person), a ready-meal or I prepare my lunch at home before going to work (but even in that last case, I might just hit down the quantities and calculate the calories later) or breakfast because it's usually the same day in day out.

I'm definitely a wing-it person. I always have the foods I eat available but when I open the fridge, if I feel like a salad meal or an egg meal or tuna or whatever, then that's what I'll have.

I've tried preplanning or pre-logging but it just doesn't seem to work for me. I'm constantly changing my mind.

I tend to eat the same breakfasts (two general different ones depending on whether I'm working out early with others, or am on my own for eating schedule. (I'm retired, but I was similar when working: Breakfast is all about patterns. I wake up slowly, don't handle morning all that well. Varying breakfasts lots feels too complicated.)

After that, all bets are off. If I had the light pre-workout breakfast, I tend to have my oatmeal concoction (the heavier breakfast) for lunch, because I like it just that much.

Snacks are always impromptu, though obviously they tend to rely on a small range of quick-to-grab foods, but the specific range varies over time.

Dinner, I usually decide generally what to make late in the day, but often it's a bare outline ("something with tempeh", "something with beans and the leftover canned tomatoes"). I've been known to make up the details, even sometimes make a sharp left turn, while actually in the process of cooking dinner. I almost never plan exactly, precisely what dinner is until I start getting out ingredients, though fairly often I have a general category (stew, tostadas, pasta dish, etc.)

For meals, I pretty much never use recipes, except for general ideas of new patterns to try. I just cook, put things together impromptu. (I do use recipes, mostly, for things that have a lot of what I think of as "structural ingredients", such as baked goods.)

I eat the same thing, but sometimes I will tweak certain ingredients to change up the flavors. Other than that, I just copy paste everything to the next day and do everything from memory

I don't pre log because I always change my mind - but I do meal prep - so I have foods on rotation for the week.
It saves money and time
It also really helps me keep my calories down because there's always something ready to eat.
I need to start planning snacks for when I'm out and about because this is where I fall short.
I find bakery goods hard to resist!