Macro meal planning for the week

I would love it if you shared this with a friend!

*This post contains affiliate links which means if you click and buy, I may make a commission at no additional cost to you. See my full disclaimer policy for full details

One of the top reasons I hear from people that they don’t want to count macros is because they don’t have time. I understand it can be a little overwhelming, but a little prep work, in the beginning, goes a long way. Macro meal planning can be simple!

I want to share how I make my meal plans, and lay out my meal plan for next week for you!

The first thing I do is look at my calendar to determine if I have any appointments or if the boys have baseball practice or games. This is important because it lets me know that I either need to have leftovers or something super simple for the night planned.

Because I batch cook my lunches and most of my breakfast, I plan them next.

I try to even out my macros the best I can throughout my day. For instance, right now I am in a cutting phase and my protein is set at 150 grams a day. I try to have 30-ish grams of protein planned for meals and or snacks. Carbs and fats are broken down the same way. I don’t stress carbs and fats as much as I do protein and calories.

The Plan

For breakfast next week I will have homemade sausage egg mcgriddles. You can find the recipe for them HERE!

I typically take my breakfast to work and have it there since I am not starving after my post workout shake.

I pack snacks for morning and afternoon, but I don’t always want or need them, I just like to be prepared. This week my snacks are Fairlife Core power chocolate protein drink with fruit, rice cakes with American Dream Chipwrecked Peanut Butter!

For lunches next week I will be packing taco salads, they are literally one of my favorite meals ever. I got this recipe from Emma Montgomery and it breaks down like this

Another super yummy lunch option would have been this recipe for Asian Turkey Meatballs!

Now comes the fun part, dinners!

My husband works second shift, so all the baseball running, games, practices, appointments, and cooking falls on me solely after I get off work.

I try to plan very easy basic meals during the week, and sometimes we will have leftovers (planned) or one of my go-to freezer staples which I will share a list of my favorites on my site soon!

Dinners for week

Here is the plan for next weeks dinner.

Monday- Left over (both boys have practice so I will be super short on time tonight). My husband is grilling some Chicken today (Sunday) so I am going to stick a few pieces int he crockpot and I will have Shredded buffalo chicken, lean cuisine macaroni and cheese, and broccoli at the ball field!

Tuesday- Grilled steak and roasted veggies (This will likely be roasted broccoli, but may also include some asparagus or peppers). I don’t have time to burn down coals so I use my Ninja foodie Grill which you can check out HERE.

Wednesday- Turkey burgers with dijon yogurt dressing and roasted broccoli.

Thursday- Chicken bacon ranch skewers.

Friday- unstuffed pepper bowl (Recipe coming soon!)

Adding meals to MFP

I typically add meals to My Fitness Pal on Sunday as I am prep cooking stuff. This is only because I like to have weights for better accuracy. In terms of dinners, I will go ahead and enter amounts of food to see how it fits, this allows me to adjust serving sizes if I need to before the day even begins. It really is not that time-consuming to enter most of your food for the week in advance, plus they have the swipe feature on the free version of MFP where you can swipe to add the same breakfast or lunch from the previous day.

In the end…

Really it comes down to what is important to you. If you truly want to count macros, you will make it work. A little planning upfront can really benefit you in the long run.

If you have been wanting to try counting macros but are overwhelmed by where to start, keep an eye out for when I release my getting started with macros guide COMING SOON!