This is the fifth article in the Get Started Eating Every Three Hours series that outlines how to start eating every three hours and the benefits of such a diet.

Now that you are armed with the knowledge of about how many calories you require and how to keep a food log, it’s now time to plan the meals you will be eating each day.

This step is crucial, and perhaps the most difficult, to your success in eating every three hours. It is very easy to eat too many calories when eating five or six meals a day; as such, you must plan your meals before you start eating. It does not make sense to figure out how many calories you consumed after the fact. Make the decision of what you are going to eat throughout the day in advance.

This post is longer than normal and contains a large amount of information. You will not master it right away. Meal planning takes practice. Before you realize it this will all become second nature.

Make a list of foods

I mentioned this in Essential Info to Track in Your Food Log, and I’ll mention it once again because it is relevant here. Make a spreadsheet with a list of foods that you are going to eat on a regular basis. This is separate from the food log itself.

Having this “master list” of foods will make for quick reference and allow you to cut & paste food entries directly into your food log or journal.

Plan the meals for the entire day

The primary goal of meal planning is to figure out what you’ll be eating for the entire day; that is all five or six meals. The benefit is not only to save time, but allows you to know what meal substitutions you can it make if it becomes necessary. If you decide to go out with your friends to lunch (to eat healthy of course), you should have an idea of how many calories that unplanned meal is replacing. You may find that you still need to eat part of your planned lunch even after eating out in order to get the correct number of calories.

Currently, my afternoon meals (lovingly called lunch’s 1&2) are 480 and 460 calories respectively. However, on Tuesday afternoons I go out to lunch with a friend. We often end up at Applebees which has a Weight Watchers page in their menu. I pick something from this section because the calories, carbs and fats are listed for my convenience. To my surprise many of these items are between 300 and 350 calories. If I were to eat one of these meals with no consideration of calories, I would be shorting myself over 100 calories in a single meal. This will most likely lead to me being tired and drowsy at work. After eating one of these meals, I’d go back to work and eat about 100 calories from one of my lunches. If I did not have my calories for the day planned in advance I would have no idea if I would be low or high on my desired calorie intake.

In summary, plan all of your meals in the food log before you even eat your first breakfast.

Beginners: Worry only about calories, but track macronutrient ratios

When I first started eating every three hours, I went through the trouble of trying to get the calories in range in addition to balancing the macronutrient ratios (carbs, proteins and fats). It is a headache to get your calories just right, only to find that you need 10% more protein.

Too keep things simple, I recommend the beginner only focus on getting the calories on target. If you are shooting for 2000 calories a day, your goal should be between 1950 and 2050. You will rarely be exact so don’t waste time trying.

Spread your calories throughout your five or six meals. This does not have to be exact either. It usually is better to have the larger meals around your most active times. For me this is the morning, so my breakfasts are 200 calories more than my last two meals. What you want to avoid is having a 1000 calorie meal and five 200 calorie meals. Spread out the calories!

Even though you are only aiming for your calorie target, enter the macronutrient information in your food log. This will be necessary for when you make the leap to the more advanced method of meal planning. The transition will be easier if you already know what you have been eating. You may find that very few adjustments are necessary.

Advanced: Worry about the calories and the macronutrient ratios too

To get the most out of the Eat Every Three plan you need to balance your macronutrient ratios. Counting calories alone is not going to cut it. This is especially true if you are training for an event, or desire a specific physical appearance (beach body). The older you are, the more necessary this becomes.

At first glance, the following will seem unnecessarily complicated. Please bear in mind that once you run through a few weeks of meals like this, balancing macronutrients will be a piece of cake. Here we go…

Balancing your macronutrient ratios is simply a matter of splitting your calories between carbs, proteins and fats. You may choose 50% of your calories go to carbs, 30% protein, and 20% fat. This is a good starting point for most people. Since everyone is different, don’t get married to this ratio. Feel free to play around with 10% in any direction. Try a ratio for a week before changing. You may find a specific ratio is definitely wrong (you may feel sick or tired off too few carbs and too much protein). Simply change back to something that is more comfortable.

Nutritional labels on your food will rarely have how many calories of carbs are in each serving. Instead they often show the number of grams. This is a simple conversion: carbs and proteins have 4 calories per gram; fat has 9 calories per gram. So, if a serving of food has 5 grams of carbs, that equals 20 calories of carbs. 2 grams of fat is 18 calories.

For example, a serving of oatmeal (1/2 cup pre-cooked) is 150 calories, 27g carbs, 5g protein, and 3g fat. If you do the math this equates to 108 calories carbs, 20 calories of protein, and 27 calories of fat (oddly enough it adds to 155). The ratio for this serving of oatmeal comes to 72% carbs, 13% protein, and 18% fat (give or take a percentage point or two). As we can see, oatmeal clearly belongs in a carb category.

Unfortunately, oatmeal does not make a very good meal by itself. We’ll need to make an effort to eat more protein because we are shooting for a 50/30/20 ratio. Figure the ratio for some eggs or egg beaters. Toss in an apple and flaxseed oil and see what you get.

Like calories, you will not get exact on the ratios. Your goal should be to have the entire day’s meals balance out to the proper ratios with a +/- 5% on any macronutrient. It is okay to have one meal slightly out of balance on carbs if another is a little heavy in protein. Avoid having an all carb meal then a separate all protein meal. Each meal should combine your carbs, proteins, and fats for maximum benefit.

Before writing this post, I never once “did the math” on oatmeal. This was my first time. My spreadsheet has always done the brainy work for me. Balancing meals is much easier when the task is automated. Even if you do the math by hand, you’ll only have to do it once for each of the meal items on the master food list, and then it is only a matter of balancing the meals.

Portion sizes

Regardless of if you opted to use the beginner or advanced method of tracking your food intake, you may have trouble getting the calories or macronutrient ratios correct. You will soon discover that serving sizes are to blame.

To get the ratios correct, you may have to come up with your own custom serving or portion sizes. Since the oatmeal container says ½ cup pre-cooked is a serving does not mean this is a serving for YOU. Maybe you can do a 1/3 cup and get the desired results… of course this involves additional math.

Experiment with the portion sizes, but avoid getting too crazy. 3.754 ounces of turkey may get the exact protein you need, but 3.5 or 4.0 will get you close enough. Stick with portion sizes that are easily measured.

Make meal planning a habit

Get out of bed, take care of business, get your coffee, and then plan your meals. You may opt to plan your meals before going to bed. Whatever you do, make meal planning part of your routine.

There are weeks I’m lazy and the meals change very little from day to day. I have six unique meals, but they tend to repeat from day to day as long as I don’t run out of anything. Others go through the trouble of coming up with a unique cuisine every day. Do what works for you, just as long as it becomes a habit.

How do you plan your meals differently or have any tips to share?