Benefits Of A Custom Meal Plan

How Traditional Diets Fail

Before we get into how your custom meal plan works, it’s critical to understand why traditional diets fail.

All diet plans rely on the principle that eating fewer calories than you burn results in weight loss. In contrast, eating more calories than you burn results in weight gain.

And for the most part, this is true. However, it’s not that simple. Your body responds to consistent changes in energy supply by adjusting your metabolic rate.

As an example, the most common weight loss advice is to eat 500 calories less than you burn each day. It seems logical, but it doesn’t work because your body quickly adjusts by lowering its energy output (metabolic rate).

This concept is known as metabolic adaptation. And it’s the primary reason that calorie restriction fails in the long term.

The graph above illustrates how your metabolism slows down due to a calorie shortage. Then, after a few weeks, you hit a plateau in weight loss.

Of course, the typical response is to lower calories again, but that only makes matters worse! Conventional diets result in significant muscle loss and leave you feeling depleted and hungry. As a result, you end up getting skinny fat instead of lean and defined.

Let me be clear; calorie balance is the number one factor in burning fat or building muscle. But most diets get the calorie target wrong!

Now I will show you a better way—a diet solution where you do not deprive yourself of food or waste away.

Instead, you feed muscle while burning fat! And that’s what transforms your body.

A Better Solution

The root cause of the diet problem is energy imbalance. Therefore, the solution is to create energy balance. And that means we need to revisit the premise of calories in vs. calories out.

Personalized Calorie Targets

Another name for calories out is total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). That’s a fancy way of saying calories burned by your base metabolic rate (BMR), routine daily activities, and any exercise you do.

As you can see in the chart above, your energy expenditure is mainly dictated by your metabolic rate. But it can also change with your activity level and exercise habits.

With your energy expenditure calculated, it’s easy to determine how many calories you should eat. And it’s better to adjust based on a percentage of your TDEE rather than an arbitrary number of calories.

For example, to lose weight without losing muscle, you should target 10-20% below your TDEE. And vice versa to gain muscle with minimal fat.

In addition, I advise people to do a weekly high-calorie day as part of a weight-loss plan. This temporary energy surplus is called metabolic confusion because it prevents your body from adapting to the calorie deficit.

From here, we can begin to find your macros.

High Protein

The golden rule in fitness is to consume 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. In other words, a 180-pound person would eat 180 grams of protein per day.

The idea is that this should create a high protein intake to prevent muscle breakdown and the resulting slowdown in metabolic rate. However, the “grams per pound” approach is a vast oversimplification.

To illustrate, consider a 300-pound obese woman trying to lose as much fat as possible. If she follows the rule and eats 300 grams of protein per day, she will likely overshoot her calorie target and gain weight.

Conversely, take a 145-pound skinny guy trying to gain muscle. If he eats only 145 grams of protein, he probably won’t gain much, if any, muscle. Now you can see how this rule quickly falls apart.

A better approach is to calculate your protein intake based on a percentage of your calorie target. (Are you beginning to see a pattern here?)

In my experience, aiming for about 30% of your calories from protein is an ideal target. And this works regardless of body size and goal because your calorie target already took that into account!

Carb Cycling

Carb cycling is simply alternating your daily carbohydrate intake based on your activity level. Usually, a “cycle” includes low, medium, and high carb days.

The general idea behind carb cycling is to give yourself more “fuel” when you need it and less when you don’t.

To find your daily carb intake, we will use the same percentage-based approach for protein. However, your carb target changes depending on your activity level each day of the week.

In addition, your dietary fat intake should make up the balance of your calories. So you will have lower fat on high carb days and higher fat on low carb days.

Weekly Custom Meal Plan Examples

At this point, it’s easiest to jump into some examples showing you custom meal plans for some real-life situations.

3 Day Custom Meal Plan

For our first example, let’s say Steve works out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That means his rest days are Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

In that case, his weekly custom meal plan would look like this:

In the chart above, the color-coding represents the number of calories and carbs. The darker the shade of green, the more calories and carbs you get.

Remember, you get more carbs on days you workout compared to days you rest. And once per week, you should increase your carbs and calories, preferably on a workout day.

5 Day Custom Meal Plan

In this next example, let’s say Sarah works out Monday through Friday and takes the weekends off. Her weekly custom meal plan would be as follows:

Of course, your actual schedule could differ depending on how many days per week you choose to exercise as well as what days you work out. But the examples above should give you a good idea of the overall concept.

Daily Custom Meal Plan Schedule

Another aspect of your custom meal plan is what (and when) you eat to hit your daily macros. So I will show you a typical low, medium, and high carb day.

Low Carb Day

First, let’s look at a low-carb day. Low days are when you don’t do any intense exercise like weightlifting. Low-intensity activities like yoga or light cardio are optional.

You need very few carbs since you aren’t burning as much energy. As you can see below, each meal consists of protein and fat with low carbs.

I’ve also included three example recipe options for each meal to give an idea of what kinds of foods you could eat. And with the meal plans I provide, you get six recipe options that fit your macros.

Medium Carb Day

Next, let’s go through a medium day. Or a typical workout day where you do resistance training or moderate to high-intensity exercise.

You should get most of your carbs and calories on medium days around the time you work out. Again, you’re giving your body energy when it needs it.

In the example below, Sarah works out in the morning. And most of her daily carbs and calories are in the meals she has within a few hours after exercising.

In this meal plan, “Lunch 1” and “Lunch 2” represent two mid-day meals with the same calories and macros. You could choose to combine these into one large meal or have them a couple of hours apart, depending on your appetite and schedule.

High Carb Day

Last but not least is the high carb day. Also known as your weekly “refeed day,” where you temporarily increase your carb and calorie intake.

Still, this is not an excuse to binge or eat whatever and whenever you want. Instead, you should consume most of your carbs and calories around your workout for the best results.

That said, you can occasionally plan your high-carb day around special events. This flexibility allows you to partake in social gatherings without hurting your diet.

With these samples, you should know how to eat each day. But your body and situation are probably different than the examples.

So your custom meal plan depends on your body type, activity level, and goals. That’s where I can help!

Create Your Own Custom Meal Plan

Fill out the simple questionnaire below, and you can purchase your custom meal plan starting at just $7.99 per month. You’ll get personalized calories, macros, and a meal schedule to help you reach your fitness goals.

Actual Custom Meal Plan Results

If you’re not ready to pull the trigger on a paid plan just yet, I understand! Because you’re right about being cautious with all the misinformation out there.

But results speak louder than words. So let me show you some real-world outcomes of using the custom meal plan system.

Below is a video of my client, Dylan, after 12 weeks of carb cycling for fat loss. As you can see, he has a ripped midsection and still has a lot of muscle mass.

But this system isn’t limited to weight loss or cutting. I can also help you implement a custom meal plan to stay lean as you bulk up.

Below is my progress of gaining 20 pounds with minimal fat gain. You can get results comparable to this by choosing “lean bulk” as your fitness goal.

Finally, I should point out that these meal plans are not just for men. And the carb cycling principles work whether you’re a 20-something bodybuilder or a 40-plus soccer mom.

In fact, most of my clients are women! And they have gotten results as good as the men (if not better).

Here is what some of my female clients are saying:

About Me

Of course, I don’t expect you to follow my plan without knowing who I am. My name is Jeremy Fox. I’m an engineer, CPT, fitness competitor, and the founder of Nutritioneering.

Click below to learn more about my background and personal fitness journey.

Choose Your Plan

If you’re ready to embark on your fitness journey and transform your body, you can start right now! Below is what you get when purchasing a Basic, Premium, or Elite custom meal plan.