131
3
4
12
Cheddar cheese
100 grams
403
23
3
33
Fruits
Food
Amount
Calories
Protein
Carbs
Fat
Banana
100 grams
89
1
23
0
Grape
100 grams
69
1
18
0
Strawberry
100 grams
32
1
8
0
Watermelon
100 grams
30
1
8
0
Orange
100 grams
47
1
12
0
Pear
100 grams
57
0
15
0
Blueberry
100 grams
57
1
15
0
Apple
100 grams
52
0
14
0
Raspberry
100 grams
52
1
12
0
Cantaloupe
100 grams
34
1
8
0
Veggies
Food
Amount
Calories
Protein
Carbs
Fat
Broccoli
100 grams
34
3
7
0
Zucchini
100 grams
17
1
3
0
Carrot
100 grams
41
1
10
0
Brussels sprout
100 grams
43
3
9
0
Lettuce
100 grams
17
1
3
0
Tomato
100 grams
18
1
4
0
Green bean
100 grams
31
2
0
0
Onion
100 grams
40
1
9
0
Mushroom
100 grams
22
3
3
0
Asparagus
100 grams
20
2
4
0
Condiments
Amount
Calories
Protein
Carbs
Fat
Mayonnaise
100 grams
680
1
1
75
Ketchup
100 grams
101
1
27
0
BBQ sauce
100 grams
172
1
41
1
Pesto
100 grams
418
10
10
38
Mustard
100 grams
60
4
6
3
Horseradish
100 grams
48
1
11
1
Balsamic vinegar
100 grams
88
0
17
0
Soy sauce
100 grams
60
11
6
0
Tabasco sauce
100 grams
12
1
1
1
Sriracha sauce
100 grams
93
2
19
1
How to Calculate What’s in Recipes
The only way to “safely” include recipes in your meal plans is to total the calories and macros for each ingredient and divide the sums by the number of servings.
If this isn’t possible due to exotic ingredients or some other reason, skip the recipe. Stick with ones that you can easily and accurately measure.
For this reason, the simpler a recipe is, the better it will generally be for meal planning. Stay away from gourmet recipes that take considerable time, skill, and money to make; that don’t store and reheat well; or that are hard to measure and quantify.
Remember that when it comes to cooking, more—more ingredients, more steps, and more time—doesn’t always mean better food. A well-made, simple recipe beats a poorly executed, fancy one every time.
This is why the best meal plan recipes are easy and fast to make, require relatively few ingredients, and allow you to prepare large amounts of food with minimal equipment and work.
If a recipe you like contains too many calories, there are several ways you can lighten it:
If it’s not a baked good, reduce (or remove, if possible) the butter or oil. An easy way to do this is to use cooking spray or a nonstick pan instead.
Replace sugar with a zero-calorie sweetener of your choice.I like Truvia because it bakes well. Pure stevia extract mixed with egg whites can also work well in the oven.
Swap whole-fat dairy with low- or nonfat dairy.Try skim milk instead of whole, 0 or 2 percent Greek yogurt instead of plain whole-fat yogurt, half-and-half instead of cream, etc.
Swap fatty meats for leaner cuts (or poultry).
What about Eating Out?
Generally speaking, the less you eat out, the better the results you’re going to see with your diet.
The reason for this is obvious: eating out makes it harder to control your calories.
For example, a palm-sized piece of meat usually has at least 120 to 150 more calories than you’d expect due to the oil and butter absorbed during cooking.
A cup of plain pasta or potato ranges from 180 to 200 calories, but when there’s a sauce or other source of fat, that can easily double.
Even vegetable dishes can contain a lot of “hidden calories” in the form of high-fat additions like butter, oil, and cheese. (The better the veggies taste, the more likely they are to be soaked in one or more of these.)
As for desserts, a good rule of thumb is 25 to 50 calories per tablespoon.
This is why you have to watch what you order when you eat out, especially if you’re like me and can eat a lot of food in one sitting. If I let my stomach do the thinking, I can easily put down 200 or more grams of fat and a few thousand calories in one go.
The first step to becoming a skilled eater-outer (that’s a word, right?) is familiarizing yourself with the nutritional realities of the types of foods you like to eat when you dine out.
You can do this on a website like CalorieKing, which has an entry for just about any type of dish you could want to eat. If you’re eating at a chain restaurant, the exact meal might be listed there as well. Olive Garden’s fettuccine alfredo, for example, is listed at 1,219 calories with 75 grams of fat and 47 grams of saturated fat.
When you can find the exact dish you want to eat, I recommend that you add 20 percent to the calories listed, because many restaurants underreport the actual number of calories in their food.2
When the exact restaurant’s take on the dish isn’t listed, search for it on CalorieKing, look for “Average All Brands,” and, again, add 20 percent to the calories.
If there’s no average for all brands, look at a handful of the entries, choose one in the middle of the pack, and add 20 percent to it.
The more you do this, the better you’ll get at estimating calories and macros when eating out, and eventually, you’ll know at a glance what is and isn’t workable on just about any menu.
Even then, though, the more you eat out, the harder it’ll be to accurately estimate your daily calorie intake.
What about Alcohol?
According to some people, if you drink even lightly and sporadically, you’re going to struggle with your weight. End of story.
This is an odd statement considering that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower, not higher, body weights.2
Furthermore, research shows that calories from alcohol itself don’t impact body fat levels in the same way as other calories do.
For example, scientists at the University of Sao Paulo analyzed the diets of 1,944 adults aged 18 to 74 and were surprised to find that an increase in calories from alcohol alone didn’t result in the weight gain that would normally occur if those calories had been from food.3
In fact, thanks to regular alcohol consumption, drinkers took in an average of 16 percent more calories than nondrinkers and had more or less the same levels of physical activity but weren’t any fatter than their alcohol-free counterparts.
It’s almost as if the calories from the alcohol simply “didn’t count.”
A similar result was seen in a study conducted by scientists at the University of Hohenheim with obese women on a weight loss diet.4 Researchers split the women into two groups:
Group one got about 10 percent of their daily calories from white wine.
Group two got about 10 percent of their daily calories from grape juice.
After three months, the white wine group had lost about two pounds more than the grape juice group.
There are two likely reasons for these findings.
First, it’s known that alcohol can reduce your appetite, which is conducive to weight loss, and can improve insulin sensitivity, which can positively impact fat burning.5
More importantly, however, the body has no way to directly convert alcohol into body fat.6 That is, calories provided by ethanol (alcohol) simply can’t produce fat gain in the same way that calories from food can.
We recall from chapter 7, however, that alcohol blunts fat oxidation and increases the conversion of carbs into body fat. In these ways, alcohol absolutely can contribute to fat gain.
Therefore, if you want to drink alcohol without interfering with your fat loss or accelerating fat gain, follow these three tips:
Don’t drink more than one day per week.
Lower your carb and fat intakes that day. (Eat more protein than you normally would.)
Try not to eat while drinking and stay away from carb-laden drinks like beer and fruity stuff. (Stick to dry wines and spirits.)
How to Create Your First Meal Plan
Now that you know the ropes, let’s learn how to tie the knots.
The first step in creating a meal plan is creating a list of your preferred sources of protein, carbs, and fats; your favorite fruits, veggies, and whole-grain foods (if you haven’t already listed them under your preferred carbs); any recipes that you might want to use; and any treats that you want to include.
For example, my list would look like this:
&nb
sp; Protein: chicken, pork, turkey, eggs, lean beef, dairy, and protein powder
Carbs: strawberries, bananas, blueberries, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pasta, English muffins, rice, oatmeal, and beans
Fat: olive oil, cheese, butter, avocado, nuts, meat, dairy, and fish oil (supplement)
Vegetables: onion, garlic, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, carrots, cauliflower, green beans, peas, and Brussels sprouts
Recipes: Creamy Blueberry-Banana Smoothie, Curry Chicken, and Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry (all from The Shredded Chef, of course!)
Treats: dark chocolate, bread (I’m weird), low-calorie ice cream (Enlightened Sea Salt Caramel, I love you), and cereal
The easiest way to create your list, and everything else in this chapter, is to use Google Sheets or Excel.
The free bonus material that comes with this book (www.biggerleanerstronger.com/bonus) contains a simple meal-planning template I like to use. You may want to download it now and fiddle with it as you read.
As you’ll see if you download the template, I have a worksheet for my favorite whole foods, which are grouped together by their primary macronutrient, along with the calories and macros for each, like this:
Food
Amount
Calories
Protein
Carbs
Fat
Oatmeal
40 grams
152
5
27
3
And I keep my favorite recipes (along with their numbers) on another worksheet formatted in the same way.
Recipe
Amount
Calories
Protein
Carbs