Welcome to my macro meal plan template guide!
This is step four in starting the macro diet. Need to catch up? Check out my quick guide to starting the macro diet here.
Discloser: I am not a trained health professional. All articles are based on my own experience and opinions. Please consult with a health professional before making lifestyle changes.
If you’re like me you want to be in complete control of your meal plan. You like solving the puzzle and learning how to balance your own macros.
If you’re not like me and want something more pre-built with less planning and thinking, check out my Macro Meal Plan For Beginners.
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Why I Create This Macro Meal Plan Template
When I started creating my own meal plans I searched high and low for something that would allow me to design my own meal plan ahead of time and with the flexibility I wanted.
What I found was a handful of apps but either they were too expensive, didn’t allow me to plan out my meals ahead of time, or just lacked things that I personally wanted.
I worked with Google Sheets and Excel often, so I decided to build out my own macro meal plan template that I could customize to fit my needs.
Planning my meals this way because I could understand all my macros and develop a meal plan with everything I loved and that followed my paleo diet.
Using Google Sheets was really helpful because I can pull up my meal plan on my phone wherever I am to check my meal plan. I would even screenshot my meal plan for the week and set it as my screensaver so I could look at it quickly and remember what and how much I was supposed to eat.
Related Article: How to Meal Prep
Who Is This Template For?
I figured there were people like you out there who were looking for the same thing and also couldn’t find it. So I cleaned up my meal plan sheet and turned it into a macro meal plan template that you can use to plan your macros.
You can use this guide for the standard 30/40/30 macros or even for Keto. The math is the same, you’ll just enter your target macros differently.
This guide walks you through how to use the template and includes tips on troubleshooting to ensure your macros’ balance (it can be a puzzle sometimes).
If you’ve never worked with Excel or Google Sheets before there will be a learning curve. You may have to look up additional things to learn how to use it, but I’ll provide the basics. If you get stuck and aren’t sure what to do just leave a comment at the end of this post or email me and I’ll do my best to help you out!
How To Access The Macro Meal Plan Template
Google Sheets
I’ve created my template in Google sheets because it’s free, easy to use, and you can use your plan on the go. I love that I can pull up my meal plan on my phone at the store to make sure I have everything I need. I also like screenshotting my week’s meal plan and putting it as my screensaver for easy access.
You can also opt to print your menu if you prefer that.
Here’s the link to download this macro meal plan template.
Parts Of The Macro Meal Plan Template
Recipe Book
When I started planning out my meals I wanted a database to pull all my items and recipes from so I wasn’t constantly refinding nutrition information. So I created a “Recipe Book” tab with common foods I would eat and recipes I would make. I would often add multiple quantities (like 2 eggs and 3 eggs) so I didn’t have to recalculate the math every time I needed to adjust the serving size.
On the template, I’ve left a few of my own items so you can see what it looks like. Feel free to delete any of mine and add your own items to the bottom of the list.
When you want to add a recipe I recommend finding the nutrition for your serving size ahead of time. I usually do this on myfitnesspal.com. When you log in you can add a recipe and enter all the ingredients and it will calculate the serving size nutrition for you.
The beautiful thing about this Recipe Book is you can sort by name, category, or macro depending on what you need. If you aren’t familiar with the sort function here’s a little tutorial for Google Sheets (it’s usually similar in Excel)
How To Sort:
- Select the letter of the column you want to sort – (columns are the ones that go up and down) This would be something like the food group, serving size, name, etc. You’ll want to hover over the letter such as “A” “B” etc.
- Click the drop-down button on the column letter
3. Select Sort Sheet A-Z or Sort Sheet Z-A
Sorting this way will sort alphabetically or for your numbers it will sort smallest to largest. This can be helpful if you want to find an item with high protein but low fat. If you sort to find your lowest fat items then you can look and find one with the protein you need.
How To Search:
My favorite way to find items is to do a quick search. On windows you’ll hit Control F, on Mac you’ll hit Command F. This will open a little window at the top of your spreadsheet that will allow you to type in an item – like chicken – and then it will highlight everywhere on that page where chicken appears.
Blank Template
I’ve left an example plan from one of my own meal plans to give you an idea of what it looks like when you’re done. Next to it is your blank template. We’ll talk more later on how to actually create your meal plan so that it’s balanced, but first I want to teach you the functionality of this template.
How to duplicate tabs
I would recommend keeping this Blank Template as is so you can always refer back to it. This can be helpful because if you ever accidentally delete something you can always return to this one. So instead of simply filling in this template, I would recommend you duplicate the tab. To do this select the tab on the bottom of your spreadsheet, click the drop-down button, and select “Duplicate”
I would recommend duplicating your meal plan every time you make a new one instead of just changing your current meal plan. This is nice because you can refer to old meal plans for ideas or reuse old meal plans if you don’t want to plan out a new one.
How To Rename tabs
After you duplicate a tab you’ll want to rename it. I usually name mine for the week so like November 23rd (that would be the Monday of the week I’m eating it) but you can name it however you’d like.
To do this you follow similar steps to duplicating. Select the tab of the newly duplicated tab on the bottom of your spreadsheet, click the drop-down button, and select “Rename”, then just type in the new name you’d like it to have.
How to fill in lines
When you want to add an item from your recipe book you’ll click on the recipe book tab, find the item, and then click on the line number it’s on. When you right-click you can select “copy”. Then move to your meal plan page, find the line number of where you want it to go, right-click and select “paste”.
How to add lines
If you need to add another line to your meal plan – for example, you need one more line in your snack category – you’ll select the last line of your section by right-clicking on the number and selecting “Insert 1 below”. However, doing so will mean you’ll need to update the calculation (see below)
How to update calculation
If you add a line you’ll want to make sure the calculation updates with it. To check you’ll want to click on the cell that contains the calories for that section. In the function bar you’ll see something that looks like =SUM(D10:D15) and the cells above the calories are highlighted.
This shows you all the numbers it’s calculating. If your new cell isn’t showing up you’ll want to change the last number to include the number of the line you just added, example =SUM(D10:D15) with one more line added would become =SUM(D10:D16). After you do that your newly added cell should be included.
You’ll also want to update this on your macro cells as well. The fastest way to do this is to click on the calories cell and find that little square box on the bottom of the cell, click and hold, and drag right across the next three cells, this will update their formulas.
How To Plan Your Macros With The Macro Meal Plan Template
Ok, now the fun part of actually designing your meal plan!
Step one – Calculate Your Macros.
The first thing you need to do is figure out what your calories and macros are. On the “How To Use This Template” tab I’ve included the calculations for you, or you can check out my How To Calculate Macros blog to determine your unique macros.
Step Two – Update Your Macro Targets
Now that you know your macros you’ll want to update the target line on the bottom of the Blank Template sheet (it’s highlighted in yellow). Remember it’s important to give yourself some wiggle room on your macro percentages. So in this section, if your target is 30% Protein you could enter 25-35% just so you remember – but that’s up to you.
Step Three – Duplicate your Sheet
Follow the steps above if you don’t know how to duplicate and rename your sheet.
Step Four – Start Entering Your Meals
Think about what you’d like to eat for breakfast, don’t worry too much about your macros at this point, just start pulling items from your recipe book and entering them in your categories.
You may not need to eat both a snack and post-workout snack, but I included these sections so you wouldn’t have to redo the calculations if you do need them. If you want to have two snacks a day you could just add them all to the snack category and know you’ll eat them at different times.It’s ok to leave a section blank
Continue all the way until you have at least three meals figured out.
Step Five – Balancing
At this point you have all your meals entered and now you need to make adjustments to make sure your meal plan fits in your macros. This is the puzzle part. It can take some patience when you’re first starting but I promise you that you’ll get better at it as time goes on. Here are a few tips to help you balance your macros.
- Do you have enough calories? If your calories are below your target get to that first. It’s ok to go over and then remove things as needed. But I’m telling you if you try to balance your macros before hitting your calorie range you’ll give yourself a headache. Get to your range, then balance your macros
- Focus on total grams. Sometimes it’s easy to focus on the percentages but instead look at your total grams. You should have calculated the total grams for your percentage on your template so just focus on that range. Need 10 more grams of protein? Focus on adding that. Over by 10 grams of fat? Look at what’s high in fat and see what you can adjust or remove.
- Change the serving size. If you’re low in calories try doubling the serving size of something. Or if you’re over calories by a lot, try taking a serving size down by half. I found that I personally have to take my dairy serving size down by half when I do eat it because it’s high in fat.
- Add a snack box. Need some random grams in a bunch of different macros? Add a snack box and include what you need. Maybe it’s some lunch meat, fruit, cheese, and a hardboiled egg. This is my go to way to fullfill my macros with random foods but make them feel like a solid snack.
Troubleshooting Ideas
Sometimes no matter what you try you just can’t hit those macros – for me, I always struggle with getting enough protein because I don’t enjoy eating over a certain amount of meat in one sitting. So here’s my bag of tricks to hopefully help you hit those macros.
Low In Protein?
- Add tuna (low in carbs and fat)
- Snack on hardboiled eggs
- Add a protein shake (check out my favorite plant-based proteins)
- Edamame
- Red meat (if you can take the fat)
- Homemade chicken nuggets
- Baby bell cheese wheels
- Protein balls
- Cottage cheese
Low In Carbs?
I don’t have a lot of these because most people have to cut carbs instead of struggling to add them but here are my go tos:
- Add a banana, grapes, or any fruit for that matter
- Crackers
- Oatmeal
Low In Fat?
Fat is another one most people don’t struggle to get enough of, but here are my recommendations:
- Add peanut butter – great for smoothies, on toast, or if you’re like me just a spoonful for a treat!
- Nuts – trail mix or your favorite kind of nut. Add them to salads if you can.
- Pepperoni
- Cheese
- Hummus
Hopefully, this guide helps you understand how to use my template and create your custom meal plan.
If you still have questions or if I skipped something PLEASE leave a comment! I want to make this guide as useful as possible but I can’t make it better unless you tell me!
Thanks for reading – Happy Planning!
