Mike, thanks so much for your post – I’ve been thinking about it a lot since we first discussed the idea. I used to be one of those professionals who gave general advice – as you say, the “eat more of this and less of that” type.

However over recent years I’ve increasingly moved to providing clients with a dietary structure. It provides certainty and guidance, while still allowing flexibility. It also reality checks what they have been doing – in terms of portion sizes, types of food and so on.

The variation then comes in how much guidance clients need with implementing that structure in their daily lives.

In my own diet it’s also something I do, most of the time. During the week my eating is pretty structured, but then I tend to relax a bit more on the weekends.

Thanks again for your excellent post.

Hi Kathryn. I’m afraid Mike isn’t around today, he finally caved in and decided to take his son camping a little earlier than originally planned, in order to meet some friends while they’re still at the camp site.

So he sends his apologies that he couldn’t be online when you went live today. But I’ll be checking in and answering any queries that I can. Also, I’ll text him any comments and he can text a reply back to me. The wonders of technology eh?

He’ll also be back online Sunday or Monday UK time. So if there are readers who have comments or queries about Mike’s post, please don’t be shy, we’ll be glad to help.

I agree with you and Mike totally about getting structured. If you don’t plan your meals and put it in a structure, time can get away from you, you’re suddenly hungry… and that’s when that quick phone call to Domino’s pizza starts to look very appealing! :-)

It also totally takes the stress out of having to keep coming up with recipes and meal ideas. If stuck, I say ‘eat some healthy food’. Just take some items and put them on a plate. Your meal doesn’t have to have a name. Hey I like that, good idea for a post :-)

Must be part of our social conditioning that we feel a dinner isn’t a dinner unless it’s called ‘spaghetti bolognese’ or whatever.

I’m with you on the week/weekend thing too. For me, it’s not about trying to get everything ‘perfect’ all the time. As Mike is fond of saying ‘it’s what you do most of the time that matters’. I like allowing room at the weekend to relax a little.

~ James

So how much planning are you talking about? Do you have to map out everything in advance?

Hello Zoe,

There are a couple of ways you can go. Ideally, you’ve got your exact meals planned out, for say the next week.

This of course in turn allows you to plan your shopping and get what you need in advance. It also means you can be precise, in making sure you’re getting fish in twice a week for example. But as I say, that’s ideal. Also, you just plain might not like the idea of knowing EXACTLY what you’re going to be eating every day.

If you don’t like that idea, or when life gets in the way (as it often does!) you simply eat what you have in. On point 5, you’ll notice Mike’s shopping list is (for example) “3 fruit, 4 veg, 2 protein, whole grains, sauces, herbs . . .”

The idea being that – on any given day – you can combine items you have in, to make a healthy, balanced meal.

This is how the Habit Guide Diet works. You have ONE basic structure that you repeat every day. Sounds boring, but it’s really not because you can swap the elements in your meals whenever you like. The important thing is the structure. No more agonising about meal choices!

Personally, I think it’s actually quite nice sometimes to not know exactly what you’ll eat for your next meal. You just go to fridge and cupboards and put out a healthy, balanced meal on your plate.

Plus it allows for cravings on any given day, eg ‘i definitely feel like fish today!’. Having that basic structure – but with the elements of the meal flexible – allows you to do that.

I would say the only disadvantage with this is that you might keep picking your favorites from the cupboard and leave the rest to rot :-). Whereas planning your meals exactly means you can buy only exactly what you need, so very little will go to waste.

Hope this helps. ~ James

Zoe – I follow a basic structure most days, but am definitely in the camp of not pre-planning my meals.

Pre-planning works really well for many people. It gives you certainty, means you’re not having to spend energy in the evening thinking about what to eat. So you just get home from work, cook and it’s all done.

For me however I can’t think of anything more boring than knowing Monday is stir fry, Tuesday is pasta and so on. So I buy a variety of vegetables, make sure we have enough proteins for the week (legumes, tofu, eggs, cheese), have wholegrains on hand, and a few extras to provide flavouring and interest (nuts, tahini, vinegars, mustard, etc). I then have some flexibility, while also working within the meal structure.

It sounds complicated and maybe even a bit boring. But when you actually get into eating this way you’ll feel better, have certainty about your diet and it’s much easier.

As an example, my basic mid-week structure goes:

On rising: fruit
Post exercise: protein, grains & dairy
Mid morning: soy coffee
Lunch: protein & vegetables
Mid afternoon: fruit & grains
Dinner: protein & vegetables
Post dinner: fruit & dairy

I work in broad groups. I have a plan which works, but there’s heaps of variety and flexibility within that plan.

Does this help?

I tried to use fitday.com, but it was impossible to use—it´s very restricted in the foods and calories it allows you to use. Are there any similar programmes that you know of that are more flexible?

Hi Iona,

If you’re not keen on fitday.com you might like to try mypyramidtracker.gov ~ James

i love me some structure and i really like the sound of the “3 fruit, 4 veg, 2 protein, whole grains, sauces, herbs . . .” type of shopping list, but for me it doesn’t quite work that way and i find that if we haven’t planned out meals, then we’re much more likely to have to do extra trips to the supermarket to pick up extra ingredients. (which is not just a waste of time, but often leads to going over budget).

also, i agree with your point James that healthy foods on a plate are just as good as a meal with a ‘proper’ name, but i think using a variety of different recipes helps to counter the boring stir-fry on Monday, pasta on Tuesday that Kathryn mentioned.

this is just how it works for me though, and i wonder if perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my husband and i are quite young and have only a couple of years of cooking under our belts – we don’t have a huge back catalogue of experience to draw on when coming up with something to eat for dinner that night!

I love the structure as a way of uncluttering the end of the day. I generally get home from work, catch my breath and need to dive into making dinner for the family. I take some time each weekend planning the dinners for the week, and then restocking the fridge and cupboard appropriately.
The way I plan is to grab one or two cookbooks and chose a selection of recipes. The list is put on the fridge with the page numbers noted to make it easy for the hungry teenager to know what will turn up!
Sometimes I also recycle the menus from week to week, and if we decide to change a night’s meal then that’s ok. I’ve now built up a swag of the menus so it becomes a lot easier when I’ve got a busy weekend.

I struggled a bit with this post. I didn’t think I really had a specific structure.

However…on examination. I have this year focused on using CalorieKing to stay within 1200 calories per day. As a household, due to increasing work/study pressures, we’ve started to plan our meals for the week and shop accordingly.

I don’t have a specific nutrient objective each day but do have a lot of vegetables and include 2 pieces of fruit in our diet. I have learnt that variety is essential to me staying on track, wholegrains keep me fuller and vegetables are an excellent filler.

I like the idea of the equation type structure but I think that is already sort of ingrained in how I plan my meal

Hi everyone,

Sorry I wasn’t around on Saturday!

@Zoe – No, you don’t need to map everything out. The structure allows you to simply stock your cupboards and fridge and then make meals from what you have in.

I keep a stock list so it’s very easy to see what I need to replace when shopping. It takes me only 5 mins to run through the list and check cupboards etc. My structure is very simple so I never have to think about what to eat.

@Iona – I find fitday very easy to use. It uses a slightly out of date version of the USDA database but definitely good enough for our purposes. Fitday also allows you to enter “custom foods” which is fine but means it wont track the micronutrients, only the calories and macronutrients.

You can enter a recipe on fitday on a certain day and re-enter all the final values as a custom food which will then give you the full data.

I use fitday because it was one of the first on-line trackers and I’m very familiar with it. But hunt around, there’s lots now and you can find one you like.

@Kathryn – thanks for a great job making the post look nice :-) We’re totally on the same page when it comes to structure, although yours is different to mine, that’s the beauty of the structure, you can apply for your own goals, likes and lifestyle.

It also allows to improve your diet step by step by defining a structure you’re comfy with then tweaking as the weeks go by til it’s better and better to the point where you’re happy with it.

Thanks everyone!

~Mike.

Iona, you might prefer calorieking.com.au. Very easy to enter foods and a good Australian food database.

My structure is the CSIRO diet and I try to plan the week’s meals before I go shopping on Saturdays. I don’t find it boring and it solves a huge problem in that the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is try to cudgel my brain into figuring out what I can cook from what’s in the fridge. No thought required → healthy dinner at reasonable hour. This has fallen down in a heap the last three weeks – life got in the way – back to it!

Quick update: fitday has updated their database and have updated the software to include a much better range of portion sizes. You can now do everything in grams… hoooray! :-)

~Mike.

Hi, can I just second the person who voted for CalorieKing – I’ve found it incredibly useful and effective.

Also, if you’re like me and you get home and don’t want to cook 3 days out of 5, try this:

Dieting 101
http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/displayarticle.php?aid=29

All of the article is good, but if you scroll down to the bottom there’s tips on putting together a balanced meal from columns of protein, carbs and fat. It’s a bit simple but good for those days when you have the dumb.