Using the Meal Planner
Why a meal planner and not a diet plan?
Diet plans don't work. Yes, we know this is a strong statement. However, after many conversations with nutritionists and experts in the field, we have discovered that diet plans are temporary fixes. Once people stop the diet, they go back to their old eating habits. Then, a year later, it is time for another diet. No more.
We want to teach you how to eat and not just show you what to eat. The Meal Planner helps you plan healthy meals in advance, and then track the foods you eat during the day to make sure you are on track. We don't tell you what to eat. You can pick foods that you like, and find ways to make them work.
Eating Healthy - More Than Calorie Counting
To lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume. But being healthy is more than just being at your ideal weight. You could stay under your calorie goal by just eating ice cream all day, but that isn't healthy.
Meal Planning is based on the USDA MyPyramid. The nutritional piece of the MyPyramid is focused on two things: making sure you get the right amount of calories and making sure you get the appropriate servings of different food groups. Each day, you need to eat foods from the following groups:
Grains - Any food made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, barley or another cereal grain is a grain product. Bread, pasta, oatmeal, breakfast cereals, tortillas, and grits are examples of grain products. 
Vegetables - Any vegetable or 100% vegetable juice counts as a member of the vegetable group. Vegetables may be raw or cooked; fresh, frozen, canned, or dried/dehydrated; and may be whole, cut-up, or mashed. 
Fruits - Any fruit or 100% fruit juice counts as part of the fruit group. Fruits may be fresh, canned, frozen, or dried, and may be whole, cut-up, or pureed. 
Milk - All fluid milk products and many foods made from milk are considered part of this food group. Foods made from milk that retain their calcium content are part of the group, while foods made from milk that have little to no calcium, such as cream cheese, cream, and butter, are not. Most milk group choices should be fat-free or low-fat. 
Meat and Beans - All foods made from meat, poultry, fish, dry beans or peas, eggs, nuts, and seeds are considered part of this group. Dry beans and peas are part of this group as well as the vegetable group. Most meat and poultry choices should be lean or low-fat. Fish, nuts, and seeds contain healthy oils, so choose these foods frequently instead of meat or poultry. 
Oils - Oils are fats that are liquid at room temperature, like the vegetable oils used in cooking. Oils come from many different plants and from fish. Some common oils are canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, olive oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, and sunflower oil.
How do I know how many servings of each group to eat? Glad you asked. DailyBurn Tracker makes it easy to find out how many calories and how many servings of each food group you should be consuming each day. Be sure to personalize your goals by using the Goal Planner.
OK, I got it. Now, how do I use it?
To make things easy, we have grouped many healthy food choices into the appropriate food groups in the Meal Planner. Find foods that you like and drag them to one of your meals. As you drag foods into meals you will notice that your "Nutritional Bank" is updated based on choices. Make sure you get enough servings of each of the food groups during the day.
After meeting your food group goals, you will often have extra calories to use. You can use these extra calories on whatever you would like. You can use any of the food items in the DailyBurn Tracker database by selecting "Search".
Your goal when building your meals for the day is to make sure you stay within the goal ranges for calories, fat, carbs and protein while making sure you eat the appropriate servings from each food group. This sounds more difficult than it is. Remember, our goal is to teach you how to eat and not just give you pre-set diet plans.
Other Tips and Tricks
Here are some other things to keep in mind when building your meals:
- Spread out your calories throughout the day. Eat lots of small meals. Look at the calorie totals for each meal and try to spread them out out relatively evenly.
- Mix it up. It is important to eat different types of vegetables, fruits, etc. Don't eat an apple every day (contrary to the old saying). Eat a pear, banana, or an orange. Keep it fresh.
- Use discretionary calories wisely. Just because you have extra calories for the day doesn't mean you have to use them on junk foods. It is OK to eat extra vegetables, fruit, etc. And remember, try to stay within your goal ranges for calories, fat, carbs and protein.
