Before you start - create your meal plan! Rhino

11/05/21

Please click here to download and use the food group calculator to work out your meal plan. When you input your height, weight, age, and physical activity level, the calculator will work out the minimum number of each of the main food groups you should aim for each day depending on what type of training you’re doing: protein-rich foods, starchy carbohydrates, and healthy fats. Everyone should aim for at least eight portions of fruit and veg each day, so whatever your goals are, aim for at least five different vegetables and three different fruits.

Aiming for food group targets like this rather than tracking your calorie and macronutrient intake precisely encourages a much greater degree of variation and diversity into your diet, because you can input whichever foods or meals are most suitable to you – depending on your taste, budget, accessibility and even seasonality of the ingredients. It will also save you a LOT of time, because you won’t have to weigh each ingredient you cook with and enter it into food tracking programme, which is never very accurate anyway. Think of all the other things you could be doing with your time – training, getting out in nature, cooking more, seeing friends and family, or just taking time out to relax.

Food groups

Groups	Foods	Portion size
High protein foods	Cooked beans/lentils/chickpeas*	1 cup (~160g)
	Tofu/tempeh	1 cup (~120g)
	Seitan	1 cup (~120g)
	VivoLife Perform/Ritual/Whole	1 scoop (30g)
	Soy-based products (e.g. burgers/sausages)	120g
	Vegan Quorn pieces	1 cup (~120g)
	Pea/chickpea/lentil pasta	1 cup
	Nuts/nut butter†	30g (counts as ½ high protein portion)
	Seeds/seed butter†	30g (counts as ½ high protein portion)
	Soy milk/yoghurt	1 cup (counts as ½ high protein portion)
	Nutritional yeast	3 Tbsp (counts as ½ high protein portion)
Starchy carbohydrate foods	Cooked grains (e.g. rice, couscous, quinoa, millet, buckwheat etc)	1 cup
	Cooked beans/lentils/chickpeas*	1 cup
	Bread (wheat, sourdough, GF etc)	1 medium slice
	Wholegrain breakfast cereal	1 cup
	Raw oats / muesli	½ cup
	Cooked pasta (wheat, pea, lentil, GF etc)	1 cup
	Potatoes	1 medium
	Flour (wheat, oat, buckwheat, sorghum etc)	¼ cup
	Banana**	1 medium
Healthy fats	Ground flax, hemp, chia, and other seeds†	Small handful (~30g)
	Walnuts and other nuts†	Small handful (~30g)
	Nut/seed butters (e.g. almond, cashew or peanut butters or tahini)†	2 Tbsp
	Oils (e.g. cold-pressed rapeseed / extra virgin olive oil)	1 Tbsp
	Avocados	½ medium (~80g)
	Coconut milk	½ cup
Vegetables	Salad leaves (e.g. lettuce, rocket/arugula, cress, raw spinach)	2 cups
	Cooked veg (e.g. broccoli, peas, aubergine, kale)	1 cup
	Raw veg (e.g. celery, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, peppers)	1 cup
	Cooked beans/lentils/chickpeas*	1 cup
	Root veg (e.g. sweet potato, parsnip, swede): 80g	80g
Fruit	Medium sized fruit (e.g. apple, peach, banana**)	1 piece
	Small fruits (e.g. plum, apricot, fig)	2-3 pieces
	Berries (e.g. blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, grapes)	½ cup (~80g)
	Chopped larger fruits (e.g. pineapple, mango, melon, watermelon)	½ cup (~80g)
	Dried fruit	30g
Fluids	Water (should make up the majority of fluid intake)	1 cup
	Plant-based milks	1 cup
	Tea (e.g. VivoLife Matcha)	1 cup
	Coffee (e.g. VivoLife Magic Coffee or Adaptogenic lattes)	1 cup

*Beans/lentils/chickpeas count towards high protein, carbohydrate, and vegetable groups

†Nuts/seeds count towards high protein and smart fat groups

**Bananas count towards starchy carbohydrates and fruit groups

This approach is not precise, but it’s not meant to be. That’s because your calorie and macronutrient requirements change from day to day, depending on your training, what you do in your spare time, how much you’ve slept, how much stress you’re under etc. So on some days, your calorie intake will be a little higher, some days a little lower, depending on what foods you choose to include. For example, a cup of butternut squash will have more carbohydrates and calories than a cup of cucumber, but both count as a portion of vegetables. That’s absolutely fine, because your requirements are always changing. At the same time, the food groups do still provide some useful structure, and so it’s easy to adjust the levels if you’re making progress too quickly or slowly.

Here is a one-week example meal plan, designed to meet the needs for athlete 1:

High protein foods: 5
Starchy carbohydrates: 9
Healthy fats: 6
Vegetables: 5+
Fruits: 3+

Your requirements may be similar to this example, in which case you can follow it closely. Or if you need to add (or take away) food groups to make it fit your requirements, try making the following simple adjustments:

Starchy carbohydrates:

Adding/taking away 1 cup of cooked rice, quinoa, or other grains to your meals
Serving 1 medium sized potato, baked or cut into wedges and roasted, as a side
1 medium banana as a snack

Protein:

1 scoop VivoLife Perform simply mixed in a shaker with water or plant-based milk
1 extra cup of tofu/tempeh/seitan to your favourite dish

Fats:

A handful of nuts/seeds as a snack (remember this provides additional protein too)
½ medium-sized avocado alongside a meal or added to a sandwich/salad

You’ll notice that we’ve suggested cooking double portions for a few of the dinners to make an easy lunch the following day. We’re big fans of batch cooking because it saves so much time, so we recommend finding a balance between convenience and variety that works best for your schedule! If you don’t have time to cook from scratch every day, try batch cooking more than we’ve suggested here – as long as the meals match the food groups then you’ll still be on track for making big progress! You could also freeze some portions for a healthy instant meal on those days where you run out of fresh food (or time)!

Example meal plan

Monday	Meal	Protein	Carbs	Fats	Veggies	Fruit	Cals
Breakfast	Smokey beans on toast (page xx)	1	3		2		589
Snack	Chocolate berry superfood smoothie	1	1			2	314
Lunch	Mexican loaded sweet potatoes	1	2	2	2	1	642
Snack	Cashew cheese dip + 1 cup carrot sticks	1		1	1		208 63
Dinner	Green pea pesto pasta (make double for lunch tomorrow)	1	1	3	2		721
Snack	Banana ice cream		2			1	210
Total		5	9	6	7	4	2747

Tuesday	Meal	Protein	Carbs	Fats	Veggies	Fruit	Cals
Breakfast	Salted caramel protein crepes	1	1	1		1	612
Snack	Banana		1			1	105
Lunch	Green pea pesto pasta	1	1	3	2		721
Snack	Butter bean and mint dip + 1 cup cucumber sticks	1	1	1	1		210
Dinner	Red lentil aubergine dhal + 1 cup rice (make double for lunch tomorrow)	1	3	1	3		692 205
Snack	2 x chocolate chip protein muffins + ½ cup blueberries	1	2			1	588 42
Total		5	9	6	6	3	3175

Wednesday	Meal	Protein	Carbs	Fats	Veggies	Fruit	Cals
Breakfast	Maca oatmeal with caramelised bananas	1	2			1	574
Snack	Hidden greens protein smoothie + 2 Tbsp ground flaxseed	1	2	1	1	2	522 75
Lunch	Red lentil aubergine dhal + 1 cup rice	1	3	1	3		692 205
Snack	Tahini and date protein bar	0.5		1		1	285
Dinner	Lentil mushroom and walnut burger + ½ sliced avocado	1	2	2	3		389 182
Snack	½ cup fruit salad + 30g walnuts	0.5		1		1	32 185
Total		5	9	6	7	5	3141

Thursday	Meal	Protein	Carbs	Fats	Veggies	Fruit	Cals
Breakfast	Scrambled tofu on toast + ½ sliced avocado	1	2	1	2		343 182
Snack	Pineapple raspberry protein smoothie	1	1			2	369
Lunch	Baked falafels + 1 cup salad leaves + 1 toasted pitta bread	1	2	1	3		293 223
Snack	1 banana + 30g almonds	0.5	1	1		1	105 164
Dinner	Vegan mac and cheese + 1 cup green peas	1	2	2			928 125
Snack	Choc chip protein cookies	0.5	1	1			283
Total		5	9	6	5	3	3015

Friday	Meal	Protein	Carbs	Fats	Veggies	Fruit	Cals
Breakfast	Bircher overnight oats + 2 Tbsp mixed seeds	1.5	1	1		1	410 105
Snack	Banana oat cookies		1				141
Lunch	Cajun soul bowl	1	3	1	3		918
Snack	½ cup raspberries + 30g cashews	0.5		1		1	32 157
Dinner	Stuffed sweet potato with lentil kale and tahini (make double for lunch tomorrow)	1	2	1	3		486
Snack	Chocolate peanut butter bowl	1	2	2		2	750
Total		5	9	6	6	4	2999

Saturday	Meal	Protein	Carbs	Fats	Veggies	Fruit	Cals
Breakfast	1 cup plain muesli + 1 cup soy milk + 30g walnuts	1	2	1			497 185
Snack	Banana		1			1	105
Lunch	Stuffed sweet potato with lentil kale and tahini	1	2	1	3		486
Snack	Fully loaded pb toast	0.5	2	1		1	394
Dinner	Tamari tofu stir fry + 1 sliced avocado (make double for lunch tomorrow)	2	2	2	3		786 364
Snack	½ cup blackberries + 30g almonds	0.5		1		1	31 164
Total		5	9	6	6	3	3012

Sunday	Meal	Protein	Carbs	Fats	Veggies	Fruit	Cals
Breakfast	Buckwheat pancakes + 30g pecans	1.5	2	1		1	393 196
Snack	2 apple oatmeal cookies		1			1	201
Lunch	Tamari tofu stir fry + 1 sliced avocado	2	2	2	3		786 364
Snack	Hummus + 1 cup mixed raw veg sticks	0.5		1	2		161 21
Dinner	Vegan spinach and mushroom carbonara + 1 cup cooked broccoli	0.5	2	1	3		577 55
Snack	Banana ice cream + 30g chopped walnuts	0.5	2	1		1	210 185
Total		5	9	6	8	3	3149

Share