A weekly healthy meal plan doesn't fail because of the recipes: it fails because of the amounts. You can eat salmon with quinoa all week and not lose a gram if the dish carries 40 g of oil and 150 g of quinoa. That's why this plan brings no photos and no "hint of turmeric": it brings seven lunches and seven dinners with the grams and the macros of every dish, a fixed breakfast and snack, the shopping list and the rules to scale it to your calories.
It is calculated for a reference profile: about 1,850 kcal a day, 150 g of protein, 185 g of carbs and 55 g of fat. That's the moderate deficit of a ~75 kg person who trains three or four times a week. If that's not you, no problem: step one is knowing your numbers with the macro calculator and adjusting the amounts as explained below.
Numbers before recipes
Quick answer: A weekly healthy meal plan has to hit three figures every day — calories, protein and the carb/fat split — and repeat them seven times. Recipes are interchangeable; numbers aren't. This plan splits each day into four meals: breakfast (~450 kcal), lunch (~600), dinner (~530) and a snack (~275).
Three rules that make it work:
- Protein at every meal. Between 35 and 55 g at lunch and dinner, 25-35 at breakfast and snack. Spread out it's used better and kills hunger; all at dinner, it isn't.
- 200 g of vegetables in every main dish. That's the volume that fills you for 60 kcal. Which ones doesn't matter: broccoli, peppers, courgette, green beans, salad.
- Fat is measured, not eyeballed. One tablespoon of oil is 10 g and 90 kcal. It's the mistake that turns most "healthy" plans into maintenance.
The plan: lunches and dinners, Monday to Sunday
Raw weights (rice, pasta and quinoa double when cooked). Macros are approximate, from food-composition tables: don't chase the decimal, chase the order of magnitude. Every dish includes 200 g of vegetables unless stated otherwise.
| Day | Lunch | Dinner |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Grilled chicken 150 g · basmati rice 70 g · broccoli · 10 g olive oil ≈ 650 kcal · 57 P · 67 C · 17 F | Baked hake 200 g · potato 250 g · vegetables · 10 g olive oil ≈ 510 kcal · 42 P · 52 C · 14 F |
| Tuesday | Lean beef 150 g · pasta 80 g · tomato and vegetable sauce · 5 g olive oil ≈ 590 kcal · 45 P · 67 C · 15 F | 3-egg omelette with 1 tin of tuna · salad · wholegrain bread 60 g · 5 g olive oil ≈ 530 kcal · 42 P · 39 C · 23 F |
| Wednesday | Salmon 150 g · quinoa 70 g · asparagus ≈ 630 kcal · 43 P · 55 C · 25 F | Grilled turkey 150 g · roast sweet potato 250 g · vegetables · 10 g olive oil ≈ 530 kcal · 43 P · 60 C · 13 F |
| Thursday | Cooked lentils 250 g with chicken 100 g · vegetables 150 g · 5 g olive oil ≈ 545 kcal · 55 P · 53 C · 10 F | Sea bream or sea bass 200 g · rice 60 g · vegetables · 10 g olive oil ≈ 560 kcal · 45 P · 56 C · 17 F |
| Friday | Chicken 150 g · potato 250 g · vegetables · 10 g olive oil ≈ 590 kcal · 54 P · 52 C · 16 F | Cooked chickpeas 200 g with 2 tins of tuna · vegetables · 5 g olive oil ≈ 555 kcal · 49 P · 55 C · 13 F |
| Saturday | Lean beef 150 g · rice 70 g · peppers · 5 g olive oil ≈ 550 kcal · 40 P · 64 C · 15 F | Wholegrain wrap 60 g with turkey 120 g, fresh cheese 50 g and vegetables 150 g · 10 g olive oil ≈ 490 kcal · 43 P · 40 C · 16 F |
| Sunday | Salmon 150 g · potato 250 g · salad · 5 g olive oil ≈ 605 kcal · 38 P · 52 C · 26 F | 3-egg scramble with prawns 150 g · wholegrain bread 60 g · vegetables 150 g ≈ 515 kcal · 51 P · 37 C · 18 F |
P = protein, C = carbs, F = fat, in grams. With breakfast and snack, each day adds up to 1,760-1,890 kcal, 141-161 g of protein, 168-198 g of carbs and 47-64 g of fat. The weekly average is the reference profile.
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Breakfast and snack: the same all week
Quick answer: Fixed meals are what makes a plan stick. Two breakfast options and two snacks, all around the same macros, and you don't think about them again until next month.
- Breakfast A: oats 60 g + 30 g protein powder + banana 120 g (with water or skimmed milk). ≈ 450 kcal · 33 P · 68 C · 6 F.
- Breakfast B: 0% quark 250 g + oats 50 g + fruit 150 g + cinnamon. ≈ 420 kcal · 27 P · 62 C · 4 F.
- Snack A: 0% Greek yogurt 200 g + nuts 25 g. ≈ 275 kcal · 25 P · 11 C · 14 F.
- Snack B: 2 boiled eggs + 1 piece of fruit + 15 g of nuts. ≈ 300 kcal · 17 P · 25 C · 15 F.
How to scale the plan to your calories
Quick answer: Change the carbs, not the protein or the vegetables. Every extra 30 g of raw rice, pasta or quinoa (or 100 g more potato) adds about 100 kcal; every 5 g of oil, 45. For maintenance, add 300-400 kcal that way; for bulking, 500 and one more protein serving.
| Your goal | What to change on this plan | Approximate result |
|---|---|---|
| Cutting, 60-65 kg | Protein sources at 120 g (chicken, fish, beef) and rice/pasta at 50 g; drop snack B | ≈ 1,550 kcal · 125 P |
| Cutting, ~75 kg | Nothing: this is the plan | ≈ 1,850 kcal · 150 P |
| Maintenance, ~75 kg | +30 g rice/pasta and +100 g potato at lunch and dinner; +10 g nuts | ≈ 2,250 kcal · 155 P |
| Bulking, 80-85 kg | The above + 50 g more oats at breakfast + a second snack (shake with 60 g oats) | ≈ 2,800 kcal · 190 P |
If you want the exact number rather than an approximation, the TDEE calculator gives you your expenditure, the deficit calculator how much to cut and the protein calculator your grams; with that, scaling this plan is a rule of three.
Shopping list for one person
For the full week (lunches, dinners, breakfast A and snack A). Rounded to what shops sell.
- Animal protein: chicken breast 550 g · lean beef 300 g · salmon 300 g · hake 200 g · sea bream or sea bass 200 g · turkey breast (fillets and sliced) 270 g · peeled prawns 150 g · 12 eggs · 4 tins of tuna in water.
- Legumes and grains: cooked lentils 250 g · cooked chickpeas 200 g · basmati rice 200 g · pasta 80 g · quinoa 70 g · oats 420 g · wholegrain bread 120 g · 1 wholegrain wrap.
- Tubers and fruit: potatoes 750 g · sweet potato 250 g · 7 bananas.
- Dairy and protein: 0% Greek yogurt 1.4 kg · fresh cheese 50 g · protein powder 210 g.
- Vegetables: about 2.5 kg in total: broccoli, peppers, courgette, green beans, asparagus, tomato, salad.
- Fat: extra virgin olive oil 100 ml · nuts 175 g.
Cook it in two batches (or have it cooked)
Quick answer: Cooking all seven days at once doesn't work: Sunday's fish was cooked the previous Monday. Two batches do — Sunday for Monday-Wednesday, Wednesday evening for Thursday-Sunday — about two hours each, with the oven and two pans going at once.
The order that saves time: oven first (potato, sweet potato, hake, roast vegetables), then the proteins on the grill in batches, and meanwhile rice and quinoa in the pot. Cool quickly, containers labelled by day, fridge. Whatever you won't eat within four days goes in the freezer.
And the honest alternative: four hours a week and a twenty-item shop is the price of this plan made at home. Makroa does exactly what's in the table, in Madrid and with your numbers: you pick the week's dishes, they're cooked with your grams of protein, carbs and fat, and they arrive chilled in one delivery. From €8.90 per dish. The calculator is the same; what changes is who weighs the rice.
Mistakes that break a weekly plan
- Weighing cooked what the table gives raw. 70 g of raw rice is 180 g cooked. Weigh it cooked and you eat half the carbs and reach Friday starving.
- Eyeballing the oil. Three tablespoons where it said one is 180 extra kcal a day, 1,260 a week: the whole deficit.
- The same fish three days in a row. Not for nutrition, for boredom: the plan you drop in week two wasn't healthy.
- Skipping the vegetables because they "don't fill you". It's the other way round: without the 200 g the dish has 60 kcal less and twice the hunger two hours later.
- Changing the whole plan when you're bored of one dish. Swap the dish and keep its macros: chicken for turkey, rice for potato, hake for cod. The numbers stay.