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How to Make a Diet Chart

An excellent way to help you track your calories and workouts is by making a diet chart. This chart should outline each meal you plan to eat, it should chart out recommended foods for each meal and it should list your planned physical activities for each day. This will help you stay on track during the day without much effort or planning.

Things You'll Need

  • Piece of Paper
  • Writing utensil
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Instructions

  1. Creating the Chart

    • 1

      Create your chart by designing a spreadsheet that lists the seven days of the week along the top and your meals down the side. Along the bottom of the chart, create a daily box for exercise. When creating the meals section, recommended meal groups include breakfast, AM snack, lunch, PM Snack, dinner and dessert. According to the Mayo Clinic, a diet that includes snacks is essential to losing weight. By snacking, you will help manage your hunger, which will prevent binge eating later in the day.

    • 2

      Burn more calories per day than you consume is the most effective way to lose weight according to the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic has an online calorie calculator that can help guide you to how many calories you need per day. To lose a pound a week, you need to eat 500 fewer calories a day than what your body requires. Subtract this 500 from the calories calculated by the Mayo Clinic for your daily calorie total.

    • 3

      Spread out your calories throughout the day to help you avoid boredom and hungry. Begin by allocating a calorie goal to each of meal listed on your chart. As a reference, an individual on a 1600 calorie diet may want to eat 300 calories at breakfast, 150 calories for their AM snack, 350 calories for lunch, 250 calories for a PM snack, 400 calories for dinner and 150 calories for dessert. Write these calorie aims next to each meal on the chart.

    • 4

      Select recipes or ideas that fit into your calorie aims for each meal. Select a variety of choices for each meal to help avoid boredom. To help you with ideas, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Nutrition Services provides good suggestions for a seven day meal plan.

    • 5

      Fill in your exercise routine at the bottom of the chart. The United States Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least two hours and 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per week and strength training at least two days a week.

      You know your schedule better than anyone. If you know that you have the most time to workout on Monday, Wednesday and Saturdays, then go ahead and pencil those days with aerobic activities. To help avoid confusion, write down what exercise you will do, at what time and for how long. For example: "20 minutes of stair climber and 20 minutes walking on the treadmill at 6AM." This will help motivate you.

    • 6

      Post your chart in a location that you will see it constantly, possibly on your refrigerator or on a bathroom mirror. Use this chart to guide you when making food choices. Remember that you can adjust the chart at a later date or switch up your workout routine weekly according to your schedule.

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