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So I was watching Good Eats on Netflix the other day (you should too) and I came across the episode where he details his 50lb weight loss. It's a great episode and you should check it out along with the rest of the show. They only have one season up now, but if enough of us watch it and rate it, maybe they'll add more. Anyway, his program was based around four lists: Foods to eat daily, foods to eat at least 3x/week, foods to only eat once per week and foods to avoid entirely. I thought it seemed like a good idea, so I set about trying to apply it to my program. I'm an IIFYM kind of guy, not paleo by any means although I do try to emphasize fresh over processed/packaged for the most part. I figure I can meet my macro goals by aggressive counting and logging, but why not simplify it with some lists of my own? Plus I want to get more fruits and vegetables into my diet so this should help. What I ended up with weren't lists per se, but meal plans for both high carb and low carb days where I could simply pick one each from a few categories and assemble a meal. I made seven categories: Lean Meats, Fatty Meats, Starches, Veggies, Fruits, Fats and Combo Foods. I then portioned the foods in the respective categories so that on high carb days for example I could grab a lean meat, starch, and fruit and get a meal with approx 50g protein and 110g carbs. This would be a good dinner. My post-workout lunch is bigger so I could do the preceding and add a bowl of greek yogurt and fruit for another 24g of each. On low carb days I simply eat a fatty meat, 2 veggies (fibrous, not starchy), and a fat (an avocado, 2oz of nuts or seeds). This will be slightly low on both carbs and fats so I can now eat a combo food like cheese or protein coffee (I mix a scoop of whey with a tbls of coconut oil into a cup of coffee). So on a given meal I just pick 1 item from each of my lists and I have a meal that fits my macros. You can also extrapolate this to your grocery list to further simplify meal planning. What do you think?