Meal Planner 2.

0 with RPT Food Information

Instruction Manual

Programming By: Adam LaJeunesse

Manual By: Adam LaJeunesse

Section 1: Q & A
What is it?
The Meal Planner 2.0, with the RTP Food Information, is an Excel spreadsheet
application that will calculate macro-nutrient information for the meals that you plan with it. I
call it an application because there is VBA code written that performs some of the calculations
and error checking.
WARNING: THIS SPREADSHEET NEEDS TO HAVE MACROS ENABLED FOR IT TO WORK CORRECTLY! Please
see the Excel Help file if you need to change your security settings.

What does it do?

The Meal Planner 2.0 spreadsheet allows you to create from 1 to 6 meal for a single day
and breaks down the calories by macro-nutrient for each item of the meal. It will output the
following information:

1. Calculate the total number of calories per meal.

2. Calculate the total number of gram for each macro-nutrient per meal.

3. Calculate a grand total of the all the calories planned for the day.

4. Calculate the number of grams of each macro-nutrient for the day.

5. Calculate the number of calories per macro-nutrient for the day.

6. Calculate the percentage of each macro-nutrient for the day. Allowing you to see if you
are hitting your macro-nutrient ratio. (ex. 40%-40%-20%)

7. Calculate the average number of grams for each macro-nutrient per meal.

The foods nutritional information is stored on sheet2, of the spreadsheet, so that once
entered into the spreadsheet you will no longer have to look up the nutritional information for
the foods you eat.
What is the spreadsheet format?

The Meal Planner 2.0 application was designed and developed using Microsoft Excel and
VBA in a Microsoft Windows environment. I have not tested this with Microsoft Excel for the
Mac OS. This spreadsheet application will open in Open Office Spreadsheet but the VBA code
does not work correctly with Open Office’s scripting language.

Will it save multiple days of meals?

No. The Meal Planner 2.0 application was designed for a single days meal planning. The
layout of the meal planner was designed to print nicely on a single sheet of paper. If you want
to save your results you can do one of the following:

1. Print the meal plan for the day. If you want to save your meal plans for later analyzing
you can store the paper in a binder of some sorts.

2. Since you need Microsoft Excel to run this application you might have installed, as a
print driver, Microsoft Office Document Image Writer, which will let you save what you
send to the printer as an image. You can then store the images on your computer for
later use.

3. You can download a pdf creator software package, I use PDFCreator which is free, to
create pdfs of the meal plan. PDFCreator can be found at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ and is a pdf print driver. When selected as
a printer you would print your meal plan and a pdf will be created. The pdf can be
stored or emailed for later use.

What food nutritional information does it come with?

I have entered the food nutritional information found in RTP Module 5. You can, and
should, enter the nutritional information from foods not found in the RTP food list that you
eat. Once the information is entered into the spreadsheet, and saved, you will not need to
enter it again.
How was the Meal Planner 2.0 designed?

The Meal Planner 2.0 layout and design was modeled after the layout of a meal planner
found in the Appendix of Tom Venuto’s book, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. I created the
spreadsheet application after reading Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.

Section 2: How to use the Meal Planner 2.0

Macro Warning:

When you open the Meal Planner 2.0 spreadsheet, depending on the version of
Microsoft Excel you have and the security level you have set, you may be prompted to enable
or disable the macros. You will need to enable the macros for everything to work correctly. In
Excel 2007 the security warning is located at the top of the screen but below the menu system.
There is no need to worry about the macro code, I guarantee the code to not harm your
computer. The code is not locked so you can view it any time. If you are having trouble at this
point please look at Excel’s help file for information about the macro security levels. If you are
on a work computer and cannot change the security level then talk to the administrator to
change the level to medium, which allows you to choose whether or not to run macros.
Getting Familiar with the Interface:

When you open the Meal Planner 2.0 spreadsheet for the first time you should be on
sheet1. If you have not enabled the macro please do so now. You should see a screen similar
to the screenshot below.

At the top you will see the page header with a place to enter the date. Below the page header
you will see the areas for the 6 meals. Each meal has 6 slots to add a food item too. If more
than 6 slots are needed instructions will be provided later to show the proper way to do this so
the saved ranges will be updated correctly.
Below the 6 meals you will find the grand total area and the per meal averages. See the
screenshot below.
sheet2 contains the food items used in sheet1. Each food item has a description, quantity,
measurement, grams, calories, fat, carbs, and protein columns. See the screenshot below.
Each one of the items will be described in more detail later in these instructions.
Planning Your First Meal:

Since I have already filled in sheet2 with the food lists found in the RTP Module 5 we can
start planning our first meal. We are going to create our first meal of the day from Eggs
(whole and whites) and whole wheat toast. For our macro-nutrient portions we are looking
for around 140 calories of protein and 210 calories of starchy complex carbs. For now just fill
in the numbers I give so you get familiar with how the application works.

1. If you’re not on sheet1 go to the top of sheet.

2. Click in the first slot under “Food Item” in “Meal 1” . You should be presented with a
drop-down box filled in with the food items from sheet2. Select the down arrow to
expand the drop-down box.

3. Find Egg, Whole and select it.

4. Hit the TAB key or select the “Quantity” cell next to the “Egg, Whole” we selected. For
the quantity we will enter 1.

5. Hit the TAB key or select the “Measurement” cell next to the “Quantity” cell with the 1
in it. The “Measurement” cell also contains a drop-down box with the type of
measurement we measured the food with. Select the down arrow to expand the drop-
down box.

6. Select “Whole”. The eggs were entered into sheet2 with a measurement type of
“Whole” so that what we need to select. If you select something other than “Whole”
you will get an informative error message.

7. After you select “Whole” the calories, fat grams, carb grams, and protein grams will be
filled in for you. If this did not happen then the macros are not enabled and you should
go back to that section and reread it.
8. The “Meal 1” should look like this

9. Go to the next open slot for “Meal 1” and fill in the information for 4 whole egg whites.
If you are having trouble go back to step 2 but use 4 whole egg whites for the data.

10. The “Meal 1” should look like this

11. Go to the next open slot for “Meal 1” and fill in the information for 2 whole slices of
Whole Wheat Bread. Whole Wheat Bread is found in the 3 – Complex Card (Starchy)
section of the food item drop-down list. If you are having trouble go back to step 2 but
use 2 whole slices of Whole Wheat Bread for the data.

12. The “Meal 1” should look like this

13. We have now completed setting up “Meal 1”. Below “Meal 1” you will find the totals
for the meal including: total number of calories for the meal, total number of calories
for each macro-nutrient, and total number of grams of each macro-nutrient.
 14. Now, scroll down to the bottom of the meal planner and you will see the Grand Total
for all the meals. Since we have only created one meal the Grand Total will have the
same numbers as the “Meal 1” total numbers but with the addition of percentage
information. You can use the percentage information to make sure you are hitting your
macro-nutrient ratio (ex. 40% Protein-40% Carbs-20% Fat). With the first meal we
created we are almost at 40% Protein-40% Carbs-20% Fat. See the screenshot below.

15. With the information in the meal totals and the grand totals you should be able to tailor
your meals so the you get the number of calories and macro-nutrient ratios you desire.

16. The next steps are to plan meals 2 – 6 using the same steps for planning “Meal 1”.

17. When you are finished save the spreadsheet so you don’t lose your meal plan. When
you want to create another meal plan there is an easy way to clear all, or some, of the
meals. Go to Clearing the Meal Plans to find out how.

Entering in Your Own Food Nutrition Information:

As stated before the Meal Planner 2.0 spreadsheet application comes loaded with the
food information provided in RTP Module 5. But this doesn’t mean you can’t add your own
food items and it’s recommended that you do add the food items you commonly eat if they
are not already there. To add your own food items please use the following steps.

1. Go to sheet2 and scroll down to the bottom of the list until you find an open row.

2. In the Food Item column you will enter in a description of the food item you are adding.
The way I have entered in food items from RTP Module 5 is by first giving the food type
a number and a type description, for example all lean protein item start with “1 – Lean
Protein – “. I did this so that all the food categories, ie. Lean Protein, Starchy Carbs,
Fibrous Carbs, Fat, etc., will be kept together in their own groups. The order in which
the food items appear on sheet2 is the order in which they show up in the drop-down
box on sheet1. I recommend that you use the already define food groups when
entering your food items, but you can also enter you food items in however you like.
3. After you entered in the food item description you need to enter in the quantity of one
serving in the Quantity column. If the nutrition label states that 1 serving is 1 cup then
enter in 1 for the quantity. You will enter in the measurement type in the next step. If
there is no measurement type on the nutrition label don’t worry the quantity and
measurement columns are not necessary to fill out. I will cover this in Step 5. You can
use whole numbers, decimals, and fractions in this column.

4. If you were not able to enter in a quantity jump to Step 5. After entering in the quantity
you will go to the Measurement column. Here you will select the type of measurement
used to indicate 1 serving. If the nutrition label states that one serving is 1/3 cup then
you would select cup from the drop-down box. For items like fruits and vegetables you
will probably select Whole. It really depends on how it’s measured. For items like a
slice of bread or things that are premeasured you would also select Whole. If you did
not enter in a Quantity for the food item do not fill in the Measurement.

5. You now need to enter the number of grams for one serving of the food item. This is
the most important number when it comes to determining a portion size. However not
all food items can be measured using grams. Liquids, like Milk or Oil usually do not have
a number of grams per serving. If you can’t enter in a number for grams then you must
have number for Quantity and a Measurement type. You can enter in a value for
Quantity, select a Measurement Type, and enter a value for grams. The more
information you can provide the better.

6. The rest of the information is easy to add. Find the number of calories per serving and
put that in the Calories column. Put the total number of grams of Fat in the Fat column,
put the total number of grams of carbs in the Carbs column, and put the total number of
grams of protein in the Protein column. The order of the columns matches the order in
which the macro-nutrients are found on a nutrition label. DO NOT reorder the columns,
they have to stay in the order in which they appear otherwise the calculations on sheet1
will not be correct.

7. Once you have your new food item entered you can enter the next one in.
 8. After you are done entering in all the food items you want I suggest you sort the list so
that the food items appear in alphabetical order and if you used the predetermined
food categories the food item will be with its group. To sort the list go to the first item,
which start on row 2, and select the food item description. Do not select the header
that is on row 1. Then scroll down to the last food item and while holding the SHIFT key
select the Protein cell for the last food item. You should now have a box that surrounds
all of the food items and their nutrition values. Go to the menu and select Sort in
Ascending order, and AZ with a down arrow. You may have to find where sort is
located. In Excel 2007 it is found under the Data menu item. If the list did not sort
correctly hit CTRL-Z to undo and try again.

9. Save the spreadsheet when you are done so you done lose your newly entered food
items.

Clearing the Meal Plans:

To clear the meal plan easily all you have to do is click on the date at the top of the
spreadsheet, change the date, and then hit ENTER, TAB, or click another cell. A dialog will
appear giving you options on how to clear the meal plan. See the screenshot below.
 You have three options to choose from and they are:

1. Click Yes to clear all of the meals. Choose this if you do not want to keep any of the
previous meals you had planned.

2. Click No to selectively clear the meal plans you have previously created. You would
want to use this option if there are 1 or more meal plans that are the same as before.
You will be prompted to clear each of the 6 meals.

3. Click Cancel to cancel the operation and not clear any of the 6 meals.

I highly recommend that you use this method of clearing out the meals so you don’t
accidentally clear out some of the formulas in the totals boxes.

Printing Out the Meal Plans:

When you have created your meal plans for the day and you wish to print out the meal
plans all you have to do is print it. The layout I have created fits nicely within an 8.5”x11”
(letter) size sheet of paper. You can do a print preview to make sure everything looks good
before printing.

Other Tidbits:

There is a small note section for each of the 6 meals if you would like to add a note to
the meal. The note will be cleared out when you clear out the meals using the method
mentioned in Clearing the Meal Plans.

If you like this Meal Planner 2.0 spreadsheet application or if you have comments, questions,
and/or suggestions drop me a line http://www.shreddersphere.com/member.php?u=677.

Thank you and Shred Hard!