Crafting a Weekly Meal Plan with AI
Ashley’s AI-CornerAshley demonstrates how AI can be used to generate weekly meal plans based on a daily calorie intake target.
Welcome to the 7th addition of ‘Ashley’s AI Corner’
Hello again, and welcome to the seventh edition of Ashley’s AI Corner. Each month, I’ll offer you a glimpse into the weird and wonderful experiments I’ve been conducting with Microsoft’s Generative AI, Copilot.
Last month, I wrote about using AI to create a personalised workout routine. This time, I’m shifting my focus onto something equally important and usually works alongside working out: meal planning.
In this article, I’ll describe my experiment with using AI to generate a weekly meal plan tailored to specific dietary needs and preferences. Join me as we uncover how AI can transform your approach to meal planning, making it less of a chore and more of an adventure.
Introduction
As always, when using AI, you should research its information, especially regarding your health and diet. If you’re unsure about the foods or calories the AI provides, please do thorough research to ensure they are correct before embarking.
That said, I’m going to ask the AI to produce a weekly meal plan that complements my workout plan that it created last month. I’m going to ask it to offer a mixture of vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals, as I like a mixture.
When it comes to the meal plan itself, you will need your daily calorie target. To do so, I’d recommend using an online calculator, as it can give you a rough estimate of the amount of calories you should be eating. I’ll be using a total calorie target of 2,230 per day.
Let’s see what the AI can produce based on these requirements.
The Initial Set Up
First, I’m going to feed my AI-generated workout into Copilot. This way, Copilot will be able to understand what exercises I’ll be doing across the week whilst gauging how physically straining said workouts will be.
To do this, my prompt will be:
I also attached my workout routine to this prompt, but I didn’t want to show how long it is.
Copilot replied with the following:
Once you have this response, you can start to feed in the requirements for your meal plan. I’ve kept my request quite simple, but you can push the AI with specific requirements around allergies, dietary requirements, etc.
Here’s what my next prompt looks like:
Fixing my Prompt Errors
Copilot then proceeded to produce a meal plan for the next week. However, it recommended cottage cheese as one of my snacks which is an automatic no (sorry to all the cottage cheese fans out there!). I forgot to mention that I didn’t eat fish in my initial prompt, so I had to fix that as well.
Here’s how I did it:
Here’s what Copilot produced for my snack alternatives:
Alternate Snack Options
– Greek Yogurt with Honey and Nuts: A great source of protein and healthy fats.
– Hummus with Veggie Sticks: Carrot, cucumber, and bell pepper sticks are perfect for dipping.
– Protein Bars: Look for minimal added sugars and high protein content.
– Hard-Boiled Eggs: Easy to prepare and packed with protein.
– Apple Slices with Peanut Butter: A delicious combination of fibre and healthy fats.
– Mixed Nuts: Almonds, walnuts, and cashews are good choices.
– String Cheese: Convenient and high in protein.
– Edamame: Steamed edamame is a great plant-based protein source.
– Smoothie with Protein Powder: Blend your favourite fruits with protein powder and almond milk for a quick snack.
Updated Weekly Meal Plan
Once Copilot provided those alternatives, I then led with this prompt to get my updated weekly meal plan:
After tidying everything up, here is what Copilot produced for my meal plan:
Monday
– Breakfast: Greek yogurt with mixed berries and a handful of almonds (300 calories)
– Lunch: Grilled chicken salad with mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and a light vinaigrette (500 calories)
– Snack: Apple slices with peanut butter (200 calories)
– Dinner: Grilled chicken breast with quinoa and steamed broccoli (600 calories)
– Snack: Greek yogurt with honey and nuts (200 calories)
Tuesday
– Breakfast: Spinach and feta omelette with whole grain toast (350 calories)
– Lunch: Lentil soup with a side of mixed greens salad (450 calories)
– Snack: Carrot sticks with hummus (150 calories)
– Dinner: Stir-fried tofu with mixed vegetables and brown rice (550 calories)
– Snack: Protein shake (200 calories)
Wednesday
– Breakfast: Overnight oats with chia seeds, banana, and a drizzle of honey (350 calories)
– Lunch: Turkey and avocado wrap with a side of baby carrots (500 calories)
– Snack: Greek yoghurt with a handful of walnuts (200 calories)
– Dinner: Grilled chicken with sweet potato and asparagus (600 calories)
– Snack: Mixed berries (150 calories)
Thursday
– Breakfast: Smoothie with spinach, banana, protein powder, and almond milk (350 calories)
– Lunch: Chickpea and quinoa salad with a lemon-tahini dressing (450 calories)
– Snack: Celery sticks with almond butter (150 calories)
– Dinner: Chicken stir-fry with mixed vegetables and brown rice (600 calories)
– Snack: Hard-boiled eggs (200 calories)
Friday
– Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with turkey bacon and whole grain toast (350 calories)
– Lunch: Black bean and corn salad with avocado and lime dressing (450 calories)
– Snack: Protein bar (200 calories)
– Dinner: Beef stir-fry with bell peppers and broccoli over quinoa (600 calories)
– Snack: Greek yoghurt with honey (200 calories)
Saturday
– Breakfast: Smoothie bowl with mixed berries, granola, and chia seeds (350 calories)
– Lunch: Grilled chicken Caesar salad (500 calories)
– Snack: Apple slices with cheese (200 calories)
– Dinner: Baked chicken with roasted vegetables and brown rice (600 calories)
– Snack: Mixed nuts (150 calories)
Sunday
– Breakfast: Avocado toast with poached eggs (350 calories)
– Lunch: Lentil and vegetable stew (450 calories)
– Snack: Protein shake (200 calories)
– Dinner: Grilled turkey burger with a side of sweet potato fries (600 calories)
– Snack: Greek yoghurt with berries (200 calories)
Hey! The calories don’t add up!
One thing that you’ll notice is that the calories for each of the days don’t add up to my target calorie intake. With that in mind, just to reiterate my earlier point in the introduction, when it comes to diet and calories intake, please do your own research alongside using AI for sense checking.
Making a meal of it…
To expand this further, if there is a meal that you like the look of, I recommend asking Copilot to find a recipe to help you out. For example, I like the look of the dinner option on Thursday (chicken stir-fry with mixed vegetables and brown rice), so I’m going to ask if Copilot can provide a recipe for me.
Here’s the prompt:
Copilot then took this prompt and provided me with the ingredients and instructions for making the dish. Because Copilot is connected to the web, it was also able to provide five different YouTube videos that I could follow if needed.
We now have a weekly meal plan created to work alongside our workout routine. I’ll probably need to tweak the plan slightly to match my calories. However, this is a good enough starting point that I don’t need to stress about meal ideas myself, as Copilot has done most of the heavy lifting for me.
Using AI for Leftover Ingredients
Let’s highlight another way that Copilot could help you with your meal planning. Say you walked in late from work and haven’t got any meal prep or leftovers sitting in the fridge, you don’t fancy a takeaway, and you only have certain bits and pieces in your fridge/cupboards. Copilot can help you plan a meal based on the ingredients alone.
For example, let’s say you have some leftover mince, spaghetti, tomato puree, half an onion, stock cube, courgette, potatoes, rice packet, mixed herbs, yoghurt, butter, garlic, milk. You’ll be surprised if you plug these into Copilot and ask it to create a meal based on what you have.
Here’s what the prompt could look like:
Here are the four meals it produced:
- Spaghetti Bolognese
- Beef and Courgette Stir-Fry
- Creamy Potato and Beef Bake
- Yoghurt and Herb Marinated Beef
Each recommendation included instructions on how to make it and which ingredients were used. This is another way AI can help us when we’re struggling with meal ideas.
Conclusion
And just like that, we’re at the end of another AI corner. This time, I’ve shown you how capable AI is of building a weekly meal plan that works hand in hand with your workout routine. I’ve only focused on the first week. However, you can ask AI to generate ideas for next month if you would like to prepare that far in advance.
Feel free to read the previous AI corner that prompted this idea.
I highly recommend giving these prompts a go to see what Copilot can recommend. Maybe you’re fully vegetarian or vegan, maybe you’re lactose intolerant, whatever it is I hope AI can provide some ideas for your next meal. As always, let me know how it goes!
Until next time
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