Reverse Meal Planner

A meal planner that runs backwards. Every other planner starts with the eater you intend to become. This one starts with a log of what you actually ate.

For a week or two you just write down what you ate, honestly, takeout included. Then you promote the meals that keep showing up or earned a would-eat-again mark, and list each one's ingredients once. Next week gets filled from a dropdown of those proven meals, and the grocery list consolidates itself from the plan.

WHAT'S INSIDE

Dashboard - the rotation, the log, and how much of next week is planned

Start Here - how the file works and which cells are yours

Eaten Log - what actually got eaten, where you start

Rotation - meals promoted from the log, with their ingredients

Week Plan - next week, from the rotation dropdown

Grocery List - consolidated from the plan, one line per ingredient

THE PART NOBODY ELSE BUILDS

The rotation is made of meals you have demonstrably eaten, which is why it survives a bad week. A plan built from recipes you admired on a Sunday collapses the first evening you are tired, because none of those meals were ever load-bearing. A plan built from your own log has nothing aspirational in it to collapse. The grocery list is the payoff: one line per ingredient across the whole week, added up, rather than seven recipes each demanding their own half-onion.

WHAT YOU GET

Excel workbook (.xlsx)

Google Sheets template - one click to copy

Setup instructions (PDF)

Free updates for life

BEFORE YOU BUY

Works in Microsoft Excel 2016 and later, and in Google Sheets. There are no recipes and no calorie counting in this file; it plans from the meals you put in it. General information only, not dietary advice. Digital download, all sales final.