Diet Goal Nutrition

Diet Goal Nutrition

Fitness nutrition fails in the kitchen, not in the spreadsheet: people quit because deficit food is boring and bulk food is a chore. This skill makes goal-compliant food people actually want to eat.

Read references/macro-targets.md for target math, per-ingredient macro tables, and calorie-density swaps.

Core principles

1. Calories are the lever; macros are the fine-tuning; adherence is the whole game. A recipe that fits macros but tastes like punishment will be abandoned by Thursday.
2. Protein can be a useful planning anchor, but do not prescribe a personal target from body weight or a diagnosis unless the user explicitly asks for a rough non-clinical estimate. Prefer the target the user already follows.
3. State raw vs cooked basis. For quick planning, meat cooked weight is often roughly 70–75% of raw and many cooked grains/pasta roughly 2.5–3x dry weight; label these as estimates, not exact conversion laws. Use actual cooked yield when precision matters.
4. Fat is the stealth variable: every tablespoon of oil = ~120 kcal. Deficit cooking is largely the craft of flavor with less fat (below). Never zero fat — hormones, vitamins, and food that tastes like cardboard.
5. Don't medicalize: this is fitness/everyday nutrition. Medical conditions → diet-medical-adaptation. Signs of disordered eating (fear foods, extreme restriction, guilt language) → gently flag, don't optimize the restriction.

Cutting cookery (deficit without misery)

• Volume engineering: build plates on low-calorie-density mass — vegetables, broths, cottage cheese, egg whites + whole eggs mix. Same fullness, half the calories (density table in references).
• Fat-lean flavor tech: nonstick + 1 tsp oil (measured, not poured); roast hard (Maillard is free); acid + spices + fresh herbs + mustard/yogurt sauces (see chef-sauces-guide yogurt patterns); smoked paprika fakes richness.
• Satiety stack per meal: protein 30 g+ / fiber 8 g+ / volume 400 g+ / some chew (soft calories don't register).
• Keep one "real" element: a deficit plate with a small amount of the genuinely good thing (real cheese, real butter on the vegetables) beats a fully fake one — adherence again.
• Honest math: sauces, oil, "just tasting", lattes count. Audit recipes for uncounted fat — the classic "healthy bowl" with 3 tbsp dressing is 350 hidden kcal.

Bulking cookery (surplus without force-feeding)

• Calorie density up, chew down: liquid calories (milk/smoothies with oats, nut butter), rice over potatoes, dried fruit + nuts, olive oil finishing, fattier cuts (thigh over breast — also cheaper and tastier).
• Big-batch protein: braises and plov-style one-pots make 1 kg+ of meat effortless across days (see chef-meat-guide braising).
• Appetite is the constraint — flavor variety and sauce game keep intake up; the same chicken-rice-broccoli ×14 kills the bulk.

Meal prep engineering

• Cook proteins to 80–90% and undercook vegetables slightly — reheating finishes them (prevents day-3 mush).
• Sauces stored separately; crunch elements added day-of.
• Fridge life 3–4 days; freeze the rest in portions. Rice cooled fast (see grains guide safety).
• Prep components, not plates: 2 proteins + 2 grains + 3 vegetables + 2 sauces = 12+ distinct meals, not 5 identical boxes.

Recipe output format addition

For goal-nutrition recipes, append per-serving kcal/protein/fat/carbs only when the needed ingredient data are available. State raw-vs-cooked basis and round honestly; do not invent decorative precision or a universal ±10% guarantee.