# Diet Goal Nutrition

> Goal-driven nutrition cooking — weight loss (cutting), muscle gain (bulking), maintenance, and high-protein cooking. Use whenever the user mentions calories, macros, protein targets, losing/gaining weight, "пп" (proper nutrition), meal prep for fitness goals, or wants recipes adjusted to fit a calorie or protein number.

- Skill: `dedinc/diet-goal-nutrition` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dedinc/diet-goal-nutrition`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dedinc/diet-goal-nutrition/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: DedInc (https://skillmd.com/u/dedinc)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dedinc/diet-goal-nutrition

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# 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.