Weekly Meal Planner

How to Use Your Weekly Meal Planner

Welcome! This planner helps you organize your meals for the upcoming weeks. Follow these simple steps:

1. Initial Setup:

  • Number of Weeks: Select how many weeks (1 to 4) you want to plan.
  • Starting day: Choose the day your meal planning week begins.
  • Apply Additional Settings (Optional):
    • Tick this box if you want to customize the distribution of Low, Medium, and High Carb meals across your plan.
    • If checked, the "Additional Settings" section below will become active.

2. Additional Settings (If "Apply Additional Settings" is ticked):

  • Click on "Additional Settings" to expand the section.
  • Adjust the percentage (%) targets for Low, Medium, and High Carb meals.
  • Important: These percentages must add up to 100%. An error message will appear if they don't.
  • If "Apply Additional Settings" is unticked, these targets are ignored, and meals will be assigned carbs more freely.

3. Generate Overview:

  • Once your setup options are chosen, click the "Generate Overview" button.
  • This creates the basic structure of your meal plan based on your selections and navigates you to the main planner view.

4. Planner View - Main Screen:

  • Week Tabs: If you're planning multiple weeks, use the "Week 1", "Week 2", etc., tabs at the top to switch between them.
  • Generate Menu Button:
    • After the overview is generated, you'll see a prominent "Generate Menu" button.
    • Click this to automatically fill all meal slots for all weeks. Meals are chosen based on default preferences or your "Additional Settings" for carb distribution.
    • Once clicked, this button disappears, and the bottom action bar becomes active.
  • Editing a Meal Slot:
    • Tap on any meal slot (e.g., "Monday - Breakfast") to expand its editor.
    • Manual Meal Name: You can type a custom meal name directly into the "Meal Name" field. If you type a name, this meal will be fixed and won't be changed by the "Generate" button in the bottom bar unless you clear the name.
    • Change Preferences: Use the dropdowns (Effort, Cuisine, Carb Content, Dietary Type) to set specific preferences for that meal slot. These preferences will be used if you later use the "Generate" button for that slot (e.g., if it's empty or you want to re-randomize it).
    • Tap the meal slot again to collapse the editor.

5. Bottom Action Bar (Appears after "Generate Menu" is first clicked):

  • Generate:
    • This button re-randomizes any meal slots that are currently empty or were not manually assigned a name by you.
    • It uses the current preferences (Effort, Cuisine, Carb, Dietary) set within each editable meal slot.
    • It also tries to adhere to carb distribution if "Additional Settings" was active during overview generation and respects rules like not too many high-carb meals a day.
  • CSV: Exports your complete multi-week meal plan as a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file, which can be opened in spreadsheet programs.
  • Print: Opens your browser's print dialog to print your entire multi-week meal plan. The printed version is styled for readability and includes all generated weeks.
  • Share: Copies the meal plan text to your clipboard and attempts to open WhatsApp to share it. The text is formatted for easy reading.

6. Top Header Navigation (In Planner View):

  • Back Arrow (←): Takes you back to the initial setup screen from the planner view. Your current plan data will be kept unless you restart.
  • Restart Icon (↻): Clears the entire current meal plan and all settings, taking you back to a fresh initial setup screen. Use this if you want to start over completely.

Adjust your carb distribution targets for a personalized meal plan.