Pick your calorie level. Get a real 7-day plan.

Every plan below is a full week of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks assembled from real public-domain USDA recipes — not stock photos or invented numbers. Each day balances all five food groups and lands near its calorie target.

Browse meal plans by calorie level

• 1,200-Calorie Meal Plan — A compact weight-loss week for smaller adults
• 1,500-Calorie Meal Plan — A moderate weight-loss week for many adults
• 1,800-Calorie Meal Plan — A gentle deficit or smaller-adult maintenance week
• 2,000-Calorie Meal Plan — The reference maintenance week
• 2,200-Calorie Meal Plan — An active-adult maintenance week
• 2,500-Calorie Meal Plan — A higher-needs maintenance week

Prefer to plan your own week? Open the meal planner — Build a week around your own targets with the free printable weekly template.

On a GLP-1 medication? The protein-forward GLP-1 meal plan is a ~1,500-calorie week built to protect muscle on Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, or Mounjaro.

How it works

1. Choose a calorie level. Not sure what you need? Run the calorie or TDEE calculator first — it returns the number to start from in under a minute.
2. Follow a real 7-day week. Each day pairs an actual USDA MyPlate Kitchen recipe to every meal, with the real calories and food groups shown. No two days repeat a recipe.
3. Cook, swap, or print it. Open any recipe for ingredients and steps, swap meals between days, or print the whole week — every day is a template you can rearrange when you cook.

Where can I find free meal plans?

Right here. This page is a free library of 7-day meal plans at six calorie levels — 1,200, 1,500, 1,800, 2,000, 2,200, and 2,500 calories. Every plan is assembled from real USDA MyPlate Kitchen recipes, balances all five food groups each day, and is free to view, cook from, and print with no signup or email required. A meal plan here is what many sites call a diet plan — a complete, balanced week of eating at a set calorie level.

Not sure which level is yours? Find your calorie level with the free calculator first, then open the matching plan — or use the meal planner to build a custom week around your own targets.

Why these plans are different

Most “calorie meal plans” online are illustrative — a tidy grid of foods with rounded numbers that don't trace back to anything you can actually cook. These plans are the opposite: every single meal is a real recipe from the USDA's MyPlate Kitchen, with that recipe's own published calorie count and food groups. Add the meals up and you get the day's real total.

Because the recipes are public-domain federal work, we can show you the full ingredient list, directions, and nutrition for each one. A plan here is a week of cooking you can start tonight, not a screenshot to aspire to.

Each day is assembled to balance all five food groups and land within a few percent of the target. No recipe repeats across the week, so a 7-day plan is genuinely seven different days.

Which calorie level should I pick?

If you already have a number from a doctor, dietitian, or another tool, use it. If not, the calorie calculator estimates your daily needs from your age, height, weight, and activity, and the TDEE calculator shows the maintenance figure to build a plan around. For weight loss, the calorie-deficit calculator turns that maintenance number into a sensible target.

As rough starting anchors — they're starting points, not prescriptions, and very low levels deserve a conversation with a professional first:

1,200–1,500

common weight-loss levels for many women and smaller adults

1,800–2,000

weight loss for many men; maintenance for many women

2,200–2,500

maintenance for active adults

Frequently asked questions

Are these meal plans free?

Yes — every plan is free to view, cook from, and print, with no signup required. A free MyPlan account is optional and only adds the ability to save your favorite recipes to a cookbook and log your meals in the tracker.

Where do the recipes come from?

Every recipe is from the USDA's MyPlate Kitchen, a public-domain library of recipes preserved from myplate.gov. Each meal links to the full recipe with ingredients, directions, and nutrition.

Are the calorie counts accurate?

Daily totals are approximate: each meal is built from whole USDA recipes at their published serving sizes, so a day lands close to the headline number rather than exactly on it. The figures come straight from each recipe's USDA nutrition data, not from our own estimates.

Can I swap meals or change the calorie level?

Yes. Treat any day as a template — swap a lunch you don't like for one from another day, or move to a higher or lower calorie level entirely. The plans are yours to adapt when you cook or print them.

Is this medical or weight-loss advice?

No. These are general-purpose templates built on the USDA Dietary Guidelines, not personalized advice. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, or are considering a low-calorie plan, talk with a doctor or registered dietitian first.