Remember Lance from yesterday?
The food truck guy on my commute. Feeds everyone else incredible food. Skips his own meals. Crashes by 2pm. Running on coffee and scraps from his own grill.
I see him every morning on my way to the airport. Takes me 29 minutes to get to work. I stop at his truck maybe three times a month. And for months I watched this guy get slower and slower.
Last Thursday I finally said something. "Lance, you look like you're running on fumes."
He laughed. "I am." That's when I handed him this prompt.
What This Prompt Does
It builds a 5-day meal plan around your actual schedule.
Not a diet. Not a fitness plan. A meal system.
You tell it when you work. You tell it what you eat now. You tell it when you crash.
It gives you breakfast, lunch, and dinner for five days. Portion sizes. One batch-cook day so you're not scrambling every night. And a single grocery list you can knock out in one trip.
The whole point? You stop guessing and start eating like someone who wants to still be standing at 5pm.
The Prompt
I am a [AGE]-year-old [OCCUPATION] who works [WORK SCHEDULE — e.g., long shifts, early mornings, on my feet all day]. I usually eat [CURRENT EATING PATTERN — e.g., skip breakfast, grab fast food, eat one big meal at night]. By [TIME OF DAY YOU CRASH], I am exhausted and running on coffee.
Create a simple 5-day meal plan that:
1. Matches my work schedule so meals are realistic to prepare and eat
2. Keeps my energy steady from morning to evening
3. Uses ingredients I can buy in one grocery trip
4. Takes no more than 20 minutes to prepare per meal
5. Includes one batch-cook day so I have meals ready for the week
For each day, give me breakfast, lunch, and dinner with portion sizes. Flag any meals I can prep ahead. End with a single grocery list for the full 5 days.
Who This Works For
A 58-year-old contractor who eats gas station food between job sites and wonders why his back hurts worse every year.
A 50-year-old teacher who skips lunch during the school day and eats everything in sight after 6pm.
A 62-year-old retiree who snacks all day but never sits down for a real meal and can't figure out why she's always tired.
A 47-year-old nurse working 12-hour shifts who lives on vending machine coffee and granola bars.
Suggested Tool
ChatGPT — best fit for meal planning because the task is about generating options, exploring food combinations, and thinking through possibilities for your week. Claude is also a strong option if you want a more structured, step-by-step batch-prep plan with time estimates built in.
What Happened to Lance
Lance ran the prompt that Sunday night. He told it he was a 52-year-old food truck owner. On his feet from 5am to 2pm in a hot kitchen. Eating scraps and coffee. It gave him five days of meals. Overnight oats he could grab from his fridge at 4:30am. Rice bowls he could pack in a container and eat between the lunch rush and cleanup. Dinners that took 15 minutes because most of the work was already done from his Sunday batch cook.
I stopped at his truck on Monday. He was eating overnight oats out of a mason jar at 6am. First real breakfast he'd had in months.
By Thursday he told me his 2pm crash was gone.
"I didn't change anything else," he said. "I just started eating."
That's it. That's the whole trick.
You already know how to feed other people. This prompt helps you feed yourself.
Try it this weekend. Fill in the brackets. Run it. Do the batch cook on Sunday. See how you feel by Wednesday.
Hit reply and tell me what your 2pm looks like after a week of actual meals.
Until next issue,
Stay in Win Mode!
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