Use These AI Prompts to Build Your Perfect Nutrition Plan
Simple, copy-paste prompts to get a personalized nutrition plan for calories, diet style, and meal prep, with food image analysis.
Most people quit meal plans because they’re too complicated or not appetizing. What if, using AI, you can instantly get a plan that fits your life & health goals?
Welcome to the Healthy Aging Newsletter, a free publication translating trustworthy medical research into simple healthy-aging habits. I’m Dr. Ashori, a family medicine doctor turned health coach.
The Big Problem With Diet Advice
My health coaching clients who failed their nutrition plan often didn’t feel inspired by the food:
Bland & boring
Tedious to prepare
Restrictive & limiting
Food and eating is a beautiful, social, and enjoyable process that shouldn’t be whittled down to macros and nutrients.
You also should be able to set a financial and time budget for your meal preps.
Most importantly, you should see results! Your nutrition plan should get you your ideal weight and blood pressure results, when possible.
Get Creative with AI
There is a lot that you can accomplish for your nutrition plan with AI and LLMs that are now abundant:
Take a photo of your favorite dish to recreate
Get the exact calorie and macro count of any dish
Redesign a dish from a photo to fit your nutrition goals
Ask for the right substitution to keep it healthy (NaCl for KCl)
As for “AI platforms”, here is what I use with my patients in descending order:
Know Your Health Status
Before we get started, I’d suggest having a good idea about your overall health. In my practice, we use as much objective health data to paint a picture of someone’s health. Consider things like:
Body composition (muscle mass + bone density + fatty tissue)
Fatty liver disease
Liver enzymes
Cholesterol numbers
Blood pressure
Abdominal circumference
Inflammatory markers
Sample prompt:
I’m a 43 yo woman, 5’6”, 194 lbs, living in Bromley, England. My mother went through menopause at 50 and all of my aunts had high blood pressure and experience hair loss. I feel good overall without any major health issues but my cholesterol is high. My main goal is to avoid diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or dementia. If you need any specific lab tests ask me and I’ll look through my labs. I have uploaded copies of all of my labs here.
You are physician who has a fellowship in obesity medicine and lifestyle medicine. Your job is to help me figure out my overall baseline of health so that I can use this information to create the right nutrition plan for myself. If I need any other biometric information, I can request it from my own physician.
How Many Calories Do You Need?
I’m 5’11” and weigh 164 lbs. My stamina is good but my blood pressure can creep up sometimes and without the right nutrition plan I tend to recover poorly from my rock climbing. My main goal is to keep my current body composition - the ratio of subcutaneous fat to muscle to visceral fat.
If you want to lose weight you’ll need a slight calorie deficit. How much? It depends on your physiology which is different from everyone else’s. Cut too many calories and your metabolism drops, halting any weight loss. Don’t cut enough and your weight won’t budge.
Sample prompt:
You’re a physician, dietician, and health coach in charge of creating and tinkering with my nutrition plan for the main purpose of improving my overall health, specifically focusing on helping me with a 25 pound weight loss over a realistic timeline so that it doesn’t feel restrictive. I want to be able to eat things I like but don’t want my blood sugar spiking so much that I crash and get really hungry. If you have any further lab testing suggestions or other biometric data, request them before proceeding.
How Many Calories Are you Really Getting?
Upload photos of what you’ve eaten and describe what’s in each bowl or on each plate. Be specific and describe portion size. If it’s an ethnic dish, mention it. This will give you a rough estimate of your current calorie intake.
For most of us aiming to lose weight, we only need 250-400 calories less per day”
a few tablespoons of ice cream
handful of chips
an avocado
handful of nuts
This is why proper calorie tracking is indispensable if the goal is an improved body composition.
Sample prompt:
You’re a dietician who will help me estimate the calorie and food composition and nutrition profile of the food photos I’m uploading. The first photo is a Vietnamese pho dish that’s in large bowl with a beef stew base, some slices of beef, mushrooms, and I added 2 tablespoons of soy sauce to it and next to it is a fried egg roll that had some veggies and tofu in it. I’ve also uploaded a screenshot of the menu from the restaurant if that helps. Also tell me how much the calories could vary given your estimate (maximum and minimum.)
What Nutrition Plan To Follow
If you don’t want animal products, you can request a vegan nutrition plan and get suggestions on any necessary supplements. You can request a paleo, carnivore, or Mediterranean style diet.
First, find out which diet is most recommended given your health risks and health goals.
Sample prompt:
Given the most solid evidence we have right now in the field of dietetics and clinical medicine, what is the ideal nutrition profile/diet plan for me to follow? I want you to use the strongest research evidence and also review the nutritional guidelines of all leading countries where overall health is favorable. Examples of the nutrition plan could be Mediterranean, DASH, vegetarian, pescetarian, carnivore, keto, etc.
You can use sources like CDC and WHO and avoid using popular social media health experts, unless their advice is aligned with the most up-to-date research. Ask me 5 clarifying questions before offering me an answer.
What’s Your Flavor Profile?
How does individual food preference work? My wife, for example, doesn’t like mushy foods or savory dishes that also have sweetness. She can’t stand the taste of garlic or raw fruits. She loves a small dessert with coffee or tea.
Me, I’m more like a Hoover vacuum. I don’t heat my food, I can eat my dessert at the same time as my meal, I’m a bit taste agnostic, and love large portions.
Sample prompt:
You’re a chef and a dietician and in charge of creating dishes for me that meet my nuanced taste preferences. I don’t like spicy foods. I like something crunchy, smaller portions, heavy on flavor, good amount of salt, with my vegetables fully cooked (nothing crunchy.) I don’t like anything sweet in my dish and I always want to have a side salad that’s cold with my meals and a dessert. Follow my previous nutrition guidelines when creating each dish. Ask me 10 questions you have before giving me an answer to make sure you give me the best answer.
I live in zip code 90024 and want to eat out 2x per week and have 2 alcohol beverages. Which restaurants should I limit myself to and which dishes from the menu can I have and what modifications do the need to achieve my health goals? You will need to access the internet and the menu sections of those restaurants. If you can’t, let me know so that I can get the menu screenshots.
Preparation Time & Styles
I love cooking and I’m fast. My wife enjoys taking her time preparing her favorite dish but she’s usually short on time. I don’t like meal prepping while she prefers to have her favorite dishes readily available in the fridge or freezer.
Sample prompt:
You’re my meal planning chef who is also a dietician and given the nutrition profile we’ve come up with I want you to give me recipes for the favorite dishes I listed that include canned options but also some fresh produce. I want things that last in the fridge but can also be frozen. I don’t want any dish to take more than 2 hours to prepare and I want 80% of the ingredients to be readily available in my local Fred Meyers in Portland, Oregon. For any ingredients that may not be readily available list 2 alternatives in the ingredient list and explain it in the preparation section.
Meal Prepping Without Complicating it
Meal planning is great for busy people. It’s also an effective way to prevent you from going so hungry that you’ll eat everything in sight. You don’t have to meal plan everything, but there are a few things always worth having readily available.
Sample prompt:
You’re a meal planning and batch cooking expert and using the recipes and cookbooks from the chef Jamie Oliver I want you to help me come up with 5 staples that I can meal prep and store in the fridge or freezer. Specifically, I want 3 sauces, 3 grains, 3 vegetables bases, and 3 meats that I can batch cook to have available that can match easily with many different variations to make new, interesting dishes. I want this to make up 80% of my calories and then I’ll add 20% of freshly prepped items to make it a whole meal.
Give me a monthly shopping list from Amazon or another grocery delivery service in my zip code of 92130 to obtain all of the necessary staples for the month. If I need any particular storage containers or tupperware, list them for me to purchase. I want to make sure that the food I store stays safe and fresh.
Using Ingredients You Have
When I don’t feel like shopping I snap photos of everything I have in cans, in the back of the freezer, and half uneaten in the fridge, and I request new recipes from my favorite AI tool.
And if you’re a meat & potatoes kind of person, you can even request dishes that taste almost exactly like it’s just … meat & potatoes, but they still have the right nutritional profile to meet your overall health goals.
Sample prompt:
You’re a dietician and chef, I’ve uploaded photos of everything in my fridge and spice cabinet and pantry. If anything is unclear, ask me before proceeding to an answer. I’m looking to make 3 different lunches to take to work in glass tupperware that’s about 1 quart in size. I want them to be easily reheated in the microwave. I can only spend 2.5 hours preparing these dishes. Use my health plan goals, calorie goals, and overall nutrition plan from above to come up with these dishes.
Using Photos & Images
With ChatGPT you can not only take photos but use videos. You can also go into the live audio session and turn on your camera and share a live video interaction to get info on something you’re eating or what you have in your pantry.
Many AI tools have some sort of live interaction feature. Some are paid, some are free. Many more will come online by the time this article is published.
The more you can explain a photo or video the better data the AI can use to help you with your nutrition plan.
Want to review your AI-generated health plan? Book a 1-hour health coaching call with me, below:
Sample prompt:
This is a ‘healthy nut-bun’ I get at my local bakery. Here is the photo of the bun and a photo of the ingredients. What’s the estimated calories of this bun and how can we make it part of my overall nutrition plan without negatively affecting my health? If it’s not possible please explain why. I am open to making this bun for myself if you give me the recipe. If you want me to ask the bakery further questions, write them down for me.
Getting Feedback for Your Goals & Troubleshooting
If your goal was to lower your LDL-C, get your new lab values and track your progress. If your weight isn’t changing, report back to the AI and be open to experimenting with different adjustments until you get your desired result.
Sample prompt:
You’re a chef, physician, and dietician. You have my nutrition plan and I’ve shared with you everything I’ve eaten over the past 2 months. I haven’t lost any weight but I feel that my energy is better. What questions do you have for me to troubleshoot why I’m not losing weight with this plan and what are 3 adjustments I can choose from to get us there? If there are any further tests I need to do, request them here and I’ll discuss it with my doctor.
This is the dish I made using your recipe. It tastes bland but also is very mushy. I like the portion size but I feel like something else was missing to make it a satisfactory meal. I’ve uploaded some photos of the dish and the recipe you gave me. Ask me 5 questions to troubleshoot this dish to make it better for next time.
Stay Consistent
Take photos of your meals. This encourages you to make a plate for yourself rather than nibble. And you get to save the photos into your favorite AI platform for tracking your progress.
AI is just a tool and while it can make it simpler for you to access the right information, it can’t make decisions for you, and it can’t make the tough choices for you.
To stay consistent, make it a habit to do the same thing every day. For example:
Take a photo of your prepped plates and snack daily
Input your photos into your favorite AI daily for feedback
If you experience friction or setbacks, ask for 3 solutions
Avoid complicating it - the simpler, the better
Get Your Health Team Involved
Once you have your AI-created nutrition plan, take it to a competent dietician or your clinical team and review it. Ask for input and anything you may not have considered.
Hopefully one day AI will be accurate enough to not require a clinical team for this kind of information. For now, it may still not be ready to operate completely independently.
Sample prompt:
You’re a dietician and physician and I want you to write out my nutrition plan in a detailed enough summary format for my own clinical team to review. List all of my medications and medical problems and family history as well. Ask me any questions you have before proceeding. Write 5 important questions I should ask my clinical team about this plan.
Important Caveats & Limitations
The AI process isn’t transparent. We don’t know which data sets were fed into which AI algorithm and we don’t know how outputs are created. We don’t know where biases exist in a system or when hallucinations may occur. But AI tools can still be a good guide for helping us with our health.
As of 2025, there is a significant bias towards protein consumption even though the scientific evidence doesn’t show that any macro-forward diet has a better outcome. But likely due to the overabundance on social media content pushing for protein, it’s overemphasized on AI platforms.
The plan should be intuitive and your clinical team should be able to give your their blessing.
Want a nutrition plan designed around your health goals? Book a 1-hour call with me to review your AI-generated nutrition plan. You’ll get the peace of mind and avoid any errors.
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