Free diet chart maker for dietitians

How to make a diet chart for a client

1. Add your branding once. Clinic name, your name and credentials, a contact line and your logo. The brand colour sets the banner, table header and guideline numbers. All of it stays in this browser, so the next chart starts branded.
2. Fill in the chart details. Client name, date, a title (for example “PCOS diet chart”), the energy and protein target if you share numbers with this client, and the next review date.
3. Set the meal times to the client's day. The chart starts with a common Indian schedule: early morning 6:30 AM, breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, evening, dinner and bedtime 10:00 PM. Shift the times to their wake-up, work or school hours, rename or delete slots, and add one for a pre-workout snack or a late shift.
4. Write one food and portion per line. “2 phulka (no ghee)”, “1 katori dal”, “1 glass chaas”. Add an Option 2 where the client needs a swap. Meals you leave empty are left off the PDF.
5. Add guidelines, check the preview, download. The preview matches the A4 PDF. If the chart runs long it continues on a second page with the footer repeated.

Diet chart format for dietitians: what a good chart includes

A diet chart is the part of the consultation the client takes home, so it has to work without you in the room. Whatever template you use, these are the parts that decide whether it gets followed.

Meal timings the client actually keeps

Build the schedule around their wake-up time, work or school hours, and fixed points such as insulin or levothyroxine timing, rather than a standard grid. A chart that assumes a 6:30 AM start is unlikely to be followed by someone on a night shift.

Household measures, not just grams

Clients cook and serve in katori, glass, cup, teaspoon and roti counts, not on a kitchen scale. Write portions that way, and say once in the guidelines what you mean by a katori or a glass, since bowl and glass sizes vary from home to home. Keep grams for the few items where precision matters, such as paneer, nuts or oil.

An alternative for each main meal

A second option of similar energy and protein keeps the plan going on the days the first one is not possible: eating out, travel, a family meal, a fasting day. Without one, the client has to improvise.

A short list of client-specific guidelines

Cooking oil and salt for the whole day, water, activity, what to avoid, what to do at a wedding or a restaurant. Five or six lines written for this client do more than a generic page of rules.

Targets and a review date

Printing the energy and protein target suits some clients and not others; leave the line blank where numbers are not helpful, for example with a history of disordered eating. A next-review date on the chart sets the expectation that the plan will be checked and adjusted.

Delivering the chart: print or WhatsApp

The download is an A4 PDF, so it prints cleanly on any clinic printer for clients who prefer paper on the fridge. For WhatsApp, send the PDF itself rather than a screenshot: the layout holds on any phone, the client can zoom in, and the file is named with the client's name and date, so it is easy to find later in the chat.

This tool does not keep a record of the charts you make. Save the PDF in your own client files if you need to refer back to it at the next review.

Limits of this free diet chart template

• One day, not a week. Every day of the chart is the same day.
• No nutrient calculation. The tool does not total calories, protein or anything else; the target line is what you type. For targets, use the BMR & TDEE calculator with ICMR-NIN 2020 RDA; for swaps within a food group, the Indian food exchange list.
• English only. The PDF font cannot print Hindi or other Indian scripts yet.
• Nothing is saved for you beyond the draft in this browser.

When you are making plans for every client, every week, the Nutrena meal planner is the diet plan maker built for that: 7-day plans with calories and macros totalled from the food database as you build, PDFs in your branding, and a client app where the plan arrives.