In a day and age where convenience foods are heavily marketed, portions at restaurants are exceedingly large and drive-thru’s are at every turn of the road, planning ahead is simple and easy way to stay on the straight and narrow with your diet. We all know this. So rather than preach to the choir, I’m going to keep this one simple.

Top 3 Reasons Why I Meal Plan

1. Makes life easier.
2. Keeps us healthier.
3. Helps us stay budget friendly.

It may sound counter intuitive because meal planning actually takes time and energy, but it truly does make our life easier. Planning ahead means less stress and hassle when we walk in the door after a long day of work, or, on my days home, less effort for me to put a meal together for when Mark arrives home for family dinner. Meal planning eliminates the “what do you want to eat tonight” discussions and takes any thought or worry out of the day that may pertain to getting home and prepping a meal. Planning ahead means less take-out food, less convenience food items and more balanced meals. Restaurant meals, especially in the fast food category, have significantly high amounts of calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium. Cooking at home will minimize some of these negative dietary contents and allows us to focus on the nutrients we want and need to consume. Meal planning also allows us to stay on track with our budget. We operate on a monthly family budget and only have a certain amount designated for groceries and dining out. By cooking at home according to our pre-planned schedule, we stick to our budget — which makes everyone happy.

Now for the how. When I read about meal planning, I typically see others planning and prepping meals for a full week ahead. I, on the other hand, am a little different. I know that if I cook and pre-portion meals out for an entire week (or work week) we, as a family, simply won’t stay on track and food will go to waste – and momma doesn’t want that because she’s majorly working on reducing the amount of food we waste! I want to share how we meal plan and what keeps us successful. A quick disclaimer though – there is no such thing as perfect. We do our best to prep and plan and do our best to stay on track too, but there’s always the occasional pizza night {whether that is planned or not ?}.

How I Meal Plan

Meal planning for the week usually begins with a discussion about what we may be craving, and, specifically, I ask if Mark has anything that he wants for the week ahead. Based off of these ideas, a review of leftover groceries that need to be eaten before they go to waste, as well as a review of our schedule to see when we will all be home to eat, I put together my plan. My plan is typically broken down into 2 or 3 day chunks, therefore I’m prepping approximately 2 or 3 times a week. The way the time breakdown is determined is by what we choose to have. This may be easier to understand with an example: Monday I make shredded chicken in a crockpot and serve it for dinner with steamed broccoli and sweet potato. On Tuesday, I will use the leftover shredded chicken on a sandwich for my lunch and then add the rest of it to a salad for dinner. When I do this, I focus on using different flavors to mix things up. Night one may simply be plain shredded chicken, my lunch sandwich may include avocado and cheese and the salad may be a BBQ chicken variety. This is an effective strategy for those who tend to not want to eat the same thing over and over again.

This example provides us with meals for two days, so from here, I will either create one or two other meal plans to get us through the work week such as cooking meat for tacos one night and using it again for burrito bowls the following night (easy to make a taco salad for lunch), or grilling up hamburgers or kabobs and then re-creating them into alternative meals as leftovers. If I do make something that isn’t able to be repurposed, I try to eat leftovers for lunch or make sure I freeze it for another time. If we make a meal that is for one night only {such as breakfast for dinner, because who doesn’t love that?!}, I just plan and prep other days accordingly.

Another mention as to how I meal plan is that I always take fruit and vegetable consumption into consideration. I try to incorporate lots of veggies in both lunch and dinner meals and plan ahead to have fruit available for snack options throughout the day.

Here’s a quick meal planning summary:

1. Review your schedule. What days will you all be home to eat? Are there nights you already have dinner plans? Do you plan to go out to lunch any days of the week? Meal plan accordingly.
2. If your calendar is clear, select 2-3 main meals you’d like to have for the week. A good place to start would be planning dinners for Monday, Wednesday and Friday to determine what timeframe works best for you.
3. Create re-purposed lunch and dinner versions of each of those meals. How can you incorporate other flavors to mix up your menu?
4. Think fruits and vegetables. Did you plan to consume enough of each, each day?
5. Make sure you didn’t forget to use any ingredients in your fridge or cabinet that may otherwise go to waste.
6. Write it down. I didn’t mention this above but I always write our meal plan down. Writing it down makes us more accountable to sticking to the plan and really helps reduce any food from going to waste.
7. Freeze it! If you have any leftovers, don’t be afraid to portion them out for future lunches or dinners and put them in your freezer. You will thank yourself on those days or nights when you just don’t have it in you to cook anything. {Individual serving portions of shredded chicken in my freezer or leftover soups are my favorite. So quick and easy, especially for lunches!}
8. Don’t forget breakfast. We typically keep breakfast simple in our house because we are up and out the door at an early hour. Easy grab and go items are the best (EX: yogurt with berries and granola) as are protein smoothies.

 

I enjoy cooking and love feeding my family healthy meals, but I wouldn’t consider myself a gourmet chef. I’m all about being creative when it comes to using ingredients and changing flavors – and I’m all about simplicity and time saving cooking techniques. Meal planning has been great for our family. When we plan and stick to it, we all feel good. If we don’t plan, it’s pretty much a given that we’ll rely on take-out to meet our last minute hunger pains on our drives home from work. Meal planning takes some time and effort, but once you get into a routine, it all becomes easier.

How do you meal plan? Do you freeze leftovers? What are your favorite grab-and-go breakfast items?

As a follow up, I’ll be sharing a great way to switch up your meal selections without having to dig up new recipes or over extend your culinary creativity — especially during those weeks when you just don’t have time to plan!

 

Hope you’re having a great week!

XO,
Lisa