Recently I've gotten a lot of questions about how I meal prep/meal plan for the week ahead. How do I decide what we are going to make? What days do I shop? Where do I get my inspiration? How do I write it all out?
I've got a blog post to answer all those questions and then some :)
I started doing this to help us save money, eat what's in the fridge and stop eating out so much! Also I did this to keep me accountable with my health and fitness plan.
The first thing I do is refer to my daily intake goal. This is a free 21 Day Fix app I use on my phone. I used the Fix nutrition guide to calculate how many of each container I can have each day and plugged it in here. Each day I track my daily food intake on this trusty little app.
Now that I know what my goal is each day I got to my cookbooks and pinterest to gather recipes I want to make for the week ahead.
My go to recipe book is "Fixate" by Autumn Calabrese. All the recipes in the book are 21 Day Fix approved and have the container serving portions in there for each recipe. I also pin recipes throughout the week and find recipe inspiration from my challenge groups.
Types of Recipes I look for:
- Meal prep day Bulk Recipes: items like turkey meat balls, veggie egg cups, mason jar salads... These are the things I will use for my lunches throughout the week
- Family Friendly Dinners: Healthy recipes I can make that we can eat as a family, and that the kids will approve!
- Minimal ingredients/fresh whole foods! Bonus point if multiple recipes call for the same items so I can get them in bulk for cheaper.
-Crockpot friendly recipes for the busier days of the week
Next I get out my Calendar. I use a gmail calendar mainly, but I have a paper one too. I will look at the week ahead and see what days are busier... For example I know Mondays and Thursdays are the busiest days of the week for us always. So 9/10 times on those days each week it's a crockpot meal. It takes the stress off of cooking those days, and keeps us from eating out/unhealthy.
Then it's excel spreadsheet time, my favorite! (I love me a good excel spreadsheet, lol)
I have a blank Meal Plan Template I use and update each week. Currently I am doing a 30 day round of Cize. So all my weeks Cize workouts are up at the top and are my scheduled appointment each day of the week.
The order of how I type in all my meals for the week:
1. Workouts: Those go in first every time
2. Breakfast: It's the same for me everyday :)
3. My mid morning snack can vary, but I keep it very simple. Less stress and it's usually something I take with me on the go or while I work.
4. Dinners: I know it seems like I skipped a step, but I do this because I will use leftovers the next day as part of my lunches. I refer to my calendar for the week to plan out for what days need to be crockpot meals, events, etc.
5. Lunches: On Tuesdays we usually have tacos, so the next day will almost always be a taco salad for lunch (I'm a creature of habit). I also love to do big meal prep items the Sunday before and incorporate those into my lunches for the week. Right now I am LOVING Mason Jar salads. They are so easy to prepare, keep fresh for up to 5 days and I get my mid day veggies in even on the craziest of work days.
6. Other Snacks: This is also a section I will incorporate meal prepped items and in the evening before bed I drink my overnight "recharge' drink. It helps reduce muscle soreness and it helps me sleep better too!
Lunch! This is an example of one of my meals for the week. This took less than 2 minutes to put on a plate. Mason Jar salad made on meal prep day with homemade dressing already inside. Chicken sausage and brown rice. (Container Servings: 1 Red, 2 Greens, 1 yellow and 1 orange) I'm a busy working mama and during the day I will put my lunch on hold to make sure everything else gets done. By doing meal prep/meal planning it keeps me on track and easier to eat even on those crazier days.
Next step... Grocery List/Shopping time! Now that I have my plan typed out for the week I add all the ingredients I need to my grocery list. We make 1 trip to Costco a month were we stock up on our organic ground beef, organic chicken breasts, brown rice/quinoa and a few other bulk items. Then the rest of the month I go Trader Joe's, Von's or Sprouts. If I am going to Von's that week I will go into my app on my phone and load all the coupons that apply to what I need to my savings card. I typically save at least $25 a week doing that alone. In realty we save A LOT more money each month by eating at home and choosing healthier foods. We eat out usually once a week on the weekends.
Sunday afternoon's we meal prep in our house :) I have a whole blog post about that here:
So that's it! At first just like most things we begin that are new, it takes a little bit more effort to get this planning done. Give yourself a month of doing this and it will become second nature to you. From personal expirence it has helped my sanity, wallet, our health and it's given us more time to sit around the dinner table and be together as a family.
Do you have questions or would like to get started making healthy lifestyle changes?
I would love to hear from you!
Fill out my online form.
Have a blessed day!
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