Is it REALLY that important to meal plan?
I get it … we are all SO busy! We are making meal decisions on the fly and often find ourselves standing at the fridge with the door open trying to figure out what to serve your family for dinner. Does this sound at all familiar?
You have heard about meal planning, You have seen the companies that will do the meal planning for you, and send you all the ingredients, but let’s be real … those services are SO expensive! To feed a family of 4 three dinners a week is $98 just for dinner! That is a crazy amount of money for just 3 make at home dinners!
Not only does meal planning save you a TON of money, it can also save you a lot of time!
Today I am going to share with you my top meal planning tips to help you make this a streamlined process, and give you a couple of freebies to make meal planning even easier! The first thing you need to do is decide where you are going to keep your list of meals. I love to buy pretty journals to store my meal plans in, but you are welcome to store these digitally … just think about what will work best for you!
The next step is to look at your family’s calendar. Note any events, meetings, or other obligations that would impact dinner. Make note of these so that you choose meals that can be prepped in 20-30 minutes or less.
Since I follow the FASTer Way To Fat Loss program, my next step entails noting on each day how we are eating for that day … low carb, regular macro, etc.
The next step is my favorite and involves searching for recipes!!! I love cookbooks, and on-line recipe searching. Since you are probably here because you hate those things, I am going to make things really easy for you and have you pop on over here to my Pinterest Board for TONS of meal recipes, meal sides, snack ideas, and cocktail recipes! I update these pins daily, and include lots of crock pot and instant pot recipes too! You can use my boards to plan your meals for the week and be all set! Be sure to follow me so that you don’t miss out on any new yummy recipes! You can also do a quick Google search for “recipes for chicken thighs” and find something that sounds good to you! I always plan out my proteins first (be sure to check out my free printable where I share a list of favorite protein sources!) One thing I make a habit of doing is checking my freezer to see if there are any proteins in there that we need to eat. If so, I am sure to plan around those too.
After the proteins are planned, I then find some healthy carbs that will make a nice accompaniment. I love to cook things that are in-season like fresh corn! Grilling your healthy carbs are another great option, especially in the summer! Be sure to check out my free printable to get a list of favorite healthy carbs to help with your meal planning! I am also sure to include a vegetable carb as well as some other healthy carbs to round out the meal.
My third component of every meal is some healthy fats. Yes, I said fats … listen up … healthy fats WON’T make you fat! One great way I love to add in my healthy fats is to use some good extra virgin olive oil as salad dressing with a splash of my favorite flavored vinegar. I sprinkle on some fresh or dried herbs over a salad, and boom … healthy fats, and some additional healthy carbs to provide you with fiber to keep you full and gives you the healthy fats you need to stay satiated.
That’s it friends! Seriously so easy … and to make things even easier I have also included an 8 day meal planning sheet with places for you to write down your protein, vegetable, healthy carb, and fat for each meal! Grab that meal planner sheet here.
My last couple of tips are probably the MOST important. The first is to be sure to KEEP all of these meal guides! Make a binder, or use a journal so that you are able to go back and repeat things that your family loved, or meals that were easy to make on super busy nights. My last tip is probably my biggest time saving tip. That is to use grocery pick-up! Start inputting your grocery list items into your local store’s grocery app and then all you have to do is use the bar code scanner to add to your list, or type in the name! Once you have done that once, your items are in there! So if you regularly purchase the same items, you will not have to enter them more than once! Right now our local grocery store is waiving the $4.95 fee which is great, but stop for a second and think about what your time is worth. Listen, grocery shopping is NOT fun, takes a ton of time to go up and down the aisles, and then backtracking because you forgot something. It is a huge time suck and often costs you more money as you add in impulse buys, am I right? Getting that time back has been huge for our family, and I know that it will be for yours too!
If you love tips and tricks like this, I share TONS of tips, trick, and recipes in my newsletter. Be sure that you sign-up for that so that you don’t miss out on the fun!
If you are wanting to get more 1:1 help from me to get healthy and strong, join my next round of the FASTer Way To Fat Loss that begins soon! Click here for more information!
I hope that you enjoy these tips and freebies and that they make your meal planning easy! Remember, it will take some time to get into a groove (everything new takes some time!) and to build up a library of recipes that your family loves, but once you do, meal planning will be quick and easy!
I can’t wait to hear how meal planning has simplified your life and saved you money!
Be well!
Stephanie