What is Meal Planning?
Meal planning is essentially the process of planning out what meals you will enjoy within a certain time frame. The process can be highly individualized to meet your unique health needs and lifestyle. It may or may not include prepping the food ahead of time, can be prepared alone or with friends and family, and can be done as little or as much as you want.
Here are some examples of different meal planning styles, so you choose what works best for you and your needs:
- The Complete Schedule: Whether selecting meals for 1 week, 2 weeks, or a month, this style involves planning out specific recipes, for specific meals, for specific days.
- The Plan Without a Plan: This involves planning a selection of recipes for the week, but choosing what you will eat when in the moment.
- Cook Once Eat Twice: This approach simply entails cooking a two portions of something so you can eat it for two meals.
- Themed Days: Think Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday, Fish Friday…You can use “themed days” to enjoy specific types of meals.
- Batch Cooking / Freezer Meals: For those who prefer to plan and cook it all in one go, this style is for you. Batch cook freezer-friendly meals to simply heat and eat throughout the week.
The Benefits of Meal Planning
- Reduce Your Food Waste
While you may have bought those (now spoiled) fruits and vegetables with the best intentions, not having a plan of how/when to use them may not lead to the best result.
Meal planning allows you to know exactly what ingredients you need and when you are going to use them helping you reduce food waste.
- Save Time
From extra trips to the grocery store for missing ingredients, to time spent scrolling delivery apps, and stressing about what’s for dinner, it adds up! With a plan in place for the week (with flexibility of course) you can say goodbye to wasted time.
- Save Money
In today’s economy, wasted food = wasted money (and lot’s of it). By having a defined schedule of meals for the week and knowing exactly what you need to purchase allows you to plan ahead and search for deals, waste less food, and overall just buy less.
- Improves Health Outcomes
The key to reaching your nutrition and health goals is consistency, and meal planning helps you unlock it. Having meals and a plan ready to go makes it a whole lot easier to consistently enjoy nutritious meals and snacks throughout the week, revealing a happier healthier you. Less time spent cooking, cleaning, and planning means more time to spend doing other things to improve your health like enjoying exercise and spending time with family and friends.
- Reduces Stress
Three meals a day plus snacks 365 days of the year makes for a LOT of meals! Add in accomodating personal preference, health needs, busy schedules, budget, appetite and more it can be a whole lot overwhelming. We have enough to stress about in our lives, figuring out whats for dinner last minute doesnt have to be one of them!
How to Get Started with Meal Planning
- Choose Your Preferred Meal Planning Style: Whether a Complete Schedule, Plan Without a Plan, or Cook Once Eat Twice works, or a combination of a few is completely up to you!
- Decide Your Planning Format: Will you plan using a excel spreadsheet? Pen and paper? The notes of your phone? In an app? Nowadays there are so many tools out there you can utilize to get started.
- Select Your Recipes: Get inspiration from Pinterest, cookbooks, google search, family favourites, or your friendly dietitian.
- Make Your Grocery List: Here is a “Pro Tip” – Organize your grocery list by category to make grocery shopping more efficient.
- Buy Your Ingredients.
- Make the Food.
- Enjoy!
Get Support from a Journey to Health Dietitian
Our dietitian takes a non-diet approach to meal planning by helping her clients accommodate their unique nutritional needs whether it be allergies, health conditions, and intolerances, and plan meals that work for their lifestyle and preferences. Offering meal plans as a tool for your toolbox, she aims to help you get inspired in the kitchen, try new recipes, enjoy what you already love, and create consistency to build healthy habits, not restrictions. Does this sound like a good fit for you? Book a free 20-minute consultation call today.
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