Meal planning for beginners
How about preparing a meal plan to organize yourself and eat healthy? Experts advise us to do so, as it can save you a lot of time and money. So forget the last minute trips to the supermarket. Never again will you substitute a real meal for a bag of potato chips and a few randomly bought cookies, just because you’re hungry and don’t have the strength to cook. Since you will have thought of all your meals in advance, you will avoid going through a certain fast food chain while going home at rush hour and you will always have an answer when someone asks: What’s for dinner?
However, it can be quite difficult to start meal planning without knowing where to start. We know. Many people choose a meal spontaneously, and you can be one of them. But this spontaneous choice can leave you hungry and, what’s more, it can waste your time queuing at the last minute at the grocery store or staring at the bottom of an empty potato chip bag. Doesn’t this look so good? We know your answer: No, thank you. I better get down to that meal plan after all.
The good news is that you can do it if you start small. Here’s how you can take your first steps in structuring and consistently choosing healthy dishes.
One day left with your meal planning
- Give yourself 30 minutes to organize your plan for the week.
- Think about when you can do your shopping (try to keep the same hours each week).
- Can you cook in batches for several days? Reserve between 1 hour and a half and 2 hours a week to cook your dishes in advance. It may seem like a lot, but if you think about what it takes to cook 45 to 60 minutes every night, without forgetting to wash all the dishes afterwards …
- Heat ready meals? No longer. It’s best to eat quick and easy recipes and have enough time to cook each night.
Now that you know, plan your meals. Warning: do not do this hungry … someone tells you who, more than once, has ended up destroying the pantry.
Make easy. Start by planning dinners for the entire week. Choose 4-5 easy and healthy recipes and make sure you cook enough servings to eat the leftovers the next day. And you will already have the battered meals. Easy peasy!
Wait wait. Do you need easy and healthy recipes for your planning? That runs on us! In the health programs section you can find hundreds of healthy recipes to complete your meal plan, stay satiated and feed yourself to achieve your sports goals.
Make your first meal plan
- Take a sheet of paper and write the days of the week on it.
- Check your agenda. What do you have those days?
- Mark the days when it will be more difficult to cook with a small “X” in the corner (you can skip this step if you are cooking in batches).
- Check what you have in your pantry, fridge and freezer.
- Try to keep breakfasts as simple as possible. Remember, most people eat the same two or three things for breakfast.
- Choose easy and healthy dinners.
- Prepare enough portions of your dinners so that you are left over and can be used for the next day’s meal.
- On a different sheet of paper, make a list of the items you would need to cook those dishes.
Do you feel like you are losing instead of saving by following this meal plan? No way. The plan you make is there to help you. You don’t have to follow him at all, remember. Of course, it will guide you when you cannot think clearly and need help on what to eat and / or cook. One trick to avoid being overwhelmed is to write it in pencil and thus give yourself the opportunity to erase or modify the plan as your day to day changes. And if you cook more than one person in your house, consider dividing the work so that everyone has a little more flexibility and time, and fixed.