Meal planning 101 (from a non-expert)

Several months ago I posted a story on Instagram about being so frustrated/fed-up with going to the grocery store after work; it's probably my least favorite thing to do. I asked for suggestions on becoming a better meal-planner or for tools that people use to make it easier, such as grocery pickup. I didn't really take any of the suggestions to heart (sorry to those who responded) and went right back to being my lazy self. Meal planning means you have to do just that, right? Meal PLAN. Plan ahead. I'm not very good at this and part of that is because I can be pretty indecisive when it comes to choosing dinner. Like...I know what I'm hungry for NOW, but who's to say I'll be hungry for that 24 hours from now or 5 days from now?? I'm not really a picky eater overall, but I'm picky in the moment...drives Clint nuts. :)

So one of the great things about Whole30 or following a specific meal plan is that you're pretty much forced to plan ahead. You can't just run to the store after work and grab whatever sounds good. Because usually what sounds good is chocolate chip cookies, a bottle of wine and a pizza. Unfortunately...not. an. option. So here's what I've done so far and it's worked pretty well for us:

Find an expert blogger in the meal plan you're trying to follow and use all the tips/tricks they have. As I've mentioned before, we've been using the meal plans provided by Real Simple Good and, overall, they've been super helpful. Not only have the majority of the meals been delicious, but they've been very easy to follow and also create your grocery lists for you. Here's an example of what the grocery lists look like:

Some things I would recommend, though:

1. Look through the list of recipes before making your purchase. You want to make sure that you'll actually like the options while also making sure that the proportions are suitable to your needs AND that you actually need all of the ingredients listed. Most likely you'll have some suitable replacement options for spices/oils already in your pantry.

2. On proportions - you may want to double a lot of them. Because we're SO hungry ALL the time on this meal plan, we've found that the meals usually only last us one meal...even though they're supposed to last two.

3. A lot of the meals don't seem to have sides to go with them, and I'm a girl who likes sides. For example, they may have some creamy chicken recipe on there and just suggest you plate it over a bed of spinach. Well this girl needs something more than that. So you may want to include some extra veggies in your grocery list for possible sides.

4. Make sure you also include a TON, and I mean a TON, of snacks on your grocery list. Fruit, veggies, Whole30 acceptable bars, nuts, jerky...whatever it is, make sure you have plenty on hand at all times.

5. I would also check your recipe/ingredient list for common themes. For example, our first week, there were A LOT of recipes with mushrooms in them. And neither of us are big fans of mushrooms, but I didn't even think about it prior to placing my grocery order. I just assumed that the mushrooms would be used in a recipe or two...not EVERY SINGLE RECIPE.

Another important aspect of meal planning is picking a day of the week to get all of it accomplished. For us, it's Sunday. We pick the meals we want to make that week, place our grocery pickup order, and then do any food prep we can that night. This is another great thing about the Real Simple Good meal plans: they tell you what you can prep ahead of time, making it super easy. You can check out the recipes you want to make that week and at the top of each recipe there will be a section titled "Prep Steps:", like the below:

If you do these prep steps ahead of time, then all you have to do when you get home from work is heat it on the stove, pop it in the oven, whatever it may be. Pretty easy!

For example, I was in charge of providing lunch for the fam when we were down in Branson this past weekend and I decided to make this YUMMY Chicken Pot Pie Soup from 40 Aprons. I prepped everything the night before so all I had to do that morning was throw everything in the crock pot to let it cook while I was at work. So easy and SO nice to come home to the smell of an amazing home-cooked meal.

One more tip (seems like an obvious one, but I tend to forget it often): remember to grab any meat you've frozen out of the freezer and put into the fridge at least the night before you plan on using it. Quickly thawing meat is kind of difficult and usually not recommended for food safety reasons.

As I mentioned previously, Whole30 has pretty much forced me to be better at planning ahead, and I'm pretty grateful for it. I think a large part of why we were eating so unhealthy before is because of my laziness and not wanting to meal plan/go to the grocery store. So I was always rushing/scrambling at the end of the day to figure out what we were going to eat that night...and I'd usually pick the easiest thing (which tends to be the most unhealthy thing). I'm hoping I'll get in this routine of planning ahead and it'll just come naturally to me once Whole30 is over...and I won't go back to my lazy ways.

Number 1 recommendation in order to be a successful meal planner: quit being lazy! :). Talking to myself here...

Note in the comments if you have any special tips/tricks for successful meal planning!

---

A place to be #unapologeticallyme.