There’s no doubt about it, meal planning saves you time, money and reduces your cognitive load. It also helps to reduce picky eating habits in kids (more on that here).
Do you manage to plan meals regularly each week? If not, here are 7 simple ways to inspire you to meal plan and eat well more consistently as a result…
Make a mini plan
If you truly want to create a sustainable habit around cooking and eating well, please start slow! So many of us when we consider implementing healthy habits take an all or nothing approach and this gets us nowhere. I’d suggest you start with planing 2 or 3 meals and build from there. Having a mini plan is better than getting stuck in indecision and doing nothing.
Inside the Well Nourished Family membership we provide weekly full and also simple streamlined mini plans which are a fabulous starting point if you’re new to meal planning or simply want a few meals planned to bring a bit more ease and organisation to your week.
Plan to plan
In my world, if it’s not scheduled into my diary, it tends to not happen. So block out 15 minutes each week and plan out your meals. Make a commitment and stick with it, the benefits of doing so are far reaching!
Spend more time cooking and less time browsing
A lot of people spend more time looking for recipe inspiration than they do planning and then cooking a meal. If this sounds like you, stick with websites or cookbooks that have reliable, tasty and most importantly easy to make recipes that are delicious and always work.
Factor in your commitments
It’s important to factor in your work/ personal schedule when planning. For example, if you know you have kids sport after school and don’t walk in the door until late leaving minimal time for meal prep, then plan on those nights to precook (slow cookers are great here) or plan to cook a 30 minute meal.
Shop once a week
The more you plan, the less trips to the shop or market you’ll make. The less time you spend shopping, the more time you will have to create healthy delicious meals…it’s that simple.
Create a template
Create a template to suit your schedule and requirements. I like to make note of the days that we have commitments. For example, swimming days breakfast needs to be a grab and go option. When we have after school sport commitments, again meals need to be preprepared and ready to reheat and serve or can be made in 30 minutes or less.
Let us do it for you
Meal planning works. We all know that. But knowing it helps and actually doing it every week are two very different things, especially when you’re time-poor, tired, and already making a thousand decisions a day.
That’s exactly why we created the Well Nourished Family.
Inside the membership you get done-for-you meal plans you can follow as is or tweak to suit your family, nourishing recipes that actually work in real life, and smart technology that turns your plan into a practical shopping list in seconds.
So instead of starting from scratch each week, you have a simple system to lean on. Less thinking. Less stress. More consistent, nourishing meals on the table.
If you’d love some help making healthy eating feel easier and more automatic, you can join the Well Nourished Family here.
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zortilonrel says
Great post. I am facing a couple of these problems.