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.
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 not 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
We know Meal Planning saves you time and money and usually means your whole family is eating more healthy – we also know it can be hard habit to integrate into your week – especially if you are already time poor and decision fatigued.
The Well Nourished Family is a membership site and online community that offers you new (nourishing) recipes each week, a done for you meal plan (that you can edit as much or as little as you like) and amazing technology that makes turning that plan into a shopping a breeze.
If you are ready to make meal planning a regular part of your like I suggest you watch this video for a better understanding of some of the meal planning features included in the Well Nourished Family Membership.
We are opening the doors soon and if you want to be first in the know, and have access to exclusive offers then you want to get your name on the waitlist.
JOIN THE WAITLIST HERE AND GET NOTIFIED EARLY
zortilonrel says
Great post. I am facing a couple of these problems.