Meal planning logistics

For me, meal planning is key. If I don't plan ahead of time, I know that I am more apt to make bad choices in the moment. When hunger sets in, I'm much more likely to grab whatever's available and that's not always the healthiest option.

While it takes time every weekend, planning has been such a life-saver for me, especially when things get busy in the fall with the kids back to school, juggling soccer practices or games 6 days/week, homework, birthday parties, and life getting more hectic with Andrew and I also being back to school.

As anyone who knows me knows, I'm a planner by nature. It wasn't until about 6 months ago though, when I joined my first challenge group, that I really started meal planning consistently. Before that I plotted out a rough map of dinners for the week mostly so I knew what to buy at the store when I did our weekly grocery shopping. In spite of this rough plan though, I'd often switch up the plan based on cravings or convenience and as a result, we wound up eating out more than we'd like and throwing out more food than I was comfortable with each week.

Once I joined a challenge group, however, one of the pieces we worked on was meal planning and clean eating. While I struggled a bit at first with figuring out what to eat and how to make sure I was getting in enough veggies each day (I could subsist on fruit and carbs alone if I had my way), it got easier. I quickly discovered that I do better with my eating when I have a plan and prepare everything the night/weekend before. If I have my meals prepped for the next day in tuperware/snack baggies that are ready to grab as I run out the door, I eat on plan. When I fail to do that, I fall down.

So my new norm has become menu planning either Saturday night or Sunday morning.

I figure out what nights we're going to be in or out, who has what going on each day that could throw a monkey-wrench in our all sitting down to dinner together at the table and plan accordingly. I'm someone who genuinely enjoys cooking so I get a lot of ideas from online. My go-to sites are Skinnytaste, Smitten Kitchen, Food Network magazine, and Clean Eating magazine. I also get a bunch of ideas from Pinterest.

I generally try to make sure each kid gets their pick one night each week - makes for happier campers at the table (assuming they remember and don't say "Mom, I hate this kind of chicken! This isn't what I asked for," which has been known to happen, at which point I want to wring their little necks. Instead, I remind them of their required number of bites and the "no thank you" rule. I don't remember which friend told me about it but it's made for much more pleasant dinner experiences. There's nothing more frustrating than coming home after a long day of work, dealing with whiny, hungry kids, and making dinner only to have them whine about what you made and how gross it is. Seriously makes me want to resign my post as cook. Each kid has a pre-determined number of bites (we go by their age) - H. has 9, Little A. 7 and P. 6 - they have to eat their # of bites and then if they still do not want any more, they have to politely say "no thank you on the chicken." If they do that, it's all good. If there's whining, complaining, or mean comments about the icky green things that are on their chicken (you'd think I am trying to kill them with parsley!), then all bets are off and you eat until we say so.

Back to meal planning after this brief detour into the joys of cooking for little people...

Seriously. I LOVE grocery shopping.
I'm like a kid in a candy store.
It's my idea of food heaven.
All the possibilities!

Once I figure out what we want to eat, I assign our meals to days based on what needs we have each day (Will I be home early enough to put the rice in the rice cooker? Do I need something ready the second we walk in the door? Am I going to have a hellish day at work and probably won't feel like cooking anything elaborate one night?) Then I print out my menu and tape it up in the kitchen so it's an easy reference during the week.

Then I make my weekly food list and get shopping!








This is my plan for the week. Most of the recipes are also posted under the recipe tab but leave me a comment if you're interested in something that isn't posted.