Weekly Meal Planning: Part I

I work for a company that makes it pretty easy to not think about preparing for a week of healthy food. However, I realize not everyone has the opportunity to have healthy meals prepared for him/her a few times a day, so I wanted to showcase what I (still) do to make sure I (and my husband) eat as healthfully as possible throughout the week.

When people hear that I prep my week, they look at me like I have three heads. Seriously! Preparing for a week of healthy meals and snacks means I don’t have to do a lot of work during the week to scrounge around for food or go hungry, either. Putting in the time and effort at the beginning of the week saves so much time throughout the week. Believe me, weekly prep is a life saver.

Now, let me be honest: At first, weekly prep is hard to do.

But, once you get the hang of it, it makes life so much easier. I really don't know what I did before I prepped my weeks. I'm sure you've heard the common phrase: "People make time for the things that are really important to them." I've heard so many people say, "I don't have time to prep my week," or, "I'm just not good at preparing my week, so therefore I won't do it." What they're really saying to me is "meal prep and eating healthily just isn't a priority for me."

Look, I'm going to get right down to it:

Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.

It's that simple.

And I want to help you SUCCEED!

I’m going to give you some tips to help you plan your week, but first, you need to commit to doing this for a few weeks so that you can get the hang of it. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes like second nature. These are also just my tips -- I’d love to hear about your tips, too, as I’m always learning and trying to improve my planning time and make it more efficient.

Here are the three steps I follow when I plan my week:

Pre-planning
Planning
Shopping & Chopping

The entire process should take about 1-2 hours, depending on how quickly you can plan your week, grocery shop and prep your food. It will take longer for the first few weeks as you get the hang of it, but it gets easier over time and shouldn’t take as long in future weeks. This post will cover just the Pre-planning and Planning steps. Stay tuned for Shopping & Chopping steps in following posts!

Pre-Planning

It’s important to have certain items on hand before you start to plan so that you can take a look at your week and plot out when you will need meals, when you can use leftovers, etc.

Things to have on hand before your get started:

Calendar (paper, on your phone, on your computer, whatever works, as long as it’s up to date)

Shopping list (I use Google Keep, but you could use iPhone Notes, Evernote, a piece of paper, anything!)
A blank spreadsheet or piece of paper to write down your schedule (I use this template and like to keep it in Google docs so that it’s accessible on my phone, but you could use whatever works for you)
Access to recipes (either cookbooks or online recipe sites such as Blue Apron, Food Network, etc.)
Kitchen items: knives, cutting boards, saute pans, sauce pans, cooking sheets, storage containers (preferably glass), Ball jars, etc.

Planning

This is the fun part! I try to keep myself from going overboard by having certain staple recipes as go-tos (especially for breakfast and lunch), and then mixing up my dinners. I don’t like to have too many options for dinners, though, because I also don’t want to be buying a ton of ingredients that will stock my pantry and I’ll never use except for that one time (come on, you know you’ve done this before where you’ve purchased some esoteric spice and it ends up sitting in your pantry for three years…).

First, take your blank spreadsheet and consult your calendar so that you know which meals you need to plan for. I start with Sunday and plan through Saturday. For example, I take a look at my week and my husband’s week and I try to figure out when we need breakfast, lunch and dinner, and when we’re out or traveling or won’t be eating in. I mark all of those time slots as unavailable.

With the remaining time slots, I take a look at breakfasts and ask: how many breakfasts do I need to plan for? Then I take a look at lunches and ask the same question. Because my breakfasts and lunches are taken care of at work, I only think about my husband’s meals, and then I make sure I develop a list that allows him to have flexibility in his meals. (I don’t make his meals, nor do I tell him what to eat for breakfast and lunch, but I make sure there’s enough food available for him to be creative to make his own lunches.) And, to keep it simple, we only have about two or three breakfast options, making sure they are macro-balanced and sugar-free (stay tuned for another post about how we were able to train ourselves to create the “balanced meal”.) I check my refrigerator, pantry, etc., to make sure I have my necessary ingredients and if I don’t have what I need for breakfast and lunch, I’ll add the ingredients to my Google Keep grocery list.

For dinner, once I know when we’ll need food, I take a look at how many days we’ll need dinner. Typically, we eat dinner together about 2-3 times per week. So, I’ll need probably three meals and can use leftovers from those meals to fill in the blanks.

Here’s a view of what it could look like for a given week as a work-in-progress (as I'm planning):

Once I know how many meals I need, I go on the hunt for recipes -- and often, I’ll consult websites like Blue Apron or Food Network to find some food for the week. The great thing about Blue Apron is that they only have a limited number of recipes per week, so it limits the options I can give myself (and hence the paralysis that can come of having too many options available).

I’ll select a few recipes, add the ingredients to my Google Keep grocery list and also add the recipe link to my spreadsheet.

Voila! My list is done and my week is planned.

Stay tuned for the next post that addresses how to Shop & Chop!

I’d love to hear how you plan your meals and how you prep and any other tips that make your life easier during the week! Please add them below!