Make a Meal Plan You Will Really Stick To.
January is the month of tidying up your home, and no aspect of life changes like cooking. Meal planning is often seen as the key to everything, but theplan will do nothing if it is not implemented .
To make a meal plan that you truly follow, you need to be honest with yourself. Below you will find some strategies and tips for evaluating yourself as an eater and then making a list of the foods you really want to eat.
Determine Why You Need a Meal Plan
When you embark on a new plan, make lifestyle changes, or “give up” an area of your life, it is helpful to know why you are making those changes. Do you want a meal plan to save money? Have you forgotten the taste of carrots? Or are you one of those people who doesn’t eat until 3:00 pm if you don’t cook dinner the night before (that’s me, and I’m a cookery writer who works from home).
Some people plan meals for weight loss, which is fine, but I encourage you to use your plan to achieve additional goals – like “eating more vegetables” and “trying new healthy recipes” – not subtractive ones – like “taking away your eggs “. yolks and fatty sour cream “, or” taking up less space. “
Once you have a clear goal (or objectives), write it down and let it shape and influence your plan.
Know your eating and cooking style
A meal plan will not change you as a person. For example, I’ve always loved cheap, bland, tasteless sandwich bread, and writing “Ezekiel’s bread” on my shopping list will not make me a person who eats sprouted bread. No, it will make me a person who buys expensive bread, eats one bite, and then lets the rest stay in the refrigerator while sprouted grains (and mold) continue to grow throughout the loaf, because Ezekiel is an ecosystem , not a vehicle for my scrambled eggs. …
If you’re under twenty – and this is time for all sorts of research – you know what you like, so sit down and answer these questions with gross honesty before making your plan.
- Am I a morning person? Not “Do I want to be a morning person?” As this question will turn out to be a failure for you. Morning people are able to cook before leaving for work, not morning people are not, and these two people have to plan their meals in very different ways to get this extremely important meal.
- Do I generally like a hearty breakfast? One of my favorite “funny misunderstandings” from Star Trek is when Dr. Crusher tries to feed Picard some new and interesting breakfasts, and he says “ah, okay” and then they are kidnapped and tied to the mind, and it turns out that they are both better for coffee and a croissant (and Picard has loved Bev since she married his best friend). My point is that some people can’t stomach a hearty breakfast in the morning, and it’s okay to have a slice of toast and an apple instead of Instant Pot oatmeal with yogurt and stewed fruit compote at night.
- How much cook or cook can you cook at work? Some offices have microwaves, some have small kitchens, and some have nothing at all. Even if there is a microwave oven, consider if you want to spend 10 minutes in line to use it. Proper dressing also means you’re more likely to enjoy your meal, so if you don’t have access to a condiment cafeteria, consider filling the drawer with your favorite flavors . How much time you prefer to dine plays a huge role here. While I have full access to the entire kitchen “at work,” I don’t like stopping in the middle of the day to cook, so I try to keep my lunch very simple.
- Will you eat leftover food? And if not, will it be with your partner or roommate? Some people just don’t like leftover food, and these people should not make large batches of one food, planning to eat from it all week, as this will lead to a certain type of sadness. (I thought I ate leftovers until I got divorced, and realized that my husband was eating them, not me, and since then I have adjusted my cooking accordingly.)
- Do you like to cook during the week or do you prefer to cook everything at once? Some people would rather sit through a three-hour Power Point presentation on synergy than slicing vegetables on weekdays, but some people find slicing and dicing more Zen. If cooking on a weekday evening tires you, you probably want to set aside some time on Sunday to do all or part of the prep work and cook during the week.
After you have answered these questions without deceiving yourself, you are ready to choose or develop a plan.
Don’t feel limited to one plan
There are endless ways to plan how you fuel your body, which is both beneficial and overwhelming. Diet aside, there are apps , food kit services , templates, and many, many articles on the subject. If you find one that you like, stick with it, but don’t feel like you can’t pick your favorite aspects from each one or combine plans.
Also, just because the plan includes seven days of meals that you can cook and enjoy, that doesn’t mean you have to cook and enjoy all of the meals. Especially if you’re cooking for a small family – or a family with teenagers who might be dining with friends or cooking for themselves – preparing and eating a new meal every night can be overwhelming. Meal plans will also never include popcorn and wine, fancy cheese platter, or cereal for dinner, but these are perfectly valid choices if you need them (and assuming you also didn’t have popcorn and wine for breakfast and lunch). If you leave even one day unplanned, you will have the opportunity to relax, eat leftovers that you are afraid to spend, or just order a pizza because you feel it and you are an adult who can do whatever you want.
I prefer to leave two days for free – one “fun day” (aka “cheese plate day”) and one “rest day”. This means I only have three days to eat on a weekday, and also have room to reshuffle my schedule if an unexpected catering opportunity presents itself. Planning doesn’t mean committing yourself to a bleak, spartan existence, so draw snacks, drinks you like, and a dessert or two to keep you ecstatic about eating at home. (I find every meal is infinitely more enjoyable with Diet Coke or La Croix tangerine, and clementines bring me a lot of joy.)
Plan and attack
How demanding you want to do this is up to you, as well as the system you use for your planning. Some people like to be completely digital (here’s a very simple guide on how to do it ), and some prefer a pen and paper approach ( or a bullet magazine ). Regardless of which format you use, the process is roughly the same:
- Using the strategies above, work out how many days you want to fully schedule and collect your recipes, limiting the number of new recipes to one per week. If you are a large dispenser, you only need one huge recipe; If you hate leftovers, choose three or four small ones. If you want to eat more vegetables, choose at least one meat-free (or even vegan) recipe. (If you need ideas, here are some of them for breakfast , suitable for freezing , Plate breakfast , vegetarian dishes , salads, which will retain its freshness , light dishes that can be prepared in the form of cake , quick ideas cooking and casseroles .)
- Make a shopping list for everything you need to prepare your meals by checking your closet and pantry first to make sure you have basic foods like oil, salt, and spices. Also, be sure to include drinks that bring you joy, snacks that kill hunger, and condiments that make something edible (for me, sour cream and liquid amino acids). Remember: you are not a bloody Spartan – you are an adult who is allowed to enjoy food.
- Go shopping and buy things.
- Do any prep work you can’t afford during the week. For some, it might be chopping and portioning, for others, it might be all the cooking.
- Eat food.
If you “spoiled” and ate outside the house on a day you shouldn’t, or if you dumped a chicken instead of turning it into broth, don’t berate yourself. It’s human to be wrong, and having a plan other than hacking will improve your cooking and eating habits and make you feel a little smug, which is always nice.