This month marks the start of my new series \u2013 Making Healthy Eating a Reality.\u00a0 Working with families has taught me that many people know what healthy eating is.\u00a0 The challenge comes in implementing that knowledge on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
Oftentimes the challenges to eating healthy seem overwhelming.\u00a0 We are short on time, our kids are involved in numerous activities after school and in the evening, and we have our own obligations from work to church and on and on.\u00a0 Although we know healthy eating is important, somehow during the week it seems to lose its importance.<\/p>\n
A key step to eating healthy is meal planning.\u00a0 You may be thinking, \u201cI don\u2019t have time to sit down and plan.\u201d\u00a0 If you give it a chance, you\u2019ll soon learn it actually saves time (and money!) throughout the week.\u00a0 It may take you 20 minutes to plan your meals for the week, but you\u2019ll save more than that amount of time by the end of the week.<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s get started.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to share how I meal plan every week.\u00a0 The first thing I do is grab my meal planning sheet and a pencil (the eraser comes in handy).\u00a0 Then, I take a quick look through the refrigerator and pantry and jot down the food that needs to get eaten that week (i.e. the fresh broccoli I bought that looked good at the store and is now a few days away from being tossed out).\u00a0 I just write this in the free space at the top right or bottom of my meal planning sheet.<\/p>\n
Next, I sit down at the table and go through our schedules for the week \u2013 jotting down nights I know we will be rushing about and will need a quick dinner.\u00a0 I also pull out any recipes I\u2019ve been wanting to try.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m all set to plan our meals.\u00a0 I typically plan just four to five dinners for the week \u2013 not all seven.\u00a0 It seems that obligations pop up during the week so this allows for some flexibility and there are always leftovers that need to be eaten.\u00a0 We also always have ingredients in the pantry to make pasta with vegetables so I have a back-up meal whenever needed.<\/p>\n
As I start to plan my four to five dinners, I look at the list of food I need to use and plan meals using up those items.\u00a0 We, like most families, have some meals we eat frequently (i.e. bean burritos, various pasta dishes, and burgers\/veggie burgers) so planning a few meals without recipes isn\u2019t too hard.\u00a0 Glancing at the notes regarding our schedules ensures I don\u2019t plan a meal that takes 30 min. to make when we\u2019ll only be home for 30 min.\u00a0 Planning doesn\u2019t mean your meals have to be elaborate \u2013 I often plan to have a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread on busy nights.\u00a0 Nutritionally, this easily beats a fast food meal.\u00a0 If I feel like it, I\u2019ll plan to try a new recipe on a night I\u2019ll have time to actually enjoy the experience.<\/p>\n
Once my dinners are planned, I review them to make sure I have well-balanced meals and that each dinner includes at least one vegetable.\u00a0 Nearly all Americans fall short of the recommended 2 \u00bd cups a day.\u00a0 When I\u2019m happy with the plan, I write our grocery list and head to the store confident I\u2019m doing my best to ensure my family eats healthy.<\/p>\n
What about planning breakfast?
\nMy breakfast is usually one of three things: a bowl of cereal with skim milk and fruit, hot oatmeal made with skim milk and fruit, or whole wheat toast with peanut butter and an apple.\u00a0 After checking our pantry, I add any items we need to our grocery list.\u00a0 I don\u2019t specifically plan breakfast for each day of the week \u2013 I see what I feel like in the morning.<\/p>\n
What about planning lunch?
\nSimilar to breakfast, my lunch consists of either a sandwich or a healthy frozen dinner and carrot sticks, a piece of fruit, and non-fat yogurt.\u00a0 I don\u2019t plan each and every day, I just make sure we have these items on hand.<\/p>\n
Do you want to save even more money?
\nMany families plan meals for the week using items listed in their grocery store\u2019s weekly ads.\u00a0 This can definitely save you money, especially when certain types of meat, poultry or fish are on sale.<\/p>\n
Does your life look similar from week to week?
\nThe great thing is that I reuse my meal plans.\u00a0 My life doesn\u2019t really change all that much from week to week so I take out an old sheet, make a few minor changes, and reuse that meal plan.\u00a0 That saves even more time and I\u2019m all set for the week!<\/p>\n
Coming next month…learn more about Freezer Cooking as you make Healthy Eating a Reality!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This month marks the start of my new series \u2013 Making Healthy Eating a Reality.\u00a0 Working with families has taught me that many people know what healthy eating is.\u00a0 The challenge comes in implementing that knowledge on a daily basis. Oftentimes the challenges to eating healthy seem overwhelming.\u00a0 We are short on time, our kids are involved in numerous activities Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[790,780],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i","category-nutrition-2","cat-790-id","cat-780-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/meal_plan.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8936,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/8936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}