Meal Planning

Ahhhhh Saturday Morning!!

The kids troddle into our rooms rubbing the sleepy sand out of their eyes and cuddle up into our beds.  Sometimes arguing who gets to curl up to mommy or who gets to snuggle up with daddy.  Sometimes there is bickering of who is touching who if they woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, but most of the time its nice, and we talk about what we're going to do this weekend.

Once the snuggle time wears off, one by one they go downstairs and start playing.

Thankfully, my husband is SO fantastic, and he'll go down with them and start making breakfast for us all and I will pull out our family calendar and start making a plan for the week.

Like many of you, we're a busy family.  We like to be on the go and the kids have plenty of activities during the week -- hockey, soccer, gymnastics, etc.  So it's really important we have a clear plan for the week AND we have our food all planned out and set up for us too.

Typical Saturday Morning

 



One KEY thing I have learned and that has helped me lose 35 pounds now is to PLAN !!  Plan when I was going to work out and equally important is planning your food as well! 

ALL the programs that are available through BeachBody have a nutrition plan that goes along with it.  They put in as much time and effort into their nutrition plan as they do for their workout videos.  Because it really is the two that work together to get you results. 

When talking to people in seeing what program is good for them I usually ask them a bunch of questions in finding out their needs.  The one I ask everyone is what do they struggle with the most?  Food or exercise?  I would say 98% of the time say that they struggle with food.  Even for me, I was in the same spot.  I struggled to stick to past "diets", being tempted by treats and sugar, snacking at 3pm and 7pm.

We ALL struggle with one or many of these right?

So what can we do to increase our chances of success?

PLAN!!

Because we all know during the week, life starts to look like this:   

I found that when I had all my meals planned and even prepped, the day and week went a lot smoother.  When the 3pm sugar craving time hit, I would look at my meal plan, and go for that healthy snack first.  For dinners I wasn't left standing at the fridge wondering what I was going to throw together quickly for the family or even ordering fast food.  I also found it really decreased my risk of "cheating" at 7pm when I was getting all my food groups in throughout the day and didn't have that need to gorge on food at the end of the day when my hunger caught up to me.

SO, I invest some time to meal plan for the week.
 

And yes, it feels like homework, and yes, it may take some time, but putting in that effort at the beginning of the week pays off HUGE all week long. 

I first start by reviewing the meal plan I'm using with whatever program I'm working through.
(The 21 Day Fix Program has a different meal plan then Insanity for an example) I really suggest following these meal plans and using Shakeology for best results.  I have a shakeology each and every day.  It's that fast, shake and go meal that I KNOW is good for me and something I can go to when I'm craving something chocolaty!  Your nutrition is just as important as getting the workouts in.  The food and the exercise go hand in hand.

Here are some steps I follow each week to develop a meal plan.  These may not work for everyone but this is just what I do each Saturday:

 - Grab that big family calendar if you've got one, and see what activities you've got going on that week.  If you've got say soccer one night, you're going to want to make sure you've got something quick and easy that night, or even making good use out of the slow cooker to have that healthy meal ready for you when you get home.  This saves on those fast food runs!!!

- I use an excel sheet to plan our meals each day for the week.  That way I can clearly see all 5 meals and fill the spots in accordingly.

 

Sample of a couple days on 21 Day fix nutrition plan

 



- This next tip isn't for everyone but it works really well for me being a full time working mom out of the house.  I make things as SIMPLE as possible.  I pretty much have the same breakfast, snack #1, lunch, and snack #2 every day during the work week.  This just takes the guess work out of it all.  As I said this doesn't work for everyone, some really like that variety to stick with it and not get bored, but for me this has worked.  Just takes the guess work out of it all, I don't get too fancy.

Here's what I usually do for those meals:

Breakfast - Egg whites, steel cut oats, with tsp of PB
Snack - Chocolate Shakeology
Lunch - usually fish or chicken and a salad or steamed veggie
Snack  - Cucumbers and hummus ( or some sort of veggie and healthy fat)

I follow this outline pretty much each and every day.
And then I prep the lunches and anything else I'll need for the work week meals ahead of time and keep them in containers.

 

Here's my green container of veggies and blue of healthy fats from 21 Day fix program

- Dinners - use that crock pot !!  There are SO many healthy meal ideas you can find on Pinterest.  A popular trend as been to prep a bunch of crock pot meals in freezer bags.  In about 3 hours you can get a bunch of meals done and bagged in freezer bags for easy, healthy and convenient meals during a busy week.

Here are some of my favourite sites:

Passion For Savings

New Leaf Wellness

Who Needs A Cape


 - Stock your kitchen .  So after you have everything all planned out, go through your meals and write down which foods you're going to need for the week.  After I make my list I go down to the kitchen and start crossing OFF everything I've already got on hand.  Then you'll eventually have a list of what you'll need.  This will save a bit of money too because you are only buying what you need for that week.

 - Finally -- get shopping.  I usually hit up Costco just because they've got really great prices on the fresh stuff. Only problem with this is that you've got to go at the right time to avoid Costco craziness (I try to get there right when it opens on Saturday or Sunday), AND you have to put on your blinders to all the clothes, books, and other tempting things you'll want to buy.  Keep that grocery list in hand and ONLY buy what you need on there, unless you need a new kids outdoor playground, then go for that big weekend project ;)  or OH, hey look at that, they've got new yoga pants in now too!   ;)

 

"The Regulars" from Costco

So I really encourage you to meal plan this weekend.  I promise you it DOES feel like homework, but if you find yourself getting derailed a lot by Wednesday, when the motivation is gone and you're starting to get tired from the work week, this would really help you stay on track.  It does get easier to plan each week once you get the hang of it.  If you use Excel and set you your own template this weekend all you would have to do is switch up your meals and snacks each week and print it out.  Post for the whole family on the fridge or in the kitchen somewhere so you all stay on track together. 

Also remember too that it's not going to be perfect.  Life happens, someone may get sick, or you have an extra event or outing with friends that you didn't plan for but that's okay!  That's life, you just do the best you can for the rest of the week and you'll be on the right track.

Investing this small amount of time will pay off for you huge each and every week.

Just a quick note: 

I'm reading a book right now called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson and this stuck out to me about trying to reach your fitness and health goals:

"It's about mastering the mundane - of repeating simple little disciplines that, done consistently over time, will add up to the very biggest accomplishments.  Of course, it's easy to do, and just as easy not to.  But that simple, seemingly insignificant error in judgement, compounded over time, will ruin your chances for success.  You can count on it.  That's the choice you face everyday, every hour: a simple, positive action, repeated over time.  A simple error in judgement, repeated over time,  So easy to do.  So easy not to do"

Investing time to plan, and investing time to workout this week, doing the mundane daily habits will get you closer and closer each week.  And then, when you make it to next Saturday after having a great week, you'll look like this little guy: