A key component to our weight loss and maintenance

A key component to our weight loss success and on-going maintenance is meal planning and prepping. Planning out meals is a way to set ourselves up for success for healthy eating because we have a plan on what we are going to eat for the majority of our meals (we do usually plan to eat out once a week). When we don’t plan ahead, we find ourselves going out to eat or ordering pizza because once we get home from work and school, we are starving and tired and we barely have motivation to cook, let alone figure out WHAT to cook!

To ensure that doesn’t happen, here are a few steps I go through each week to plan and prep our meals:

• First I think about what is in season, what is in our pantry and/or what is on sale at the store. I go through grocery store ads to see what meat and produce is on sale. These are what I try to make meals around because who doesn’t like a good deal? If it is summer, I use our CSA (community share agriculture) and farmer’s market as inspiration of what to build meals around.
• Once I know what foods I want to build my meals around, I look for inspiration for recipes based on what I WANT to eat. It is so important to plan meals that sound good to you. If your idea of a healthy meal is plain chicken breast with broccoli (like mine was), then you will be setting up for failure because who wants to eat that everyday?! I have many cookbooks that I’ve acquired over the last 10 years and also several blogs I follow for recipes along with Pinterest to help me find healthy recipes for whatever I am craving that week. If you really want mac & cheese, find a healthy recipe for it. Here are some of my favorite blogs and sites for recipes:
  • www.twopeasandtheirpod.com
  • www.skinnytaste.com
  • www.cookinglight.com
• Now that I know what recipes I want, I decide on a few meals for the week (yes, I only said a few meals). I pick two dinners and one lunch meal and make large batches so that leftovers will get us through the work week. I make a large 6+ serving meal on Sunday that we can have as leftovers twice and then I cook one other meal (around 4 servings) during the week that we eat for leftovers another day to get us through to Friday. For lunches, I make a 6+ serving soup or salad on Sunday’s that Ryan and I eat each for at least 3 lunches during the week. For the remaining lunches, we either have work meeting lunches, eat other leftovers or buy something.

For weekends we try to have more “fun” with our meals where we will go out for a meal or order pizza (sometimes I will make one from scratch!) and we will also plan a “fancier” meal that I make on Saturday (think scallops w/risotto or lamb tagine). Lunches on the weekend are any leftovers from the week or else quick salads or sandwiches with whatever we have around the pantry (e.g. tuna).

As far as actually cooking all of these meals, I do the majority of cooking on Sunday for the week. I make a large meal for dinners, lunches for the week and any other veggie prep on Sundays. Then we only have to cook once during the work week, which is key to our success.

With a husband and two young kids who are all starving when they get home from work and school, we can’t be cooking for an hour every night before we eat (that just doesn’t work for us). The main key here is to find what works for you. If what we do will work for you, that’s great! If not, maybe play around with a few different ways to find what can stick for your routine.

What are your best meal plan and prep tips?