Meal planning

crosbylee

I have to be the world's worst at this. Does anyone know of a good source for help in this area? I am looking to lose weight and cannot do this by myself. Thanks in advance!

Virkati

What is it that you're looking for? Do you want cookbooks, recipes, all around advice, personal suggestions?

TheVirgoddess

I just have a list of meals we usually eat - and everyone in the family picks one they want for the week (I pick the rest). I make my grocery list based on this and then cook.

I still eat the same meals I ate before I started losing weight - I just eat smaller portions.

SandyCoils

I have been on here for a week, and I am just using the MFP database. It's been soooo helpful for me to look up meals and items before hand so that I know how to plan if I decide to eat certain things. Have you tried using that yet?

crosbylee

I guess what I am looking for is help getting my weekly menus together. I have been entering my foods in the database here and some of my recipes as well. Hard to imagine some of them are as high calorie as they are, but adjustments can be made. Has anyone used any planning sites, like eDiets or something similar?

carliekitty

skinnytaste.com

crosbylee

Love the recipes there and use a few of them. I will look into it more.

RebeccaP1972

Bump for more ideas. I love the idea of letting the family pick what they want and planning it that way. I try to do my planning on Friday then shop on Saturday. If i don't plan and STICK TO IT I eat horribly.

TheVirgoddess

crosbylee wrote: »

I guess what I am looking for is help getting my weekly menus together. I have been entering my foods in the database here and some of my recipes as well. Hard to imagine some of them are as high calorie as they are, but adjustments can be made. Has anyone used any planning sites, like eDiets or something similar?

Make sure you enter your own recipes - don't use the generic ones.

Here's a list of some of our go-to meals:

Balsamic flank steak
Roasted chicken and potatoes
Chicken tacos
Beef tacos
Posole
Caldo
Chicken and rice
Lemon pepper chicken
Chili
Spaghetti
Homemade calzones/pizza
Chef salad bar
Fried chicken
Steak sandwiches
Chicken and veggie stir fry
Steak and veggie stir fry

So my girls each pick something they feel like eating, and so does my husband. All these recipes are already entered (by me) here in my recipe database.

The recipe tool also has an import feature. So if you find a recipe out there you like, you enter the link and it will "match" the ingredients - just double check them before saving.

Like I said before - you don't have to do "diet" recipies. You can eat smaller portions, or change up some ingredients to make your go-to foods fit your days better.

crosbylee

Thanks so much. I have been typing in my own recipes. I will have to try the link part. That actually sounds pretty cool. The list sounds great too. My husband is a red meat eater. I have a hard time getting him to eat much chicken. Not his favorite. I love chicken though so he may have to tough it out for a bit!

aliciahollinger

I ask my kids and husband what they would like for the upcoming week, but I make healthy adjustments to the plan. Like if they want spaghetti and meatballs, I make lean turkey meatballs, SmartSense noodles for the kids and my husband and i eat Shiritaki (sp?) noodles or spaghetti squash.

klmorelock

HungryGirl.com has some really good recipes. If you sign up for their free emails, you get cooking tips, recipes, etc on a daily basis from them.

l5anne

carliekitty wrote: »

skinnytaste.com

YES! Best place for tasty recipes that don't feel like you're watching the calories. http://www.heatherkjones.com/ has a great companion menu planner that works with Skinnytaste meals- definitely worth looking at!!!

crosbylee

Great Ideas all!! Thanks!!

Jennistre

I do weekly menus and shop, food prep on Mondays. I make several of each of the snacks and lunches for everyone in the family. Breakfast is made fresh. This is a sample for this week:

Breakfast:
Egg beater omelettes with onions, bell peppers, and fresh tomatoes with a 1/2 grapefruit
Egg sandwich with 1 slice of Canadian bacon and light, light cheese (Yummy, can put the egg in a bowl, break the yoke, and microwave for 45 seconds or so. Perfect size to place on a low fat English muffin or low calorie bread)
French Toast made with egg beaters on low-cal bread
Cereal or oatmeal
pancakes with fresh fruit (I just eat a much smaller portion)

Homemade yogurt parfaits (a little fresh fruit, 1/2 cup Light & fit yogurt, and oatmeal mixture (Quaker oatmeal toasted in oven with light brown sugar and drizzles with light honey). These are very filling and low in calories.

Snacks: My own bistro boxes (these are for my 2-3 o'clock hunger.... I have to have a snack here or dinner and the evening is blown)
Bistro box #1) Peanut butter, celery, a couple of apple slices, and a few raisins
Bistro Box #2) a little hummus, 1/4 of a chicken breast, sliced zucchini, small piece of pita bread, a few cherry tomatoes (this is packed with protein, same as Starbucks hummus box)
Bistro box #3) chicken salad made with almond slivers, red grapes, and non-fat Greek yogurt (recipe on hungry girl).
Box #4 almonds and low-fat mozzarella cheese

Lunch:
Salad in a Jar (buy the 9 pack of mason jars at Walmart for $9, these keep salads amazing fresh and they are pretty so you want to eat it. All have different dressings in them so I have alot of variety. My 9 & 10 year olds love to bring these as school lunches also. Google 'salad in a jar' and you can see all kind of different types. Just measure and keep track of what is in each for appropriate calorie logging.
examples of ones this week are:
1) fajita salad with a little bit of mexican corn in it
2) garden salad with choice of meats (ham, chicken (using some of the broiled chicken from the chicken salad in a salad or two, etc)

Dinners:

Chicken soup in crock pot
Stir Fry with a ton of veggies, will add a little lean beef (no rice for me but will make for the family)
Strogenoff with turkey meat balls (wont eat the noodles but will have lots of veggies)
Beef fajitas (using some of this meat in my salad)
lean hamburgers on Friday night with sweet potato fries

So I will eat breakfast, lunch at 11am, snack at 2-3 o'clock, and dinner at 6). sometimes I need a mid-morning snack depending on breakfast and activities. I also buy 3 lemons and 3 limes and cut one per day and put a whole cut one in a large jug of water for all day. I will often sip on water all day and this taste fantastic.

Hope this helps. Will be happy to send you my menus every week. Making a menu, grocery shopping to only your menu, and food prep is the key to success!!!

crosbylee

Wow, Jenni that is quite a plan there. This is the type of thing I need to encourage myself to do planning wise. Things will go much smoother for me that way. It will be hard to get myself to getting the plan/ prep done, as I was not much of a planner so here I am!! This will be a habit I need to develop. I would probably need to change my prep/ shop days. I have to shop weekends. Easy fast dinner recipes work best for me unless I am crock pot cooking, so I can be done quick after the job.

Kgodon

I live for soups! They are good fillers w/ low calories if you do it right. Progresso sells their " light" soups, good when I am in a pinch. I've started doing more soups for dinner, and my husband gets a chunk of meat on the side. Look at your meat for dinner ex. pot roast. The next day you can turn it into beef and barley soup.
As for preplanning, I come up with 5-6 meals ( I only do dinner), write them on a note card in no particular order and tape it to inside of my cupboard. Create my shopping list from that, and then as I cook a particular meal I cross it off the note card. The notecard helps remind me what I bought and where I got the recipe and it allows you to be a bit flexible w/ your food mood or the tasks of the day.

Jennistre

Crosbylee, I work also but have scaled back my work to have Mondays off so I can have my family time on the weekends. 5 days a week was killing me so I take Mondays off to do all the house stuff such as laundry, grocery shopping, and food prep. My kids help in the kitchen around 5PM and tonight we made 3 meals because the next two days are late days. We made the beef vegetable stir fry, fajita meat, and grilled a little chicken for the chicken salad. We also made all our snacks & 6 salad in a jars. My daughter who is 9 is a huge help in the kitchen and a natural chef so I actually have a lot of help. Thursday is my crock pot meal. All the meals I make are super quick.

When I did food prep and grocery shopping on Sundays it felt like much more of a chore because it took up my family time. I will friend request you and send you my weekly menus (I do work on these on Sundays).

thenewkayla

TheVirgoddess wrote: »

crosbylee wrote: »

I guess what I am looking for is help getting my weekly menus together. I have been entering my foods in the database here and some of my recipes as well. Hard to imagine some of them are as high calorie as they are, but adjustments can be made. Has anyone used any planning sites, like eDiets or something similar?

Make sure you enter your own recipes - don't use the generic ones.

Here's a list of some of our go-to meals:

Balsamic flank steak
Roasted chicken and potatoes
Chicken tacos
Beef tacos
Posole
Caldo
Chicken and rice
Lemon pepper chicken
Chili
Spaghetti
Homemade calzones/pizza
Chef salad bar
Fried chicken
Steak sandwiches
Chicken and veggie stir fry
Steak and veggie stir fry

So my girls each pick something they feel like eating, and so does my husband. All these recipes are already entered (by me) here in my recipe database.

The recipe tool also has an import feature. So if you find a recipe out there you like, you enter the link and it will "match" the ingredients - just double check them before saving.

Like I said before - you don't have to do "diet" recipies. You can eat smaller portions, or change up some ingredients to make your go-to foods fit your days better.

Omg sounds good I think I ll try some of these

crosbylee

I seriously need to brush up on my organizational skills!