Meal plan, exercise plan? Yes or no? Help?

RaggedyAnnazon

To help you stay on track, do you give yourself a meal and exercise plan to follow?
How do you set it up? Start? Determine what to put in it?
An exercise plan I could probably write up without issue, but recommendations/tips are appreciated.

It's the meal plan that I struggle with. . . .like, I seriously can't do them. I find it incredibly overwhelming. Any help and ideas would be appreciated.
Most of my food I eat is made from scratch, sometimes without recipes(I'm working on that). So it's not like I can say "egg sandwhich" for breakfast and grab as many boxes of Jimmy Dean as I think I need.

If anyone can help and give input I'd really appreciate it.

ataylorgardner

Try planning ahead and prep as much as you can. I do a lot of the Beachbody workouts and they each come with their own suggested meal plans. I spend my Saturday or Sunday afternoon prepping food for the upcoming week. That way I dont have to think about it. i just grab the food and go. It has made a big difference for me

pollypocket1021

If you make the same thing frequently you can use the recipe builder. Otherwise, just log the individual items. It takes a couple of seconds

Lots of people pre-log their day or week. I eat what I feel like and log it as I go. Experiment and find what works for you

ar9179

I also cook from scratch, most of the time, and I just prepare as usual and weigh the food to track calories. For anything that will add a substantial amount of calories during cooking, like oil, I overestimate. I'm losing inches consistently, so it's working just fine. If I encounter a long stall, then I'll re-evaluate. I tend to eat below my 1500-1600 limit a little to accommodate error.

So, no. I don't have a "plan". I just carry on as normal except for measuring my portions. I cook for 4 others. I'll add an additional side for them if the dish calls for it, but beyond that we all eat the same thing.

My exercise plan is Stronglifts 5x5 twice a week and yoga twice a week. Walks and rowing machine are thrown in for pleasure and warm-up.

jigglyjessica

Not a meal plan but every night I plan out the next day and then change anything I need to during that next day if I eat something else. Like today I had a dinner all planned but my friend is making potato salad so I had to take some stuff off to be able to include it and stay within my calories.

vypressme

I make my food from scratch too, and you're right - it is difficult to log everythijg in. I basically give myself too choices: either I make food in large batches and log it in with the recipe builder, or try to use as few ingredients as possible.
But if you don't usually follow recipes then you don't often make the same food again... That leaves me with the second choice. Chicken, sweet potatoes and broccoli. Fish and asparagus. Omelette with spinach. Keeps things simple

berlynnwall

I have a small magnetic white board on my fridge and as I'm cooking I write down how much of everything I am putting in, then I can log it while I'm eating or after.

It takes some time, but after you have been on here for a while, most of the recipes you use regularly will be in your recipe builder, and then you can go edit them if you put more or less of something in. It can be a bit tedious, but it does work.

I don't really have an exercise plan. I'm kind of Laissez-faire - if I feel like exercising, I do. If at the end of the day I'm over on calories, I work out to burn off the excess. I work on my muscles while I watch TV at night a few nights a week.

areallycoolstory

I have found that cooking from scratch works well with logging. I do cook pretty simply though. I just add in individual ingredients and divide by the number of servings. If you made a recipe for four people and put in two Italian sausages and 1 cup shredded mozzarella among the other ingredients, you would log .5 or a half of sausage, and .25 or a quarter cup of cheese.

RaggedyAnnazon

I'm just wondering if I need a meal plan vs just logging as I go. But as far as like picking what I'm going to eat (+ what my lil one will eat) and buying all the groceries I tend to mess up big, and in the end I have trouble getting stuff that's healthy because it either all goes bad or I've had it all use by the end of the month. A meal plan may help not only with my calorie tracking but my grocery usage. But idk where to start.

pollypocket1021

RaggedyAnnazon wrote: »

I'm just wondering if I need a meal plan vs just logging as I go. But as far as like picking what I'm going to eat (+ what my lil one will eat) and buying all the groceries I tend to mess up big, and in the end I have trouble getting stuff that's healthy because it either all goes bad or I've had it all use by the end of the month. A meal plan may help not only with my calorie tracking but my grocery usage. But idk where to start.

That makes more sense, actually.

Lots of supermarkets have a weekly meal or dinner guide and the shopping list to go with it. That might be a good place to start. There are some apps that do the same thing, but I've never used them.

berlynnwall

RaggedyAnnazon wrote: »

I'm just wondering if I need a meal plan vs just logging as I go. But as far as like picking what I'm going to eat (+ what my lil one will eat) and buying all the groceries I tend to mess up big, and in the end I have trouble getting stuff that's healthy because it either all goes bad or I've had it all use by the end of the month. A meal plan may help not only with my calorie tracking but my grocery usage. But idk where to start.

Making a menu can definitely help with that. I usually plan dinners 2 weeks out and shop for what I need to make them. I make the dinners that use fresh produce first and ones that use frozen stuff last. Depending on my kids I sometimes have to run out for more milk and fruit between shopping trips, but otherwise it works pretty well.

RaggedyAnnazon

How can you figure out how much to get? I use to plan for two weeks out and end up using all my food stamps for the month. It was awful. I'd have food because of leftovers and such, but it was just so stressful if I ran out of something.

TimothyFish

I log as I go. I figure I'm better off eating what I want when I want it, rather than following a plan only to end up eating what I wanted to eat too.

ar9179

Are you able to shop and budget by the week or do you have to use the food stamps in one shopping trip? Shopping by the week will cut down on spoilage.

I think writing down the meals your family will eat for the month and figuring out the storage needs is a good start. Short term is used first, then long term finishes out the month.

kommodevaran

I'm not sure if I get what your problem is, or if this will help at all, but let's go!

I don't use a lot of recipes either. Very simple cooking, but always delicious food. I eat a lot of raw vegetables (cucumber, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, beets etc). I try to vary as much as possible and plan before I buy, need to know how much I will be using of each ingredient before it spoils. I have to be flexible and creative and adjust to the current prices and availability. Thinking in food groups and possible substitutes is a great help.

I use a spreadsheet (Open Office, but anything goes), one table for seven days, five meals.

I start with the official recommendation of "five a day" - three portions of vegetables and two fruits. More is even better. These are assigned their own colors - pink and green - in the sheet. A small serving of nuts - brown.

I have a fairly set breakfast: One crispbread (or you could have a slice of bread) with a spread of some kind of fish or meat. A small glass (80 grams) of whole milk. One of each of the fruit and vegetable goes into the breakfast cell.

Dinner most days follows a rotation of different (preferably naturally fatty) protein (fish or meat), starch (pasta, potato or sweet potato (often mashed, with butter and milk), barley, corn on the cob, or rice), and a vegetable (often frozen green peas or beans, or salad). Or I would make a vegetable soup (usually creamed - using an immersion blender), with or without bacon, or casserole (chili with beans, barley and minced lamb, or pasta bolognese). Or cheese on toast.

The evening meal is often grapes, mandarin or pear, with cheese and/or nuts. Or yogurt with nuts and a sweetener (maple syrup or honey).

The remaining two meals can be anything - more crispbread, sometimes I make tuna salad or replace the tuna with ham, or porridge (oats, millet, polenta) with butter, smoothies, or fruit with nut butter, sometimes leftovers.

I fill in the plan both in the spreadsheet and in the food diary here on MFP. Usually the spreadsheet first, because items are easier to move around, but not always. Sometimes one whole day ahead, or just one meal per day for a week, if I for instance have someting that I want to eat before it spoils (like one whole melon or pineapple). I tweak as I go. Sometimes stuff happens. I mark "off" meals (restaurant, friends', visits, otherwise unpredictable, but predictably different) blue, beforehand. Days with blue cells I make sure my nutritional needs are met through the four other meals. I aim to hit my calorie and protein goals, at least by averaging two days. But I don't fret. The plan is there to help me, it's not my boss!

When I'm away from home for more than one day, I go off the plan, just try to eat sensibly (haha), but I'm always eager to come back to the plan.

lemurcat12

RaggedyAnnazon wrote: »

To help you stay on track, do you give yourself a meal and exercise plan to follow?
How do you set it up? Start? Determine what to put in it?
An exercise plan I could probably write up without issue, but recommendations/tips are appreciated.

I think it depends on your goals. When I first started it was about being active regularly, so I had personal rules about walking a certain amount per day plus a goal for exercise that I knew I could stick to without burning out--3 times of stationary biking/week 30 mins per time or some such. As I went on I increased my goals and added in other activities.

Eventually I set goals for certain things--a race I wanted to do or a weight training program I wanted to follow, and I'd build my plan around those (which is what I still do).

It's the meal plan that I struggle with. . . .like, I seriously can't do them. I find it incredibly overwhelming. Any help and ideas would be appreciated.

For me the hard thing was always having them be too complicated or specific, so I'd have to buy things. What I find works--and why I'm kind of anti meal plans--is to work with some general flexible principles of what I think makes for a balanced meal. So I have a typical breakfast (vegetable omelet with some extras), a typical dinner template (protein, veggies (2 or more), plus a starch or fruit, maybe extra if I have the calories), and either make lunches ahead on Sundays or plan on having leftovers from dinner and cook extras to allow for that. I also have some backups in the form of lunch places I will buy from. My basic plan is to have lots of veggies and protein for the week in my refrigerator/freezer plus various starches and fruits and dairy on hand. Then I decide a day or two before what protein I will have and make sure it's defrosted if necessary, and when I get home I pop in whatever component takes the longest (usually the starch, sometimes the meat), and cook up veggies that seem tasty based on what I have available. I got really good at just working what I had in the refrigerator when I decided to do a CSA box and make sure I used it up.

I rarely use recipes, although I read recipes and cookbooks for fun and get ideas all the time.

lemurcat12

I currently log as I go, except that I will pre-log lunches if made the night before. However, when I first started I sometimes put in generally what I was planning to have (or at least the higher cal portions) to get a sense of where I was on macros/cals. Now I know without doing that, roughly.

For actual logging I weigh while cooking and note down the weights and then log during breaks--it doesn't add anything to the time I spend cooking.

I used to have issues with veggies and the like going bad, but I never do anymore, and my trick is simply not overplanning. Don't decide you are having chicken and need green beans with it. If you have chicken and need a vegetable to eat with it, use whatever veggies you have on hand until they are gone. So if you have spinach and brussels sprouts, those go perfectly well with chicken, you don't need to also get mushrooms and green beans if they aren't in your refrigerator. (At least, this is what I used to do and what I changed, mostly because of learning to use up the CSA box.) For meat nothing goes bad because I keep stuff in my freezer until I decide my plan for the next 2-3 days and start defrosting as needed.

berlynnwall

RaggedyAnnazon wrote: »

How can you figure out how much to get? I use to plan for two weeks out and end up using all my food stamps for the month. It was awful. I'd have food because of leftovers and such, but it was just so stressful if I ran out of something.

I have a family of 5, so I just estimate how much we will need. It took some time for me to get close to exactly right though, just trial and error. It would probably work better for you to do one week at a time, at least at first. I go two weeks out because I hate grocery shopping.