Plan to Eat -OR Fail. Planners please chime in!

krazyforyou

Unless its a crazy day I always try to plan aheah. Keeps me on track.

mahanaibu

I just stock up on plenty of basics that I can mess around with to make meals. On the weekend I'll make a couple of things for the week ahead...a veggie stew, roast a chicken. But with my spices and sauces around, some fruits and veggies, dairy and eggs in the fridge, plus frozen goods, I'm usually ready to pull together a meal pretty fast. Recently bought a Vitamix, the kind that cooks fresh soups etc., which makes a lot of things possible quickly. For me, it's more fun to think about the combinations of things I can put together from what's in the house. But I have to admit, I had to make my own spice rack and take up an entire shelf in the cabinet for it. I use a lot of spices and herbs from different ethnicities as well as sauces, salsas...but that allows me to mix it up even when I have relatively little in the way of basic ingredients.

thistimewillbedifferent

This is one of the best threads I've ever seen on MFP! Any fellow planners are welcome to add me!

Every Friday night I sit down with my calendar and map out what the week ahead looks like -- when am I eating out, when am I seeing my trainer or taking an exercise class, when do I have an official function right after work and therefore won't have time to cook, etc.

I then "fill in the gaps" by planning out what I'll eat throughout the week. If I have a late-night exercise class, I eat a heavier-than-usual protein-fulled afternoon snack and pick up sushi on the way home from the class. If I have an early morning meeting, I make overnight oats the night before. If I'm going to a restaurant, I go ahead and look at the menu online and decide what I'm going to order. If it's a Friday night, I know I'll be too tired to cook anything complicated, so I plan something simple like tortilla pizza.

I then go through my fridge and figure out what ingredients I already have and need to incorporate into my menu plan and what I need to buy for the week ahead.

Saturdays I do the grocery shopping, and on Sundays I spend about an hour doing advance food prep. I might grill a bunch of chicken breasts and freeze them in individual portions, or cook a bunch of black beans, or make a pot of quinoa or brown rice, or make some hard-cooked eggs, or roast some green beans, etc. I also pre-portion things like hummus, natural peanut butter, almonds, pistachios, berries, etc. into individual serving sizes. If I have something that needs serious cutting like a pineapple or a canteloupe, I do that, too. By the end of the hour, my fridge looks very similar to the one in the above photos.

Each night before I go to bed I pre-log what I'm planning to eat the next day. Sometimes it follows my original menu plan to a T, sometimes I have to adjust because other things have come up. Throughout the day I make adjustments as needed -- if a girlfriend is having a crisis and I want to have a glass of wine with her, I do...and then I find a way to remove that 120 calories (or whatever) from somewhere else later in my day.

I obviously slip up and fall off the wagon occasionally, but for the most part this method has been a MAJOR part of why I have been able to lose 51 lbs since January despite having a job that involves a lot of eating out and travel (at which point I introduce my handy insulated cooler bag into the equation).

You've gotten some great advice throughout this thread, as have I! Best wishes finding a system that works for you!

heroyalslimness

Ooooh--I was away---but glad to read the rest of this amazing thread.
I will report back on your ideas--that I will use

heroyalslimness

This is one of the best threads I've ever seen on MFP! Any fellow planners are welcome to add me!

Every Friday night I sit down with my calendar and map out what the week ahead looks like -- when am I eating out, when am I seeing my trainer or taking an exercise class, when do I have an official function right after work and therefore won't have time to cook, etc.

I then "fill in the gaps" by planning out what I'll eat throughout the week. If I have a late-night exercise class, I eat a heavier-than-usual protein-fulled afternoon snack and pick up sushi on the way home from the class. If I have an early morning meeting, I make overnight oats the night before. If I'm going to a restaurant, I go ahead and look at the menu online and decide what I'm going to order. If it's a Friday night, I know I'll be too tired to cook anything complicated, so I plan something simple like tortilla pizza.

I then go through my fridge and figure out what ingredients I already have and need to incorporate into my menu plan and what I need to buy for the week ahead.

Saturdays I do the grocery shopping, and on Sundays I spend about an hour doing advance food prep. I might grill a bunch of chicken breasts and freeze them in individual portions, or cook a bunch of black beans, or make a pot of quinoa or brown rice, or make some hard-cooked eggs, or roast some green beans, etc. I also pre-portion things like hummus, natural peanut butter, almonds, pistachios, berries, etc. into individual serving sizes. If I have something that needs serious cutting like a pineapple or a canteloupe, I do that, too. By the end of the hour, my fridge looks very similar to the one in the above photos.

Each night before I go to bed I pre-log what I'm planning to eat the next day. Sometimes it follows my original menu plan to a T, sometimes I have to adjust because other things have come up. Throughout the day I make adjustments as needed -- if a girlfriend is having a crisis and I want to have a glass of wine with her, I do...and then I find a way to remove that 120 calories (or whatever) from somewhere else later in my day.

I obviously slip up and fall off the wagon occasionally, but for the most part this method has been a MAJOR part of why I have been able to lose 51 lbs since January despite having a job that involves a lot of eating out and travel (at which point I introduce my handy insulated cooler bag into the equation).

You've gotten some great advice throughout this thread, as have I! Best wishes finding a system that works for you!

Very cool---and congrats on the 51 pounds
who would have thought something as simple as planning and pre-portioning as well as having healthy snacks at the ready for the munchy-times could be a major player in losing weight

when my fridge looks like the photos --I will post it:bigsmile: