Meal planning

picklefish7

What works for you? Planning a days worth of meals, or just trying to eat healthy and adjusting as you go to stick to your calorie goals?

callsitlikeiseeit

i generally plan out my day and it usually changes but it gives me a starting point lol

NVintage

I plan all my dinners for the week on Sunday, usually the same 5 or so meals. I have them saved on this site and can add using the "quick tools", and then I go to "recent" or "frequent" to make my grocery list. I try to switch up a few dinners every season. I actually started doing this to make grocery shopping more efficient and to waste less, but I think it is helping me maintain my weight as well.

goal06082021

I have a 6-week rotation of lunches that I prep for the week, and another 6 dinners that yield at least one set of leftovers that I rotate through. I fill in the rest of the week's worth of dinners with either more leftovers from previous weeks, a particular dish I prepare as part of the 52 Weeks of Cooking challenge on Reddit, or takeout when necessary.

I keep a paper journal and physically write out the week's menu in there (to help me with my grocery list, which i also physically write in said journal).

JBanx256

I normally prep all my meals for the upcoming workweek in one go. I just have a stack containers with pre-portioned meals in the fridge so before I go out the door I can throw one of those, along with snack (ummm or maybe 2, haha), in my cooler and grab my big insulated drink bottle thing and be ready to roll.

I'll plan/shop/cook the dinners for the days I'm off work (I work 12+ hour shifts so when I'm "on," dinner is someone else's responsibility).

AnnPT77

I just fix meals as I go along, in a loosely calorie-aware way, nowadays. I log after I cook/eat, usually.

When I first started on MFP, I would sometimes log a meal right before I committed to cooking it, if I didn't know whether it would fit within my goal (calories + nutrition). It didn't really take long until I had a pretty good feel for the things I could eat and the meals I could combine in a day and still come out pretty close to goal. Either a little under or a little over goal is fine, in a way that averages out over perhaps a week to be right around goal (or that, while losing, at least doesn't wipe out the whole calorie deficit for the week without my actively choosing that delay!).

My nature is *not* to want to predict a day or more in advance exactly what I'll feel like eating. I'm more impulsive than that. Pre-planning/pre-logging would be a dissatisfier, for me. Other people like to prelog, prep meals, and be more structured generally, as you've read above. Either approach can work, or many things in between.

I'm a huge believer in the idea that it's really important to personalize the weight management process to our own individual preferences, strengths and limitations. Doing that makes success more likely, especially long-term success.

I'm in year 5+ of maintaining a healthy weight, year 6+ of using MFP, after previous *decades* of overweight/obesity, so it's working pretty well so far, for me.

Lietchi

I'm not a planner either. I usually log as I eat. For home-cooked meals, they're for me and my BF, so I log the recipe and then calculate my portion either beforehand (fitting in the number of calories I have left), or after eating (which I try to avoid, since I still have occasional unpleasant surprises that way).

It works very well for me that way, I usually make up the difference with my evening snack at the end of the day, choosing a smaller or larger one depending on how many calories I have left.

The only things I plan/enter beforehand are high calorie meals I need to work around and leftovers or other foods I need to eat before they spoil.

ChaoticMoira

I have about 4 breakfasts, and lunches each, that I simply rotate based on mood. They are all the same calorie count. This way all I ever have to do is plan dinner. I plan dinner for about a week out and eat that dish each night, then do something else. I don't get sick of the same food as quickly as some people do.

For me, thinking about what to eat combined with not having things that are easy prep, or already made is toxic. By having set things I eat, and ready made, I don't go after high cal convenience foods, which is a large part of how I gained weight. I always knew how to eat healthy, I was raised on it, I just didn't find it convenient.

rosebarnalice

Not so much a planner but a "shopping planner."

I typically do most of my shopping in the produce section, then add some proteins.

My weekday breakfasts and lunches are usually variations on a theme: oatmeal and veg for breakfast, big salad for lunch. I mix up the veggies based on what's cheap and in season, but popular go tos are mushrooms, napa cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, celery, onions, and leafy greens (spinach, kale, mustard or turnip greens, etc).

Because my fridge is full of veggies, it's easy to whip up meals using them.

goldenxbeauty

A few days at a time especially the evenings I work because otherwise I'll buy fast food.

I dont eat breakfast and rarely lunch, but I prep snacks and dinners ahead of time. I dont measure calories really, I just approximate since I know when I'm eating well and when I'm not and will adjust my habits accordingly.

Lietchi

rosebarnalice wrote: »

Not so much a planner but a "shopping planner."

I should have added that to my post too: my (warm) meals are always planned to facilitate our grocery shopping and avoid food wastage. But while I plan my meals generally speaking (the ingredients I'll use), I don't pre-log them because I don't know beforehand how many calories I'll be eating precisely.

springlering62

I plan a weeks meals in advance, and keep a running shopping list, with a separate section of items I’m fixing to run out of, to review in case Ive forgotten to add them.

I don’t food prep, except that on Sunday I always grill an extra piece of steak to chop for a couple of salads, and either a seasoned chicken breast or two or a package of chicken sausages, for protein for salads or wraps during the week.

Sunday before bed I sit down and enter the upcoming weeks worth of meals into my diary, including snacks. If I see one day’s lasagna dinner is particularly calorie heavy, I will swap in a lighter lunch that day, or fewer snacks.

This week I’ve got lunch with friends Wednesday and Thursday, so am planning lighter dinners those nights.

I work with a trainer at 1 pm a couple of days a week. I’ll schedule a chopped chicken wrap about 11:30am, and a large salad at 2:15. Two smaller lunches those days, mean I’m well fed before I train and have something heavier than a routine snack to tide me over afterwards.

The nice thing about preplanning is, if you have an “aw screw it let’s go to Cookout/pizza/gyro” kind of night, you can tell pretty quickly how it’s going to affect you, or how many calories you need to limit yourself to.

I also know that I start my week at my highest weight, and always end it with my lowest weight by Saturday, so tend to try to eat a little lighter on Monday, ramping up a bit by Friday to try to keep a happy maintenance weight

(Man, what they never told you about weight loss is the crazy zig zag graph during maintenance. SMH.)

lukecowdog

I work a lot of hours so find it best to preplan EVERYTHING and enter it into my food diary at the beginning of the week. I grill several different proteins on my day off, this week it was ribs, steak, chicken breast and pork tenderloin. If I don't have something I can heat up and eat immediately after getting home at 9:00 pm, it's too easy to hit a drive thru on the way home. I will cook green beans and other easy to heat vegetables in advance and make/freeze breakfast sandwiches to grab on the way out the door. I keep snacks in my desk at work and either bring lunch with me or something I've frozen in advance and left at work. If I don't do those things, I will end up ordering pizza or fast food.

For the same reason, I set a timer on my watch for every 20 minutes during the day to remind me to take a drink of water. If I don't, I will get busy and realize at bedtime that I have had no water intake. Now I am regularly consuming 96 oz to 120 oz daily...and before 7:00 pm so I don't get up repeatedly during the night.

I don't have time to figure out each day what I need to do so this makes eating well simple for me.

jdfitch33

I just started this healthier eating lifestyle changes because I was recently diagnosed with low functioning thyroid, in addition to that I am physically disabled and I am noticing that walking is getting harder as I get older and gain more weight.

I am also a planner so the meal prep ideas are great for me. Currently I prep one day's meals at a time, but after reading the post I will be preparing a week's worth of meals.

I also really loved the water idea, I never thought of setting a reminder for water consumption, I will be starting that today.

It has only been a week since I started to take healthier eating seriously and I am already feeling better. I know I still have a ways to go.

pessxx

I do not like meal prep planning at all cause I like to vary each day the menus , but sometimes like this week, I like to impose a little discipline so yes I have done meal prep for the next 5 days
Otherwise I like freedom in the range of healthy eating

cwolfman13

picklefish7 wrote: »

What works for you? Planning a days worth of meals, or just trying to eat healthy and adjusting as you go to stick to your calorie goals?

If you're talking about pre-logging, that's what I did when I logged...at least most of the time. Sometimes things would change with dinner because we were planning on doing the chicken thing and then decided to do the salmon thing. I always brown bagged my breakfast and lunch so I knew exactly what I was having there.

I've never much been into meal prep other than I often make extra of whatever we're having for dinner to take for lunch the next day or two. I have a thing about food being more than about 72 hours old, so I've just never done the whole meal prep thing for the week.

Walkywalkerson

I'm not much of a planner
I only shop for 2 ish days of food at a time - I don't like throwing food away and I hate feeling obliged to eat what's in the fridge 🤣

kshama2001

I collect inspiration from various sources - the supermarket flyers, email subscriptions to various cooking sites, etc.

When I cook chicken, I will make enough for several days worth of meals and snacks. For example, last night my partner grilled chicken and we had tortellini (which had been on sale) and veggies with it. I had chicken, rice, chili beans, and green beans for lunch. Tonight, I'll have chicken, Bang Bang Cauliflower, and rice.

Just heard about this from friends; excited to try it!

https://kirbiecravings.com/bang-bang-cauliflower/

gentlygently

I fall into the ‘just try to eat healthy’ category our OP suggested.

I have 2 freezers full of frozen meat and fish (and some fruit/veg/milk/bread etc) , lots of basics in the store cupboard - and I get a weekly fruit and veg box. I hate shopping and planning meals - and instead like to get creative. ‘Mmm I have half an aubergine left and some goats cheese - what shall I do with them?’

I have some basic rules to help keep the calories in check (allow 300 for breakfast, 450 for lunch etc, ie no second piece of toast with my egg! Mainly keep cheese, wine, afternoon biscuits for the weekend. Modest portion of carbs at dinner. Etc etc ). I mentally keep a loose eye on the calorie totals.

It all works fine. It is not too restrictive or too big a change and I enjoy my food. So my problem is not losing weight - that I seem to find fairly easy once I am in the mood..

My problem is that once I have done it, I loosen the basic rules too much…

I’ve worked out I then eat just 100 cals on average too much each day - which gradually become extra inches and extra pounds. And then I rinse and repeat.,,

I think I will need to keep up the regular weigh ins this time round !! And probably make some of my basic rules ‘forever’ not ‘weight loss’ rules…

MichelleMcKeeRN

Lots of trial and error to figure out what works for me, lol. I do the best when I have all my work food prepped. I try not to prep more than a few days of food at a time because it doesn’t taste as good on day 4-5… which leads me to stray. If I am going away from the house, I generally pack my snacks for the day but let myself eat a meal out. I tend to like to prepare dinner and weekend meals; no meal prep.

DoctorMOHSEN

Meal plans didn't work for me because im living with my mom and sister, so we usually share meals accept for breakfast and usually lunch as well, so what worked for me is hitting my proteins macros first then the rest of calories from fats and carbohydrates aren't hard to get since you have easy available choices.

FitB4Forty83

I’m a weekly planner. I generally eat the same things for breakfast and just vary lunch and dinner. We’re in a lockdown at the moment, so I’m working on just eating from my pantry to save trips to the grocery store!