Does anyone plan their meals in advance?

I shop for weekdays and we have fun on the weekends but still healthy meals with one free day

I try to, but sometimes... I just don't follow the plan, but at least I try, right?

Kind of... I'll shoot for a different kind of meat every night of the week, and use leftovers for lunch or as sides the next day. (This week's a challenge, since there's been a huge recall of beef in my country. Steaks usually count for at least two nights.) Usually I'll grill or pan-fry; once in a while I get fancy. I try to get at least one veggie dinner in. I might do a roast on a weekend, if I'm home during the day.

I mostly have the same greens on hand (rotating between brussel sprouts, brocc, spinach, kale, green beans), which can be used a bunch of ways.

I keep things like ham, salmon & tuna to use in a pinch (in salads, soups, omelettes, & pasta things).

I also pick up the odd frozen cheat meal - pizza, chicken breasts, etc - for lazy days. I'm lucky that my local grocery store has a great brand of lighter, high protein versions of those.

Tons of greek yogurt, for practically everything. I sprinkle lentils on whatever I can.

Basically, I have a standard grocery list that's pretty versatile.

I eat the same thing every day for breakfast, mid morning snack and afternoon snack. I do change up my lunches and dinners. That helps me figure out my calories relatively easy. I should note that this is M-F. Weekends I change up what I eat and I need to be better about tracking that for sure.

Every morning, using MFP's food diary, I draft (roughly estimate) my calorie day to provide myself a guideline to follow. At the very least, I enter in estimated dinner calories, our largest meal of the day, thus giving me an idea of the room I have to work with for my breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Prior to joining MFP (not quite a month ago) and trying to "healthify" my lifestyle, I used to plan my dinner menus in advance; now, as I painstakingly reassess what we're eating, making modifications along the way, slowly entering each recipe into MFP to ascertain the nutritional value, I've lately been planning from morning to morning.

I think this would help me but I would like some imput. Has anyone tried this? Did it work for you?

its part of the key to success.

I'm curious as to how one grocery shops without having any sort of plan as to what to eat?

We make a list of every meal we're going to eat for the week, work out what we need to buy at the store to make all those meals, then go to the store and buy everything on our list.

I do it everyday. Don't be ashamed of by planning your meals and/or workouts. You plan your daily routine: work schedule, kid's school drive, shopping, holidays, family events, dinners, birthdays, anniversary etc. Why can't we plan a few more things? What rule or social convention says we can't plan our meals and workouts?

Every weekend I shop and make my meals for the week. I then weigh and portion my meals and snacks and freeze and store them. I make about four different meals and will grab what I feel like that day. The day you do it sucks and it feels like the longest day but the rest of the week there is no thought put in. I just defrost and eat. Each meal is about 350 calories so I don't mind if I mix upwhat I have. In saying that I live alone so it is so much easier to do. No one wants seconds or miscalculates serving size

I plan at least 1 day in advance sometimes 2. That way in the morning I already know what I'm having and I don't have to guess and make a calorie mistake.
Also knowing what I'm going to have makes taking lunch/snacks with me on the go easier.
I would definitely recommend planning!