Daily Meals/Meal Planning - How do YOU do it?
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iKapuniai
Posts: 594 Member
So... I hate cooking. LOATHE it. Not only that, but I barely have the TIME to cook. I also get extremely anxious and stressed out just thinking of WHAT to cook all the time.
I have three questions for all you low carbers.
1. How do you meal plan? Do you take one or two days a week and cook everything for the entire week? How do you keep it quick, easy and convenient?
2. I'd REALLY love it if you all could list what you eat on a daily basis, for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Give me some ideas/tips.
3. What do you keep as convenient snacks? Preferably something imperishable that I can keep in my purse when the hunger pangs start.
Thank you all in advance for your help! I'll be looking forward to hearing from you all!
Love and Alohas,
-Ihilani Kapuniai
I have three questions for all you low carbers.
1. How do you meal plan? Do you take one or two days a week and cook everything for the entire week? How do you keep it quick, easy and convenient?
2. I'd REALLY love it if you all could list what you eat on a daily basis, for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Give me some ideas/tips.
3. What do you keep as convenient snacks? Preferably something imperishable that I can keep in my purse when the hunger pangs start.
Thank you all in advance for your help! I'll be looking forward to hearing from you all!
Love and Alohas,
-Ihilani Kapuniai
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Replies
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I meal plan by the month, using a huge desk calendar hung on the wall, but i also use my crockpot almost daily. I love cooking but i rarely have time to do a whole meal. I bought some cookbooks on LC/HF crockpot cooking and use them all the time. I make candied nuts, wings, cheese spreads, and other snacks in the crockpot in addition to meals. I do a lot of veggie omelets with whole eggs, cheese, avocado and bacon in the mornings.
You can find a lot of LC/HF freezer meals on Pinterest. Freezer meals you cook ahead of time, put into the freezer and then take out and pop in the oven when you get home.
I use nuts, avocados with a little salt, pork rinds, cottage cheese, cheese sticks, fat bombs, beef jerky, etc as snacks.
Hope that helps!0 -
I throw chicken (breasts, thighs, whatever) into the crockpot with just a bit of salt and cook it until it falls apart and can be easily shredded. I then put it in containers that are about a cup each with 2-3 ounces of cream cheese. You can either season them all the same, season them all differently, or season them when you take them out to eat them (no surprises that way). I did my last one with salt, garlic powder, basil, and oregano. This pretty well covers my lunches for the week.
We don't plan for a week. We plan for half a week and go shopping on Wednesday and Saturdays.
Sunday, we had a big scramble (bacon, eggs, cream, and cheese), then burgers for dinner.
Monday, I had bulletproof coffee and a container of chicken from above (hubby was out).
Today, I had BPC and will have chicken when I get home from work (I leave early) and make fettuccine alfredo from one of Diana Carpender's books for dinner. I'm also snacking on lemon coconut energy bombs from Until the Thin Lady Sings (blog).
Tomorrow, I'll have BPC and chicken. Tonight we'll sit down and put together the plan for Wednesday through Saturday lunch. It will probably involve lots of chicken for lunch for me and lots of burgers as we have a big box in the freezer and are kind of broke right now. Hubby tends to take cheesy sausages or skip lunch.0 -
Like you, I do not like cooking! I keep my diet very simple!
Breakfast: Green Drink made with spinach, 1/4 C. Blueberry, unsweetened Coconut/Almond milk, low carb protein powder, cinnamon. Usually this makes enough to drink 1/2 in am and 1/2 around 3pm if I'm hungry
Snack: Roasted/Salted Almonds
Lunch: Egg "Muffin": Make omelet in a muffin tin with favorite ingredients, heats nicely in microwave. Been making these on Sunday nights.
Dinner: Usually a piece of meat on the grill with green beans and sometimes cottage cheese. Our local store sells 5oz bacon wrapped sirloin very cheap, find this is the perfect amount for me and very easy, so eat them quite often!0 -
I meal plan by the month, using a huge desk calendar hung on the wall, but i also use my crockpot almost daily. I love cooking but i rarely have time to do a whole meal. I bought some cookbooks on LC/HF crockpot cooking and use them all the time. I make candied nuts, wings, cheese spreads, and other snacks in the crockpot in addition to meals. I do a lot of veggie omelets with whole eggs, cheese, avocado and bacon in the mornings.
You can find a lot of LC/HF freezer meals on Pinterest. Freezer meals you cook ahead of time, put into the freezer and then take out and pop in the oven when you get home.
I use nuts, avocados with a little salt, pork rinds, cottage cheese, cheese sticks, fat bombs, beef jerky, etc as snacks.
Hope that helps!
What are FAT BOMBS.....I have to know..lol
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I actually like to cook but rarely have time! I prepare my snacks and breakfast the nights before I have to work.....I will sauté peppers, onions, mushrooms, pre-cook sausage and bacon for my eggs for breakfast. I mix my eggs and whatever am having with them ahead in a small greased bowl and pop it in the microwave in the morning.
Snacks: cheese sticks, hardboiled eggs, pepperoni, cheese and black olives, pork rinds, pistachios, rolled lunch meats and cheese, beef jerky, celery and cream cheese or ranch....etc
Dinners and lunches are usually a meat and low carb veggie....spinach, broccoli, green beans, cabbage or a salad. If I have time I'll make something more complicated like "zucchini" lasagna or "spaghetti" made from spaghetti squash. I make low carb chili with out beans in my crock pot. I'll make roasts in the crock pot and skip the potatoes and carrots and use onions, mushrooms, celery and sometimes turnips. And if we order out....like tonight, my fiancé and son ordered pizza and I ordered wings and made a salad. That took sooooo much willpower...lol
Good luck.....I think finding creative ideas and new ways to change things up makes it kinda fun!0 -
I do a combination of crock pot and casserole most of the time. There are always leftovers from a previous meal in the fridge for lunch or leftover night if need be.
Crock pot-
roast beef is easy
Chili - chicken or ground beef
Soups...chicken, brocolli cheddar is my favorite!, but taco soup or chicken tortilla is good too!
I make boneless skinless chicken breast in the crockpot a lot. Bit of broth and cook all day-shredded so it can go in any number of recipes!
Weekly: I rotate through the family favorites
Chicken broccoli Alfredo (add GF pasta for the fam)
Taco salad or w/ tortilla for the fam
Chicken Cesar salad (shredded crockpot chicken)
Tuna salad
Chicken salad
Egg salad - I ally try to have one of these made up in the fridge for lunch or dinner on the go.
Pizza-either a fake one, or pizza chicken...
Roast beef
Chicken divan type casserole, with rice on the side for the fam
Breakfast for dinner on Fridays - bacon, eggs, GF toast or Belgian waffles added for the fam
Ham once in a while
Chicken enchilada bake
Sides are usually salad, green beans. Brocolli, & cauliflower.
Hth!
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Ugh, you are all so amazing... thank you all SO VERY MUCH for the plans/ideas, I'll probably take a bit from everyone and hope to utilize the info on a daily basis. I know it all seems so easy/simple, but I'm so scatterbrained at times, thinking about meal planning and figuring out what to eat is just such a stressor to me that I end up turning to convenient, unhealthy and high-carb foods.
Got a call from my doctor today and found out that I'm pre-diabetic (already diagnosed with PCOS as well)... so though I've been TRYING to low carb for months, now I know that I HAVE to... it's no longer a choice. So yeah... bleh, the first few days are sooooo rough!!!!!
Again, thank you all so very much for the help, and I appreciate the time/effort you put into your answers, I love it!!
Love and Alohas.0 -
esaucier17 wrote: »I meal plan by the month, using a huge desk calendar hung on the wall, but i also use my crockpot almost daily. I love cooking but i rarely have time to do a whole meal. I bought some cookbooks on LC/HF crockpot cooking and use them all the time. I make candied nuts, wings, cheese spreads, and other snacks in the crockpot in addition to meals. I do a lot of veggie omelets with whole eggs, cheese, avocado and bacon in the mornings.
You can find a lot of LC/HF freezer meals on Pinterest. Freezer meals you cook ahead of time, put into the freezer and then take out and pop in the oven when you get home.
I use nuts, avocados with a little salt, pork rinds, cottage cheese, cheese sticks, fat bombs, beef jerky, etc as snacks.
Hope that helps!
What are FAT BOMBS.....I have to know..lol
You can google it, there are a whole lot of recipes out there. But we use ones called cream cheese clouds, and put different flavors in them. Our favorite cream cheese cloud flavors are lemon, butterscotch and strawberry. They are cream cheese, butter, splenda/stevia and flavorings.
I also make a chocolate peanut butter fat bomb that has butter, peanut butter, chocolate, coconut oil and put into small cupcake cups.
I am going to try new flavors of the fat bombs next month as there are a whole lot of ideas out there. They work for a quick snack or a dessert or a quick something if you need a few calories and a decent amount of fat to close out your day.0 -
I meal plan sometime during the week for the following week but do most of the cooking for lunches on Sunday-- I normally prep the same thing for the whole week ( I spice it up with dinner) so that way I am not trying to purchase a whole bunch of different things for up to 10 meals (lunch and dinner) I do eggs and some kind of meat for breakfast0
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Goodness these are sparking so many ideas! Thank you !!!!
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i am not a cooking person either. do you have a trader joes by you?? i have found pre-made salads and pre-made dinners that are within good carb numbers and just eat those same few.
if you're into indian food, there are lots of pre-made choices! tasty bites brand!0
