Meal plan

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tashemafacey
tashemafacey Posts: 16 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Any meal plan tips ? I find it hard to stay on track during the week in terms of figuring out what to eat and I'm really bad at planning. Any advice on that? Feel free to add me so we can support each other !

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  • cityruss
    cityruss Posts: 2,493 Member
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    Can you not just eat the foods you like, whilst adhering to your calorie and macronutritional goals?
  • andrasita30
    andrasita30 Posts: 24 Member
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    tashemafacey wrote: »
    Any meal plan tips ? I find it hard to stay on track during the week in terms of figuring out what to eat and I'm really bad at planning. Any advice on that? Feel free to add me so we can support each other !

    Try intermittent fasting
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    I've never had any reason to do a "meal plan". There are a myriad of websites with all kinds of good, healthful recipes and meal ideas out there, not to mention about a million recipes in my head from years of cooking. My wife and I alternate nights cooking...on weekends we go through our favorite websites or think of different things we've prepared before and decide what we want to cook throughout the week...then we make a shopping list and go get those items...then we cook them on our nights. Since many recipes serve more than just the two of us, we usually have leftovers that come in handy for lunches and whatnot...

    Most meal plans that I've come across are just gimmicks...and what happens when you're "done"...has the meal plan taught you anything in regards to nutrition or how you need to eat into perpetuity to maintain a healthy weight and your fitness?
    andrasita30 wrote: »
    tashemafacey wrote: »
    Any meal plan tips ? I find it hard to stay on track during the week in terms of figuring out what to eat and I'm really bad at planning. Any advice on that? Feel free to add me so we can support each other !

    Try intermittent fasting

    I don't really view IF as a "meal plan"...
  • tashemafacey
    tashemafacey Posts: 16 Member
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    cityruss wrote: »
    Can you not just eat the foods you like, whilst adhering to your calorie and macronutritional goals?
    That's what I've been so far and it's been working out well, just wanted to try everything to see what the best fit for me is.
  • Mistraal1981
    Mistraal1981 Posts: 453 Member
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    What I have done is come up with a days worth of food that I think i would enjoy that hits my calories and macros. I save it as a meal. I then do another day of a different combo of food I think I'd enjoy that hits my calories and macros and then save that as a meal and so on.

    It was quite time consuming to set up, but now it's done it makes my life so much easier. Plus it has made shopping a million times more focused and straightforward.
  • patheticshark
    patheticshark Posts: 15 Member
    edited February 2016
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    I like the BBC Good Food ones, like this: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/healthy-diet-plan-week-1

    Even if you don't want to do all of it they have a good shopping list function so you can stick all the ingredients for a number of recipes on a list and it'll add up the quantities you need across recipes. Using that function has also been good for stopping me buying additional not-so-healthy things in the supermarket.

    Personally I find having meals planned out in advance makes it much easier for me to stick to my calories.

    You probably know this already but you can also import the recipes into MFP - requires a bit of tweaking but makes it fairly straightforward to log accurately.
  • craigbullers
    craigbullers Posts: 22 Member
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    I cook in bulk on my day/days off then weigh an package in storage containers for each meal on work days! Keeps life simple on work days plus will free up some of your time after work
  • craigbullers
    craigbullers Posts: 22 Member
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    Not to mention helps from eating something bad cause your "just to tired to cook after the day I had"
  • tashemafacey
    tashemafacey Posts: 16 Member
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    I know what you mean , sometimes I just don't feel like figuring out what I'm going to eat
  • craigbullers
    craigbullers Posts: 22 Member
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    tashemafacey wrote: »
    I know what you mean , sometimes I just don't feel like figuring out what I'm going to eat

    I was guilty of just doing what was quick an easy for a long time! That almost never =healthy lol
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    Meal planning is one of the greatest tools for eating well, reducing stress, saving money and time.

    Look at your calendar and make your meals fit with your schedule. I know some people use Google Calendar for this, assigning meals their own calendar. I'm just using a spreadsheet, a table with columns for meals, and one row per day.

    I think you know what you like to eat if you just sit down, relax and think. Add those meals to your plan, the more elaborate ones when you have enough time to cook more extensively.

    Find recipes for the meals that you don't have recipes for. Write down the ingredients you don't have. Take that list to the grocery store.

    That is meal planning in a nutshell. There are lots of different tricks you can use to get more out of it, but they will of course vary depending on your situation.
  • tashemafacey
    tashemafacey Posts: 16 Member
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    kommodevaran wrote: »
    Meal planning is one of the greatest tools for eating well, reducing stress, saving money and time.

    Look at your calendar and make your meals fit with your schedule. I know some people use Google Calendar for this, assigning meals their own calendar. I'm just using a spreadsheet, a table with columns for meals, and one row per day.

    I think you know what you like to eat if you just sit down, relax and think. Add those meals to your plan, the more elaborate ones when you have enough time to cook more extensively.

    Find recipes for the meals that you don't have recipes for. Write down the ingredients you don't have. Take that list to the grocery store.

    That is meal planning in a nutshell. There are lots of different tricks you can use to get more out of it, but they will of course vary depending on your situation.
    Thank you
  • jennamae102
    jennamae102 Posts: 179 Member
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    I usually pick 3-4 recipes to make for dinner per week, make a shopping list, and buy the ingredients for these recipes. I cook for myself & my husband and plan enough for leftovers. That way I have 3-4 dinners & lunches already planned for the week. I keep plenty of salad stuff on hand as well to fill the gaps on days I might not have leftovers. I've been using a ton of recipes from Skinnytaste.com lately, they are easy, tasty, and low cal. Good luck!

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