Looking for examples of meal planning / pre-logging

You could look at mine, its kind of sameness though. Go back to pre-thanksgiving though, lol. I plan the day maybe not the week, maybe so since I eat alot of the same stuff.

I pick 2 recipes (main dish type) per week ie. meatloaf and baked chicken. I create the recipes in the recipe builder and weigh it all out. When it's done cooking, I portion it out into Tupperware containers. I usually cook up rice and a vegetable and add those too. So I have 8 microwave dinners ready to go. They are pre-portioned and I can pre-log most of my lunches and dinners for the week.

It really keeps me on track cause it's ready to go, no excuses and takes just a few minutes to heat up.

I don't log anymore and only pre-logged for a bit, as I found that logging as I go (but according to a plan in my head) worked better for me.

That said, this is what made sense to me as a way to prelog:

Do you have a standard breakfast or three? Log that for the whole week. (I have 3 standard breakfasts and they all differ from day to day, but they also all have about the same calories. I could log my usual winter breakfast of 2-egg omelet with vegetables and cottage cheese and then revise it daily based on weights, the specific vegetables used, if I sub smoked salmon for cottage cheese, that sort of thing).

Do you pre-make lunch to take to work or otherwise have a regular lunch or set of lunches? I do -- I often make lunches on Sundays and one other evening or take dinner leftovers, so this is easy to log in advance for the week based on this plan. When I'm making ahead what I typically do is pick something that I can do in the slow cooker or otherwise something that takes longer (say roasting a chicken) and do this on Sunday and then plan sides -- usually lots of vegetables, maybe something starchy, maybe I make a stew, whatever. This is a good opportunity to do bean dishes too. If I know I am making dinners with planned leftovers I'd add that in.

Dinner: this is where I have the most variety. I'd plan on Sunday what I'm going to have for the protein portion of the dinner and probably roughly what I am doing with it, which will usually also give me the starch portion (pasta, stir fry, on its own with side potatoes or sweet potatoes?). I like to use whatever vegetables I have on hand, so don't usually plan out that bit too specifically (and you can adjust without it changing the calories much), but if you want to plan it out just go with what you have. So for example, say I have some salmon on hand, some frozen ground beef, some frozen pork loins, I'd look at amounts and decide what I'm doing, maybe: Monday, Tuesday, use the salmon, get out the pork to defrost. Wednesday pork. Thursday, pasta with meat sauce and Friday go out to dinner. Saturday meat sauce again, Sunday I'm cooking anyway so play it by ear.

I'd then get more specific:

Mon: Salmon with sweet potatoes and roasted vegetables (again, what I have).
Tues: stir fry with rice, lots of veg and leftover salmon.
Wed: make pork loin with roasted root veg, apples, and brussels. Use leftovers for lunch on Thursday. Also make a meat sauce while cooking dinner. Add lots of vegetables to the meat sauce.
Thursday evening: super quick one pot dinner with pasta and the meat and veg sauce that just needs to be heated up, make a salad too.

Stuff like that.

As you can see, what I find much, much easier is cooking in a way that is inspired by what I have on hand, what's in season, etc. Cooking from specific recipes, let alone way ahead, would never work.

I don't think of how I eat as "clean eating" (never even sure what that means), but I do get most of my meat from a farm and produce seasonally from a farm when possible (which is why I cook from what I have, in addition to just that being the way my mind works).

My understanding of pre-logging is that it's a loose guide and you adjust based on the specifics. Since I don't find logging it to make a difference as the general guideline is in my head anyway, I found it felt like extra work, but if you don't plan in your head like that I can see it being a great way to get started planning.

Maybe that's helpful, maybe not. Sorry my diary won't be, as I no longer log and so don't have it open.

lotushead wrote: »

Lounmoun wrote: »

I prelog but I'm not sure how looking at my diary would teach you about that.

True.

I guess I'm more so just trying to get an idea of how other people organize things.

Like how many recipes one might select to last a week for one person, that sort of thing.

I'm cooking for more people than you are, but I do plan for the week and shop/pre-log accordingly. This is how I organize it:
1) one main meat cooked over the weekend used for several dinners, e.g.
- whole smoked chicken (we smoke most weekends) served with sides the first night then used in mole enchiladas, green chile stew, chicken-apple salad, on pasta ... you get the idea. All this works with roasted whole chicken as well. I make a gallon of stock with the carcass.
- slow cooker pulled pork used in pork tacos (w avocado & ancho spiced pecans), pork fried rice, pork hash, "hot mess" (is this a Texas thing? BBQ in a baked sweet potato, with toppings if you have the calories for them)
- pork tenderloin served with fried bananas & black beans 1st night then used in posole and pork tacos
- pot roast also used in salpicon, pot pie, beef fried rice
- I buy extra chicken breast when its on sale to freeze raw for dishes like chicken marsala, lemon chicken, stir fry, soups, etc. It helps to pound the breast to a uniform thickness & wrap individually for even/quicker defrosting. I also make a big batch of chicken meat balls & freeze them raw in small portions.
- If all the kids are home and I'm cooking for more people (and more lunches) than usual, I'll plan for 2 main meats. We might smoke both at the same time, or I might cook the second later in the week. When pork shoulder is on sale, it is a huge hunk of meat, too big for my slow cooker, so I freeze half raw.
2) When we run out of the main meat, I turn to the freezer for fish or chicken. Also beans as the main course over rice (or spinach). If I have Andouille in the freezer, that's perfect with beans. Or pasta. Or anything really. I always try to have some sausage in the freezer and this time of year stock up on tamales, too.
3) For lunch, I usually have soup using some of the meat cooked over the weekend or saved in the freezer. I eat legumes every day, and that's usually in the soup for lunch. If not, I'll have a fried egg on black beans for breakfast or serve beans as a side with dinner. Also sandwiches, wraps or salads are easy lunches with left overs.
4) I log breakfast last and really don't plan ahead much for that. Usually some combination of egg & vegetable (omelette, frittata, tortilla espanola, etc). When we run out of eggs, oatmeal with fruit.
5) I have the same snacks pretty much every day -- fruit&yogurt and/or nuts&cheese&dried fruit depending on calories left/macros needed.

I hope that give you useful ideas that can translate to cooking for one!

lotushead wrote: »

Hey pals,

I would love to learn from any of you who are pre-logging your meals and planning them out for the week. I used to log as I went throughout the day but I'm finding that is more challenging to do under new conditions.

I'm especially interested in seeing food journals from people who eat relatively clean most of the time, as in little processed foods.

If you don't mind me friend requesting you or peeping your food diary, drop a line. And/or if you have any resources that you would recommend for meal plan building, batch cooking, and sticking to a set schedule, drop me some links!

Thanks

I don't log anymore, but when I did, I pre-logged...and my wife and I eat primarily whole to minimally processed foods and meals prepared from such.

Basically, we'd just sit down over the weekend and decide what we wanted to make for the week. My wife and I swap kitchen duty every other night and we'd just sit down withe our Pinterest account or whatever and figure out what we were going to be making on our perspective nights. Then of course we just had our staple stuff...we always have eggs and/or egg whites and/or oats for breakfast...we often make double portions of our dinners to take leftovers for lunch but otherwise keep salad fixings and sandwich stuff on hand...we keep plenty of veg and fruit in the house as well.

Mind you, this isn't so much about pre-logging as it is about putting together a shopping list as we prefer to shop only one day per week (usually Sunday) and be done with it. This has helped immensely with our food budget and saving money as well.

As pre-logging goes, it's just like keeping a budget...you don't budget after the fact, you project out. I only ever pre-logged a day...I would sit down in the evening and figure out what I was going to be having for my breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner the following day and I would log it and then I would have my projected plan. In most cases I stuck to the plan, but there are always deviations here and there.