Meal Planning - yay or nay?

I always buy similar things with a few variations. I prelog my day to stay within allotted calories but I'm good at making similar macro'd substitutions if I need or want to.

Yes. I'm rarely home most days (straight from work to gym or run then to dancing). I prepare food in bulk.

For instance:

Breakfast: Weigh and layer granola†, greek yogurt, jam into a bunck of smaller plastic containers.
(†simple Granola= turn oven to 300-something; put a bit of honey, oil, vanilla, salt in a bowl (not a lot); stir/whip; pour in a bunch of oats; mix/churn with your hands; dump onto cookie sheet; bake ~15-25-ish minutes.)

Lunch/Dinner: weigh out portions of a vegetable side(s)‡, a meat item‡, possibly a starch item to pad out calories into an entree-sized container. Or a batch of rice and beans with vegetables.
‡ easy vegetable side - dump some frozen vegetables onto cookie sheet/pan, drizzle with some oil, sprinkle on some minced garlic (available in bottles) and/or chopped onion and some parmesan cheese (available ready to use in plastic shaker bottles).
‡ easy meat item - Carve a ready-made rotisserie chicken (a lot of supermarkets have these super cheap).- will yield 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2-3 breast 'cutlets' with skin, another 2 'cutlets' with a sliver of skin (top each of these with a wing in the container to keep it from drying out when re-heating), along with a mound of chicken pieces pulled off the bone in various spots (will go well in soup or rice and beans).

Dinner/Lunch: Soup (and bread/crackers). Make a large batch of soup. In crockpot, throw in some dried beans and a bunch of water..let cook 1 day/night; next session- add a bunch of vegetables (chopped root vegetables, frozen veggies, canned veggies - pretty much whatever) and optionally some meat (chopped ham or sausage, bits of chicken, etc). (weigh everything). Weigh batch when done. Store in fridge and weigh out whenever you eat it or pre-portion into containers. optionally, add some more meat if low on protein for the day. (My freezer door currently contains large baggies with bits of rotisserie chicken, diced chorizo, diced ham).

I usually start with my pantry and supermarket sales circular. The better you plan the cheaper healthy eating is. During the week I plan on dinners that reheat well so I can have them as lunch the next day. I don't cook too far ahead but I like to wash and chop as much as I can on Sunday to make the week go smoother.

I find it easier if all of my lunches are packed in the fridge come Monday morning. It prevents me from going out or grabbing something that doesn't fit my goals.

I typically make a large batch of chicken/ground turkey and veggies and portion them out for my lunches. Dinners are always planned Monday on my lunch break, and then I shop after work and get exactly what I need. I've also saved money doing it that way.

I do my meal planning right before going grocery shopping. I start with dinner for the week. I go through my refrigerator/cabinets/freezer first to see what easy meals pop out at me. For instance if I have pasta and spaghetti sauce so all I need is some meat or veggies to go in it, then hey lookie here, one night will be spaghetti!!! If there's 2 lbs of chicken breast hanging out in the freezer, maybe BBQ chicken one night. I track mine on a chalkboard that is on the kitchen wall, but you can track it any way you like. So, once the easy meals are chalked in, then I start thinking about what is left in terms of days and items. I usually have at least one dinner each of vegetarian, beef, pork, chicken, eggs and then mix in some soup or salad or pasta days. So, depending on what is already on the board and what is left, I'll think about things to add in. I make the grocery list as I go along - as a general rule I try to buy exactly what I need for the week unless I have extra grocery money and find an awesome sale, then I will stock up on staple items. Once dinner is done then I start thinking about lunches...are there big dinner items that will likely be leftover, like a roast or big pot of soup? If not there's always salad or sandwiches, and those items can be added to the grocery list. Breakfast is coffee, so that's an easy one. I usually only spend about 15 min. planning it all out, but it may take longer in the beginning. And if I have something that is just sitting in the cabinet (like that giant bag of plain oatmeal) then I'll start looking for recipes and planning how to use that up before it sits around any longer (like stovetop chocolate oatmeal cookies).

I meal prep for lunches as I generally eat the same thing for breakfast. If you buy for the month, then you have a lot of options of things to prepare. If you google "meal prep month" there are several sights that come up, some have better recipes than other (for losing weight) but it will help you get an idea of the process at least.

For me, I prep for a week (or more, depends on how much protein I have). I cook a pan (or two) of chicken thighs, cook a bunch of vegetables (I dislike cooking vegetables, no idea why - I buy the plain steamfresh bags) and then bust out the scale and the Rubbermaid containers and go to town portioning everything out. The first few days go in the fridge, the rest in the freezer. I use a sauce or somesuch on the protein (every now and again I switch to hamburger), and lots of spices on the vegetables to keep it from being bland and boring and to mix things up.

For more than one of you, or depending on your tastes, you may want to mix it up and create several dishes to mix and match and depend on how you decide to prep (one person containers, big pan o' something to share, etc).

Edit: Meal prep has helped me with losing weight because I just have to grab something from the freezer, throw some bbq sauce on the chicken and I'm good to go. If I don't take lunch my takeout choices are limited and high calorie (Jack in the Box, Arby's, etc - and I will get the fries, ugh).

I plan the menu and then load the recipes into MFP using the search by URL feature so that the day of I am ready to go. I usually make up some steel cut oats, smoothie bags, overnight oats, fruit bowls, veggie bags and have everything properly weighed, measured, and marked for easy logging.

I love meal planning and it's how I survive dieting . It's also how I plan my groceries for the week, which keeps me from overspending.

I've been meal planning for years because of a tight budget. It may make it easier to log because I know what I will be eating in advance. I prelog my food for the day every morning.
I just make a list of dinners for the week and cross them out as we have them. Lunch and breakfast I have 3 or 4 items I regularly might have.