Planning your meals weekly/daily

I plan my meal daily and it has worked for me. I am more likely to have something that I don't need when I plan at the moment.

I'm on a budget, so this helps my plan healthy meals and stay within my spending limits. Each week I sit down and plan out what I will cook and what we will eat for each meal. Then I make a list of what I need in order to prepare the meals, as well as the price of each item so I can make sure its within my budget. Then, I head to the store! I always plan to cook 2-3 dinners and eat leftovers 3-4 days each week. Lunches are easy: Soup & Salad. Breakfasts are always the same, just need to make sure I have those staples.

I wouldn't say that I plan out my meals exactly per week. I don't think I would like that because it would be way to constrictive. I do, however, make sure that I have enough healthy food in the house, and the right ingredients for the right meals. From there, I plan out each morning what I will eat for that day.
I went food shopping this morning, I bough 2 whole chickens. I know that will provide PLENTY of protien for at least 6 meals (lunch and dinner). I need sides with that, so I also got FF refried beans. I don't know what days I will be eating these items next week yet, but I know its there for me.
I also always have plenty of frozen fish in the house. I have individual portion of talipia - it takes just a few hours to defrost, and its a super quick and super healthy meal.

I think, starting out, its a great idea to plan each and every meal and snack for a week - You need to show yourself what you should really be eating, and when - to teach yourself how to divie out your calories. After you learn this, I think you can "wing it" by figuring it out each morning, or the night before if you need to pre-cook and save time.

I keep a grocery list and add to it throughout the week. Then I make my lunches the night before every work day and i keep healthy snacks/fruit at work. If i don't do this, i will be tempted to eat out. I definitely make sure i don't buy anything that is tempting that would screw up my diet. It's hard work but once you get the hang of it - it's easy and it's worth it. You can do it!

it helps me sometimes. the way I saw it explained and made sense to me was to look at it like a menu. in a way you have everything you can have for the day, eat it whenever, and it is a good road map to have

I sit down and plan out pretty much every meal for the week. I started doing it to help control our grocery budget and pay off school loans, but it has helped tremendously with watching what I eat.

For example.

I tend to have a fruit and yogurt for breakfast everyday. If I want something else, I make low calorie egg white "muffins" with ground turkey, bell pepper, and onion (86 calories!) and eat two or three.

For lunch, its usually last nights leftovers with salad, baby carrots, a fruit cup, and peanut butter. (I eat it straight as a dessert)

For supper, since my fiance isn't on the diet, I try to pick something we'll both like.

Last week we had chili, spaghetti squash spaghetti, chicken curry, chicken vegetable soup, tacos, and 2 other things I can't remember. I ate the taco meat on top of a salad and just bought him some shells to eat.

I threw some left over marinara and ground turkey on top of my salad for lunch the next day with some fat free cheese and it was AMAZING. Ditto with the chicken curry and taco meat.

I spent about 100 bucks for the two of us, which was a little more than normal, but I figure we're eating way better than when we we're eating hamburger helper.

Plus, when I have something planned out, it keeps me from picking fast food or spending money eating out since I already have that idea in my head. It's hard at first, but what I eventually did is plan out two weeks worth of food and wrote out a grocery list for everything. I just keep a copy of this list and use it each time I go shopping to make it easier. Occasionally I'll try something new, but we tend to eat the same thing every two weeks.