Meal planning, how to make it work?

Thesarahmonster
Thesarahmonster Posts: 44 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've always heard that planning out your meals for the week is the way to go, but it never worked for me. One of my biggest issues is that what I eat is based off of what I'm hungry for. If I plan to have a salad for dinner on Tuesday, thenTuesday comes around and I'm not feeling like eating a salad, it won't taste good to me and I'll just pick something else to eat. This in turn throws off my entire plan for the week because I may use up an ingredients meant for a meal later in the week and then have to change that to something different too. This cycle continues until eventually I end up having to change pretty much everything I planned on eating to something different and it's defeated the whole point of me "Planning" out my meals. Haha.

How do you get around this? Do you just tough it out and eat what you planned, even if it doesn't sound good to you at the time? I don't know if I could manage that! The only things that I can eat ALL the time are things that are bad for me (that I know of so far), and that's not a road I want to go down! Anyone have any nifty tips or tricks that could help me at least try and ease my way into meal planning, or maybe a totally different approach all together?

Replies

  • cgray
    cgray Posts: 129 Member
    I only plan my meals a day in advance. Sometimes I change my mind, but most of the time I stick with it.
  • OMGLeigh
    OMGLeigh Posts: 236
    When I did more meal planning I would write it on a big white board calendar. I'd also make sure to have leftover and fend for yourself days.
    Most weeks were themed, Asian, Mexican, Italian, Sandwiches, etc. That way I'm using all of the ingredients that I bought, rather than having mismatched leftover ingredients.
  • ccchick
    ccchick Posts: 11 Member
    When I grocery shop, I get the ingredients for 7 dinners. I then choose from those dinner options during the week, I do not plan to have a certain meal on a certain day (this doesn't work for me either!) Meal planning for our family is more about saving money, so I try to only shop once a week.
  • mamaking2012
    mamaking2012 Posts: 13 Member
    I plan my meals..then look in the local ads..and use my coupons..but pretty much stick to what i write down.
  • jinxjazz
    jinxjazz Posts: 25 Member
    I eat the same breakfast, lunch & snacks for a week, or sometimes longer. Example: turkey hot dogs are packaged with 8 dogs so I would eat those for 8 straight days. We cook 3 dinners a week, allowing a leftover meal for each one. On the 7th day we eat leftovers that weren't accounted for or go out or just cook something different, nothing is wasted. This really works for us. We don't have to sit around & waste time trying to decide on what's for dinner.
  • itsalaina
    itsalaina Posts: 27
    I only plan my meals a day in advance. Sometimes I change my mind, but most of the time I stick with it.

    This has been the best way for me so far.

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