Everything You Need To Know But Were Too Afraid To Ask About Making A Meal Plan
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Everything You Need To Know But Were Too Afraid To Ask About Making A Meal Plan

After years of over-analysis, maybe I actually have some semblance of an idea where to get started.

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Everything You Need To Know But Were Too Afraid To Ask About Making A Meal Plan
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I have a confession-- being in dietetics, people have asked me in the past to make them a meal plan. And I would love to! I need the practice, and clearly, I love both food and planning. It's a win-win. However, I thought to myself and realized - I don't know all that much about how to meal plan. That's why this is the basics-- I'm still working on it myself.

I'm on a meal plan; for the past four years, my groceries have consisted primarily of toiletries and snacks. Before that, my mom did most of the meal planning, and being in the world we're in today, a lot of food consists of quick things we can grab-- whether that's from a box or a drive-thru.

It's always preached that it's usually easier to control what's going into your food when you prep your own food, and it seems to be true. Real food changes tend to begin with really delicious food you make yourself.

Nutrition can very easily be delicious, and Pinterest is a great place to start. However, every time I have experimented with meal planning, half of the struggle is just coordinating the meals.

Therefore, to solve this problem, I started analyzing pre-existing meal plans. Because that's how I cope - I analyze. I found a couple that I looked at in depth; I looked at the shared ingredients, how yummy it looked, how many portions it created, etc.

Another problem a lot of the time is that some plan meals for a family of 7, and some need meals for one. With bigger families, you can fairly easily get the ingredients for just what you need for the meal, no waste. But for those of us rocking on our own, there are two main strategies I've seen these meal plans use or suggest.

Number one - Sharing ingredients between meals. The smallest number of eggs you can get is six. Sure, you want to add an egg to a sandwich one day, but what about the other five?

If you don't plan to use those eggs, they'll just sit there for weeks, until you really aren't sure you want to still eat those eggs. Also, fridge space is important, so…

Number two - Freeze or share with friends. Some recipes are just going to make more than one serving; there's no getting around it. So, you can place these into smaller containers and freeze, like a homemade frozen dinner, or if it's a snack (or a dinner party), you can share with friends.

One thing to check when looking at a meal plan online, if you're not sure, is approximately how many daily calories the plan is for. One that I was looking at had all the meals at 1500 kcal or less.

While this may be good for those trying to lose weight or for short, small, older, and/or bed-confined females, for most individuals just looking for healthy meal ideas to help them maintain their weight, just one serving at each meal may not be enough food, so the extras prepared may be useful to fill in the extra calories needed.

This is a difference of probably around 500 kcal for most individuals, so it's not a catastrophic gap, but don't be surprised if you're still hungry. Your body probably needs another serving of something from dinner, or another snack, etc. Maybe more, maybe less. Just follow your hunger cues.

However, how do you make your own meal plan? Do you really want to have the exact same week's worth of food at a time? I mean, if you do that's cool, but every person is different, and every week is different. One good place to start might be (my true love) Pinterest.

Maybe start a separate board from your food porn pins, with meals you could actually make every day. Look beyond all the casserole and Paula Deen recipes, for recipes with fruits, veggies, whole grains, omega 3s, lean protein - and the best part is, you can plan for one meal to make up for what another meal doesn't have.

Each meal doesn't have to have everything, but each meal should look yummy and balanced.

Next, try to group some meal ideas together with ingredients that can be used for multiple recipes. One recipe uses part of a frozen bag of corn? Find another that could use the other half. Grabbing an eggplant? You probably won't use the whole thing in one recipe, so find a stew or stir-fry or burrito to add some to throughout the week. You want to balance having what you need with minimizing waste from foods going bad.

A lot of plans use a breakfast-lunch-dinner-snack layout, which allows you to add a snack whenever you prefer, or to divide it up for your snacks. Depending on your lifestyle, you may want more snacks, or different calorie density or portion sizes at your meals.

For example, I personally may only snack once, if at all, during the day, and I prefer to eat my real meals (at sloth-speed, I know) for most of my calories. Therefore, in my meal plan, I need to make sure my meals are filling enough, and I don't have to worry about planning a whole bunch of snack options.

I know my estimated calorie needs, my lifestyle, my likes and dislikes, and so if I was making all of my own meals, I might plan several meals that include zucchini, oats, tortillas, beans, cheese, berries, spinach, and Greek yogurt. There's a lot you can do with these, and I can look through my pinned recipes to see about how many calories are in each one, and what other ingredients I need to plan to purchase.

I still don't have my system down pat, and maybe it's still a little complicated and/or incomplete. Perhaps it is, in part, any perfectionist tendencies in me, but I'm guessing when people first start food planning, it is a little complicated. Every person's lifestyle, budget, cooking competency, likes and dislikes, dietary restrictions, family members, and free time play a role in what kind of meal plan will work best for him or her.

That's part of the reason dietitians are here - there's a lot of factors that go into what we eat, and it's part of the services dietitians provide to do some of that work for you.

However, I want to eventually enable clients to feel confident in what they eat, freedom to increase competencies in planning food options, and to just become more comfortable preparing their own healthy options in the kitchen. We'll see how it goes from here. I haven't even graduated yet.

Until then, you'll find me on Pinterest pinning food recipes, over-analyzing things, and trying to get to know every detail of your life to create some sort of smashing meal plan. We'll see what happens. If you prefer having someone help you formulate some meal plans to start out, go for it.

If you're crafting your own -- it doesn't have to be perfect. There is no "perfect" meal plan, so take that load off your shoulders if it's something that stresses you out. We're all continually learning, so get out there and go make some delicious food!
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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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