I want to talk about meal planning today. It’s a few months into the new year, and I’m looking to make new habits around eating healthier. One common thread I see is people who are focused on their health. It doesn’t matter if they are just eating healthy in general or if they are following a specific diet, it is that they meal plan. Wahoo!
It makes sense that meal planning is a huge factor in creating a healthy lifestyle. When I don’t have a plan for dinner after a busy day, it’s so much easier to stop for fast food on the way home than it is to go to the grocery store. After all you have to think of something healthy to prepare, buy the ingredients, and then go home and cook. That in self just sounded tiring! Ha!
I’ve decided that this year, my healthy eating goals are going to start with meal planning. Going into Spring I’m going to really start focusing on fruits, vegetables and maybe even a shake.
How To Get Started With Meal Planning
I’m still in the research stages of this whole meal planning thing myself, so I am probably going to need to try a few different things until I find the system that is perfect for me. But it seems like there are three main ways to jump into meal planning.
Write Your Own Plan
This is definitely the cheapest option, because it’s all about your work! Mark off time on your calendar to sit down and plan out your meals for the week and then stick to your plan. That’s pretty simple, but at it’s most basic, this is exactly what meal planning is.
I’ve seen some pretty overwhelming meal plans on the internet. Some people have whole binders and plan out for a whole month at a time. If I decide to go this route, I think I will keep things much more simple, at least to start. I will work on gathering some recipes I know I enjoy and can make work even on busy days. Then I will plan out what meals I’m going to have every day for a week, and grocery shop for ALL of the ingredients over the weekend. I might try to prep some things ahead of time, but to start I think it would be good to just stick to the plan and make the dinner I’ve planned for each night.
Use A Meal Plan Service
A meal plan service helps you choose the meals you will eat for the upcoming week. What I like about this idea is it would help me mix it up and add variety into my meals, so I don’t end up making my same favorite chicken recipe four times a week. Meal planning services have a monthly or yearly charge. These charges vary, so it’s important to shop around and find the meal planning service that is going to be a good fit.
It seems like most of the meal planning services are organized around a theme. The Six O’Clock Scramble only includes 30-minute meals. The Fresh 20 has you buy 20 local ingredients and do a lot of prep up front before the week starts. Plate Joy starts with a personality quiz and customizes recommendations to your lifestyle. eMeals seems to be the most popular service I’ve seen, and they support many different diets as well as 20-minute meals, crock pot meals, and more. The thing that most intrigues me about them is instead of giving you a shopping list like the other sites do, you can have eMeals send your list directly to a grocery service, like Instacart, so your ingredients are delivered to your door. This feels like a great way to maximize on the time-saving aspect of meal planning.
Get A Meal Subscription Service
You’ve probably seen ads for meal subscription services on Facebook or Instagram – I know I have! The difference between these services and a planning service like eMeals, is that they send all of the ingredients to you in exact portion sizes.
I’m looking at Blue Apron, Home Chef, and Plated. These subscription services are a big jump in price from the planning services. I am interested in the idea of the ingredients coming to my house ready to go, though. I think it might be interesting to use these occasionally to try new recipes that I can add into future meal planning, but I don’t think I would rely on them as my sole source of meal planning.
Now that you know where I am with my meal planning research, I’ll share some updates later in the year to let you know what works for me and what doesn’t.
If you are a meal planner, I’d love to hear your advice for getting started! Leave a comment with a tip or the link to one of your favorite recipes.
XOXO,
BLENDstyles