At this time of year so many people make New Year’s Resolutions to get healthy by eating better and in my experience this lends to becoming more organized too! There are several ways to go about this but I’ll share the opposite ends of the spectrum for your “food for thought”.

You can go all out and track calories and macros, prep every single meal, divide them into serving sizes and enter all of the information into your tracking system for the whole week all at one time. Of course, this end of the spectrum would be for someone who is interested in achieving specific health goals related to weight, body fat and nutrients. This person would also typically have a big chunk of time at some point during the week to do all of the work at once. If you choose to go this route, you’ll need to look at your schedule to determine what types of meals you should prepare based on when and where you’ll be eating them. Do you need lots of cold meals because you won’t have access to a microwave? Do you need lots of snacks because you’ll be out of the house or office for extended periods of time? Needing to answer these types of questions will help you better organize your calendar to allow you to stick to your eating plan.

Pros-

·       Know exactly what you’re feeding your body

·       Control your caloric deficit or surplus and macronutrients

·       Save time by making decisions, shopping, prepping, cooking, doing dishes, packing and tracking once per week

·       Save money by choosing ingredients and meals that fit your budget

Cons-

·       Spend a lot of time and energy at once

·       Difficult to adjust to changes in schedule (example – invited to a last minute dinner party)

·       Become disinterested in the meals you planned and prepped days ago

I have practiced this method in the past. Did I get lean? Yes! Did I avoid social situations? Yes! Will I do it again? Partly! Currently, I meal prep pretty strictly for my “work week” and wing it on the weekends (sorry to my powerlifting coach if you ever read this). This seems to be very popular in society! Would it work for you!?

On Sundays my husband and I sit down and take stock of perishable items in our kitchen. We first decide on recipes that will use up those foods and then come up with other meals based on how many more we need for the work week. This always includes a vegetable filled egg bake for 4 days plus 4 lunches and 4 dinners for each of us. Once we write all of the needed ingredients on a grocery shopping list we head out to Costco and Ingles together. We split up the list, grab everything we need and head home to chop the vegetables and meat needed for all of the meals before throwing recipes together and cooking them as applicable. Once the foods are cooled, we separate them out into serving sizes and create the recipes in My Fitness Pal to track them throughout the week. Each evening we set aside the meals we want to take with us for the next day and weigh out and pack each of our snacks too. I even go a step further and fill all of my Soda Stream bottles so I’m ready to get all of my water in the next day. Before we head out in the morning, we load everything into our own coolers and make sure that we have utensils to eat all of the foods we’ve already prepped, packed and tracked.    

When it comes to the weekend, we’re usually craving something different than we’ve eaten during the week, needing a drink and wanting to get together with family and friends but we do try to stay somewhat on track with our caloric intake. If nothing else, I plan which 2 servings of fruit I’ll have each day and make a point to get at least 1 of my 3-5 servings of vegetables in at breakfast. I also have a personal rule to get 99 ounces of water down before I have an alcoholic drink. Other than that, I’m still partial to healthier foods in smaller portions but love to treat myself to a dessert and savor my food when I have the time to sit down and enjoy it.  

Does this seem like the right kind of balance for you? What kinds of “rules” would you set for yourself on your “off” days to keep you motivated to easily transition back to your “planned” days?

The other end of the meal planning spectrum would be to simply plan out how many meals you’re going to utilize a meal replacement option, cook, takeout or eat at a restaurant based on your schedule for the week. Someone interested in this may simply want to reduce the number of takeout meals they consume. Do you know that you’re going to be too busy on Wednesday night to cook something so you’re definitely going to get takeout then? Do you know that it’s going to snow Friday so you definitely want to plan to cook all of your own meals that day? Knowing specifically when you’re going to use up some of your allotted meal types still gives you a lot of flexibility but does help you achieve your goal by making you plug those meals into your calendar ahead of time.  

Pros-

·       Flexibility when schedule changes unexpectedly

·       Easier to maintain over the long run

·       Helps achieve broader goals

Cons-

·       Spend time planning, shopping, prepping, cooking and dishwashing daily

·       Spend more money by making hastier decisions

• Easier to get off track with less structure