Meal planning

Meal Plans.   If you haven’t figured it out yet, it (meal planning) is the key to this whole “Healthy Lifestyle. Fail to plan…plan to fail, right?

But this sounds so…industrial…like from a school cafeteria!  Sounds like work – like actually having to put a pen to paper:  work.  And it is, so suck it up and be successful.  Or, as Ed would say:  “be that fly that beats your head against the glass window pane over and over and over again…until you die”.  You get nowhere doing the same thing that just didn’t really work, right?  Or think of it like CrossFit compared to what you used to do – what you used to do was “s0-s0” for fitness, but now… you get the picture.  You get up at 4:30am  just to check the blog, and then stress all day about the WOD, but when it’s done and over – SWEET!  Feel amazing, accomplished and the results come quickly.

Well, it’s the same thing about planning your diet out.  Know what you have on hand.  Make a plan for the entire week – breakfasts, lunches, dinners and “shoot, I’m starving…need a snack” snacks.  Write it up, shop it, prep and pre-cook it if necessary, label it, freeze some and refrigerate some – but do it.   No excuses….and if you don’t do it, then you can’t complain that your diet’s off because you weren’t prepared and had to drive through [enter fast-food restaurant here].

And don’t worry…I’ve been around the people who don’t work or don’t have kids, jobs, school…(a busy life, in other words) who have all the time in the world to shop, plan, research recipes, source specialty foods…and for 80% of the box, that’s not us.  We have busy personal, professional and social lives. We want to eat out, spend time with friends and play versus spend hours and hours every day “prepping”. I get it!  And while planning and prepping takes time,  it’s once a week that you need to plan and prep, so that the other 6.5 days you’re “ready”.  And you’ll find ways to cut time – we all do – without sacrificing quality.

The biggest obstacle in this other than time?  Ideas.  Creativity.  Boredom.  I’ve been there…soooo sick of tuna from a can or chicken breasts – but they’re easy, so we get in ruts.

Well, below are a few places you can go for ideas, just think about how to recycle one meal into the next – for example roasted chicken breasts in tomato and basil sauce on Monday turns into a Frittata topped with the chicken/tomato/basil for breakfast and leftovers of that chicken breast torn up over a salad for lunch.  Think about s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g that meal out!

Cooking magazines.  You don’t have to look for Paleo websites, blogs, and cookbooks for ideas.  Yep, your good old Martha Stewart, Cooks Illustrated, Cooking, Food and Wine, Gourmet, etc. ….all have recipes that are naturally and originally Paleo-ish. And paper slows you down and gets you off “screen time”.

Or..screen time: Pinterest, apps (so many…meal prep apps for free), or google “recipes that use [enter your main ingredient here].

Cookbooks…remember those? LOL. We have several in RebelHealth you can borrow…just bring them back promptly. I saw someone scanning them the other day and actually just snapping pictures with their phone!

Search for meal plans…these places have “the full plan”…shopping list, prep….

• Paleo Table has good ones –  (CLICK HERE TO GO THERE) It’s complete with a SHOPPING LIST!  Use a little creativity and you’ll be able to stretch these five dinners into breakfasts and/or lunches, and you’re done. Looks tasty!
• Paleo Diet Lifestyle has a 14 DAY PALEO MEAL PLAN.  Very simple, but when you’re out of ideas, let someone else think for you!
• Paleo Plan.  Although this is a subscription service, they offer a SAMPLE PLAN with linked recipes.  Pretty nice!
• Just Google “Paleo Meal Plans and you’ll get unlimited options!

Convert your favorite recipes.  It’s really not that hard!  For example, Ed’s favorite breakfasts:   “eggs, rice and platanos”.   The man loves meatballs and pasta…again, meatballs with a hearty bolognese sauce poured over spaghetti squash with a side of fresh romaine, sliced tomatoes, topped with basil, pepper and balsamic vinegar.  Perfect Italian dinner!  It’s not that hard – look at it as a challenge versus an obstacle!

Get creative!  It’s not hard, but it’s an investment you make to have a clean, well planned out diet. The days I’m the worst with my diet are the ones not planned.