I know that meal planning is kind of nerdy, but it’s something that I really enjoy. I also think it’s a useful life skill that everyone should learn how to do. So today I’m going to cover some important aspects of meal planning for beginners. To keep this post a reasonable length, I’ve decided to split it in two. For today’s post, I’m going to cover the what, when, and where parts of meal planning. In my next post, I’ll get into the more lengthy how.
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What’s a meal plan?
Before getting into the particulars of meal planning, it would probably be helpful to define what a meal plan is. Simply put, a meal plan is like a blueprint of what you’re going to eat over a given period of time. This can vary from a detailed plan where you decide on every meal and snack ahead of time, to a more casual plan where you just write down what you’re going to have for a single meal, like dinner. The level of detail depends on your individual needs and what you hope to get out of the meal plan.
What do you need to consider when meal planning for beginners?
In order to meal plan successfully, you need to think about several things, including:
- What meals do you want or need to plan?
- When is the best time for you to meal plan?
- Where is the best place for you to meal plan?
- How do you go about meal planning?
Once you’ve got answers to these questions, you will be well on your way to establishing a meal planning habit.
What meals do you need to plan?
As mentioned above, one important aspect of meal planning for beginners is deciding which meals to plan. As will all things in nutrition, it really depends on your particular situation. As a general rule, if a lack of planning is causing you to make poor choices, feel stressed, or increase your intake of less healthy foods at a particular time of the day, then it would be helpful to plan that meal or snack.
For instance, if you struggle to eat breakfast, I recommend planning that meal, as that will increase the likelihood of your actually eating it. If you never know what to eat for lunch and end up making poor choices or skipping it, you might want to plan that one. If dinner seems to land upon you out of nowhere every night, and you find yourself scrambling to find something to eat, then by all means, plan dinner. This is true of snacks as well.
With that being said, I am also a very big believer in starting small when creating new behaviors and habits. Meal planning for beginners is no exception. If you are currently not meal planning at all, then pick just one meal to start with. That way, you are more likely to succeed and stick with it. It is also much less cumbersome to choose one meal in advance than to choose an entire day’s worth.
What we do at my house
In our house, I always plan dinner. I don’t bother planning breakfast or lunch, because I don’t feel like I need to. For breakfast, we usually eat some variation of the same thing each day (like cereal or oatmeal with milk and a fruit). I just make sure to add cereal and oatmeal to the grocery list when we are running low. End of planning for that.
For lunch, one of two things happens. In the first scenario, I warm up leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. In the second scenario, I pull something together from the staples that I always keep in the house. Some examples of this would be: a grilled cheese sandwich with carrot sticks and a piece of fruit; a bean and cheese burrito with applesauce; or a salad with some sort of green (arugula or spinach usually), miscellaneous veggies, and seeds on top. I don’t feel I need to plan lunch either.
As for dinner, well, that is a different story. In spite of being aware that, yes, indeed, we do eat dinner every single night, it catches me by surprise if I don’t plan ahead. I also live with several different types of eaters: I prefer vegetarian, my husband loves meat, my ten-year-old is somewhat particular, and my five-year-old is just plain picky. It is much more challenging for me to throw together a dinner that will make everyone happy if I don’t think about it in advance. The benefits of planning dinners ahead of time far outweigh the cost, in my house at least.
When should you meal plan?
Another important consideration of meal planning for beginners is deciding when to actually do it. I suggest you choose to meal plan at the same time of the week or month. That’s because we are more likely to keep up on habits that are predictable. According to James Clear in his book Atomic Habits, “people who make a specific plan for when and where they will perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.”(1)
I also recommend meal planning when you are not hungry. Looking through recipes online or perusing cookbooks is guaranteed to get me reaching for a snack if my stomach is empty. I imagine it would have a similar effect on others, especially late at night. So establish your meal planning habit at a time of day when your stomach won’t be growling.
Where should you meal plan?
When you’re ready to start meal planning, I recommend finding a comfortable place where you can work uninterrupted. Sometimes I turn on music or drink a cup of tea too, just to make it a more fun experience. If you’ve got a lot of cookbooks and you want to use them for inspiration, find a location where they are easily accessible. You may also want to do your planning close to the kitchen, in case you need to get up to check to see if you have a particular ingredient already in the house.
With that being said, we are living in a time when meal planning can be done anywhere. This is especially true if your recipes and/or grocery list are housed online. In that case, all you need is your device of choice, and you can meal plan from anywhere with internet connectivity. (I have been using Plan to Eat for digital meal planning since 2015, and it has greatly simplified my planning, cooking, and shopping.)
Although I’m not a huge fan of being on screens when we are out and about, I am guilty of meal planning from my smart phone while at the playground with my sons. (When you’ve got small children, it can be hard to find a quiet moment.) Sometimes you just have to work with whatever time you’ve got available.
How should you meal plan? The next step of meal planning for beginners
There are so many ways to meal plan, and I think it’s important to find a system that works for you. Stay tuned, as I’ll be discussing this topic in another post.
Want a free 3 Day meal planning printable? Click the link below!
References
- Clear, J. (2018) Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. S.I.: Penguin Publishing Group.
- Featured image credit: Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
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