How Meal Planning is Your Secret Weapon to a Healthier and Happier You

How Meal Planning Simplifies Your Life

Come on, admit it, how often do you get home from work, open the fridge, look at the few limp vegetables you bought days before, and can’t think about what to put together to make a meal?

And then you order a takeaway.

I mean, at the end of the working day, who wants to think about what to cook? It’s too easy to call for a pizza.

And if you have got the energy to shop, you wander around a supermarket not knowing what you want, so you throw a ready meal into your trolley.

And promise yourself that you’ll start a healthy diet tomorrow.

But you won’t start if you don’t plan to.

Plan like a Boss

Do you consider yourself a planner?

Or do you like to think about yourself as spontaneous, more of a free spirit?

And we’ve all heard that you have to plan to be spontaneous.

Think about it, when you go on holiday, do you rock up at the airport and pick a destination, or do you plan your trip?

If you’re driving across the country, do you set off in the approximate direction or follow a map?

You probably plan more than you imagine, so why resist planning meals?

You might say that you don’t want to follow a plan.

I’ve heard this time and time again from weight loss clients. The same clients have spent years following a diet plan that someone else has written full of food they don’t like.

Or you don’t want to plan what to eat; you want to see what you fancy later.

But by the time you leave work, all you fancy is something quick and instant, and the most cooking you can face is throwing a tin of pasta sauce full of sugar and salt in a pan with spaghetti.

Why Meal Planning is the Ultimate Act of Self-Care

You know one of the best things you can do for your body is to eat well, and the easiest way to eat well is to plan what you will eat.

This is the only way that you can truly choose your food.

You might think that you always choose your food; after all, it doesn’t jump into your mouth on its own. But then, how many times have you eaten something and then asked yourself why?

When you plan your meals, you’re more likely to prepare meals using fresh ingredients.

This cuts down on processed food, and because you’re eating ‘real’ food, it will also cut down on sugar-laden snacks because your body is getting the vitamins and nutrients it needs, and you won’t crave snacks because you’re hungry.

You know what goes into and with each meal.

This cuts down on buying lots of fresh vegetables at the weekend and throwing them out at the end of the week because they’re past their best.

It also eliminates the guilt of looking at the vegetables whenever you open the fridge.

When you plan your meals for the week ahead, you can see instantly if you have enough variety in your daily diet. If you see that, for most of the week, you’re choosing meals that don’t have enough vegetables; you can make the change.

Microbes are a buzzword now, and these teeny tiny organisms are responsible for a healthy body and immune system, but you need a varied diet to keep the little suckers happy.

And we also need a range of vitamins, amino acids, minerals, and proteins, and when you plan your meal, you can see where you might fall short.

You don’t need a calculator and a complicated science diploma; I’m just talking about noticing that you’re having pasta five nights of the week and swapping some of those for a vegetable dish or whatever else you want.

When you meal plan, you’ll choose the food you eat. No one wants to put a meal on a list they aren’t keen on, so you’ll always have the food you want.

And there’s no point adding complicated meals to your meal plan when you know you’re unlikely to have the time or effort to put it together.

Save making new dishes or food that takes longer for the weekend or a day off when you have more time to experiment.

Plan Your Way to Better Eating Habits

Planning your meals is no different from buying an expensive meal kit subscription. This is the same model as with a company, you choose your meals for the week, which is the same as planning, and they provide everything you need for these meals.

The only difference is that you don’t have to shop for the ingredients, but the downside is that you can’t guarantee how fresh the produce is, and it’s much more costly.

And all you need to do is write a list of at least ten meals.

Don’t sit down and try to think of 10 meals right now because you’ll be lucky to come up with three or four, and you’ll give up. But when a meal you like comes to mind, write it down and then when you shop, choose at least six meals from the list and shop for everything you’ll need including spices and sides.

When you know what you’ll cook later, you don’t have to think about it again. You don’t have to keep wondering what to do; you know that when you get home, you only have to spend a few minutes putting the meal together.

I love knowing that I have everything I need to throw a meal together.

I don’t have to think about food, and meal times become less of a chore. I’m all in favour of meals taking no longer than 20 minutes from start to finish, and if I want a meal that involves marinating, I throw those bits together while I make my breakfast.

I often start a meal as my coffee brews and finish it off that evening.

And you’ll save money because you’re not paying over the odds for fast food and takeaways, you’re not wasting food you don’t know what to do with, and, physically, you’ll save on medical bills as you’ll be healthier.

Your body will thank you.