Meal Planning!
I am writing this from my Whole30 perspective for this
month, but the concept is absolutely something that can be used without W30 and
I use a looser version of this plan in every day life.
(For one W30’er, one
spouse who will W30 dinners, and one toddler who will still eat what we put in
front of her)
Step 1: What does
your week look like?
At most, you’ll have 3 meals per day to plan. But do you
have any:
·
Early Appointments so you need to prep a
grab-n-go meal?
·
Late meetings so you need to prep extra “lunch”
portions?
·
Events so you need to buy/pack extra snacks?
The first thing I do for meal planning is look at my week. I
identify anything that would prevent/limit the standard kitchen or leftovers
stance.
Step 2: The
Meals! What looks good?
I don’t plan every day (Monday = Meatloaf, Tuesday = Taco
salad, etc) because in general that just doesn’t work for me. I need some
flexibility.
For Week 1, I need 6 dinners, 7 lunches, 4 breakfasts and 3
grab-n-go style breakfasts.
I usually start with dinners and I try to have a mix of
prepped ahead, one pan meals, and a little more involved. Thanks to my W30
cookbooks and my past experience (and a little Pinterest) I came up with the
following (in no particular order):
1.
Butternut Squash Soup with Poached Salmon (new recipe for us!)
2.
Sausage and Kale Soup (I have used nutpods in this, but unsweetened almond milk would also work)
5.
Taco Salad
6.
Cod with a citrus/avocado salad
I also try to pick dishes that can reused similar
ingredients.
Once I have the meals picked, I figure out what will make
good leftovers for lunches.
Both soups will make at least one extra serving and each of
the sheet pan meals will make one extra serving. So that’s 4 lunches. For the
remaining lunches, I will have the same thing: lettuce wrapped turkey burgers
with mayo and pickles.
Breakfasts are harder for me, but I plan the following:
·
Breakfast bowl:
o
Mixed veggie roast
o
Fresh sautéed zucchini or spinach (pick one)
o
Egg or sausage (pick one)
·
Monkey bowl with a side of bacon
Step 3: The Prep
Once I have the meals for the week, I look at all the meals
and figure out what I can and have to prep ahead. I commute at least 45 minutes
each way so dinner has to be fast and easy. That only happens if I can dedicate
part of Sunday to meal prep. My meal prep day has been the defining success or
failure of my rounds.
For this week, I figured I can make the following on Sunday
to simplify:
·
Chicken Broth
·
Butternut Squash Soup
·
Sausage and Kale Soup
·
Grill the turkey burgers
·
Roast veggies for breakfast (sweet potatoes, Yukon
potatoes, carrots, onions, beets)
·
Chop veggies for salads
The broth I can set up in the slow cooker in the morning (10
minutes of effort?). Each of the soups will take probably an hour. Cutting
veggies for roasting and salads, maybe 30 minutes. The mayo takes longer to
clean than to make. But it’s still a big part of my day. Hubs can run errands
or have some one-on-one time with our toddler.
The meal planning itself is an evolving process. If
something works really well, I will keep it in rotation (if these soups are
great, I’ll make one Week 2 and another Week 3). And with Week 1, I keep it
simple on purpose. Lots of repeats and lots of prep ahead because I need the
successful moment to keep me through Week 2 (which is where I have flunked
out). I keep notes on what sounds good during the week, and I use sticky notes
in my compliant cookbooks. Most of my planning is on paper and I have a grocery
app to use in the store.
A note about Pinterest. For starters, I love Pinterest. I
have found some wonderful Paleo bloggers on the site who post compliant meals
or recipes that can be easily modified to be W30 compliant. But. Many recipes
are marked Paleo or Whole 30 but are obviously not compliant. Be cautious and
be knowledgeable. Just because someone else has called Paleo Pancakes “Whole 30
compliant” doesn’t mean that you don’t know the rules enough to know that it’s
super SWYPO and off limits. Or people who, through good intentions, aren’t even
aware of what Whole 30 really is and will post something with dairy or honey or
quinoa. Don’t assume that the bloggers know better. You do.
I use Pinterest a lot – for parenting ideas, funnies, and
recipes. I have a bunch of boards, and one just for Whole 30. Do you know about
private boards? Well I have a private weekly board. And when I am going through
W30 pins that I already have, I will simply pin again to my private board for
the week. Then all my recipes are in one place, I don’t have to remember or
search. Then at the end of the week, I just delete and start fresh.