One of the most common challenges to maintaining a healthful diet, is time. Grabbing food on-the-go is just so much more conducive to today’s fast-paced lifestyle. The key to sustaining a healthy food lifestyle is planning ahead. Creating a meal plan requires a little time up front to plan things out, but this practice will save you both time and money in the long run! The hardest part is making the decision to become a little more organized on the front end!

What are the main benefits of meal planning? Meal planning removes the stress of guesswork, reduces the shopping load, and even protects your food budget.

5 Simple Tips to Get You Started!

1. Make a list of meals you like to make on a regular basis. Keep this list posted on the fridge, near your desk, or wherever you do your planning work. Perhaps separate your list into several categories like “Main Dishes”, “Lunches”, “Side Dishes” “Breakfast”, “Snacks”, etc.
2. Choose the meals and snacks you plan to eat for the next week or two and then assign a day and meal for each one. Busier days are great days for simple meals or crock pot meals, so I always like to incorporate as many simple meals as possible.
3. Extrapolate the list of ingredients from your meals.
4. Have 1 or 2 food prep days. One way to reduce the time it takes to put meals together is to do much of the legwork ahead of time. Simply pick a “down day”, like Saturday or Sunday afternoon and pre-prep parts of your meals. Here are a few ideas:
   • Brown the ground meat you’re going to use throughout the week (taco meat for salads or tacos, sloppy joes, etc.)
   • Pre-mix meatloaf or meatball meat
   • Chop veggies for snacking or cooking…many can be stored in water, like potatoes, celery, or carrots
   • Make a few healthy sweets or snacks to have on hand for munchie-moments or cravings
5. Keep a list on the fridge to keep track of things you run out of in between shopping trips. If I don’t write things down right away I’m likely to forget to add them into my main shopping list.

There are so many other items to incorporate into successful meal planning, but simple usually works best. The more complicated the process, the less likely you are to stick to it. That being said, use these tips as a guideline and personalize or tweek them however best suits your needs. Happy planning!