If you struggle with healthy eating or just want to improve in this area a little, then the Healthy Eating Meal Planning Challenge is for you.
If I don’t plan healthy meals and healthy snacks then I can pretty much guarantee a good amount of my meals will fall short of healthy. I’ll wait until I’m actually really hungry and then grab anything that’s easy.
I’ve created a printable that you can download from my Happy Weight – Healthier Living Subscriber Zone (it’s in the free area).
- A 2-week planner which includes 3 meals and snacks
- Space to record your veg/fruit intake daily
- An area to record new meals to try
- And meals to make in bulk (eat 1 now and save 1 or more for later)
- Shopping list
Please note that I’m not a health or weight loss expert. This is something I’m doing for myself and I’m sharing it to see if you find it helpful too.
Below I want to share tips for making the most of your 2-week healthy eating meal planning challenge and planner.
Use it as a Healthy Habits starting point
If you really want to make Healthy Eating Meal Planning a healthy habit for life. I strongly encourage you to use this challenge as a starting point for a lifelong healthy habit.
Why 2-Weeks?
I’ve been meal planning for a long time and I’ve found that a 2-week meal plan works really well.
I used to eat pretty much the same meals week in, and week out. Now I’ve increased the variety more and I find that I can more or less repeat the plan every 2 weeks whilst still getting a good mix of meals.
This means that you can do a quick check, leave in your
Include Everything
In the meal planner, I’ve included space for 3 meals and snacks.
I know that I need snacks between meals. Some days I eat lunch at 12 pm and I don’t eat my evening meal until after 7 pm. I know that for me, that’s way too long not to eat anything. So it’s important for me to plan healthy snacks too.
Track your fruit and veg intake daily
I’ve included space each day to track your fruit and veg intake. I recommend that you get 5 or more portions a day made up of a mix of vegetables and fruit.
Cook one Save one (or more)
This is a huge time saver and it just means you’ve always got healthy options in the freezer for those days when you know you won’t have time (or don’t want) to cook a healthy meal from scratch.
A few of my favourite dishes to cook and save are – Shepherd’s pie or Shepherdless pie (my meat-free version of Shepherd’s pie), curry, stews, and lasagne.
I tend to make a big dish to eat that night, then have enough leftovers for lunch the next day. At the same time, I also cook 2 smaller dishes of the same meal, let them cool and freeze them for a later day.
Try something new
I encourage you to try at least 1 new meal each week. Some meals will not be a great success, at least that’s the case in my home but some will turn into firm favourites.
Check your calendar each week
Keep a check on the calendar especially when you’re first writing up your meal plan. Things to note are…
- Meals out
- When you have more people or fewer people to feed
- When you’ll have time to spend in the kitchen
- When you need a super quick meal
You may need to adjust your plan as things change.
Be flexible
Some people can plan their meals for a month and completely stick to it no matter what. I’m not one of those people.
Some days, my life plans change, some days I just don’t fancy what I’ve planned to eat and some days I eat more/less than others, maybe I’ve planned a big hearty meal but on the day I really only feel like a light meal.
Give yourself permission to switch things around.
TIP: The planner lists days 1 to seven rather than Monday, Tuesday… This way you can mix and match your days. Choose the day you want to use the night before (just in case you need to take anything out of the freezer) and cross the days off as you go through the week.
Just make sure to use up food that won’t last very long early in the week.
I tend to find that over the course of a week, every meal fits in at some stage.
A couple of things to think about to avoid wasting food – Use fresh produce first. If you don’t think that you’ll be able to use it in time, pop it in the freezer. And if you’re taking things out of the freezer to eat the next day, you will need to eat them as planned or very soon afterwards.
Shopping list
Before I even start planning my meals, I shop my cupboards, fridge, and freezer to see what I’ve already got and especially what needs to be used up soon.
I then plan my meals around those ingredients and add anything I need to the shopping list.
If you have a recipe that calls for an ingredient with a short shelf life, plan in more meals that use that ingredient.
Fruit and Veg
I have a rough idea of the fruit and veg I will need for the week/weeks but for most meals, I don’t add specific side veg or the fruit I want to snack on.
If a recipe requires a specific fruit or veg, I buy that and then as I’m a creature of habit, I tend to buy the same things each shopping day.
For me, I always have carrots, onions, peas, broccoli, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes, cucumber, apples, bananas, tangerines and frozen pineapple and berries.
I like to have a mix of fresh and frozen fruit and veg so that I always have plenty to get my 5 a day in.
Snacks and desserts
Again, I’m very flexible with snacks and desserts. I don’t have desserts every day but I do like to know I have some healthy options available if I do feel I really want something.
Often for me, that will be something like cooked fruit and a dollop of Greek yoghurt or soy yoghurt with a drizzle of honey.
I make up a mix of nuts and dried fruit as and when I need it in a big tub. I have a small bowl that is meant to be for a dip. It’s the perfect size for a fruit and nut snack, I’ll have fruit and veggie sticks, and I also buy or make special snacks such as oat bars, and protein balls… I tend to add them all to my planner and then just cross them out as I use them up.
Ready? Let’s get to it – Healthy Eating Meal Planning
I want to give you one final word of advice before you get stuck into the healthy eating meal planning challenge – Go easy on yourself.
If this is the first time you’ve tried meal planning, you’ll probably not stick to it 100%. I rarely do and that’s fine.
But what I want you to keep in mind is that quote I shared earlier. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You’ve planned your healthy meals and your healthy snacks.
Even if you only stick to the plan 50% of the time over the next 2 weeks, you will have made a good start on your healthy eating habits. Then repeat it and stick to the plan a bit more.
What will happen is that you’ll have shopped for healthy meals and you’ll always have healthy options available.
Grab your MEAL PLANNER and have fun.
Please pin and share this post, it really helps me out and will hopefully lead to more and more people building healthy eating habits.
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