How to Meal Plan | The Best Tips

One of the most challenging factors for clients to live a healthier lifestyle is nutrition, which relates explicitly to meal planning, shopping, and cooking. 

When clients feel confident with these three parts of nutrition, they can catapult themselves towards a healthier lifestyle. Remember that about 60-70% of overall fitness is related to what we eat. Here is a quick game plan- simple, sweet, and short that you can immediately start to implement in your daily life. 

Meal Planning

Phase 1: It’s essential to start using a weekly meal planning chart.

Why? Planning and setting goals is one of the most crucial steps in creating a map for yourself to self-discovery and success regarding nutrition. 

• Check your schedule for potential pitfalls in the week. 
• Plan when you can cook dinner and how much food you’ll need from the grocery store for meal prepping. 
• Take the appropriate steps each day to make sure you’re on track. 

Phase 2: Plan Your Meals 

1. Starting with evening meals is essential since those are the most significant meals of the day with the potential for the most calories. 
2. Create a healthy, diverse plate for protein, carbohydrates, veggies, dairy, and fruit. Make sure that each of your days has all of these nutrients. 
3. You can vary your protein; for example, if you have chicken one day, try fish the next. Do the same with carbohydrates and veggies. Most people have the same consistent breakfast and snacks daily, so that’s one less thing to worry about for ourselves. 
4. Choose easy meals! There are websites you can go to determine how many calories you’ll need in a day. Once you know how many calories are needed, you plan your dinner, lunch, and breakfast with a few snacks throughout the day.
5. Keep it simple, and you can add more variety to your dishes over time.

Phase 3: Make mealtime a success • Write down your thaw, prep, and cook times. Adding this information to your meal planning chart is a huge time saver. 

1. The whole point of meal planning is saving you from resorting to fast food restaurants last minute or forgetting to eat throughout the day and then over-eating at night. 
2. Plan for leftovers. Prepare enough of a dish to eat multiple times during the week to save time and money; in other words, meal prepping is good!
3. Make mealtime a priority. Make time for family meals each week. Try to cook, eat, and clean up together. Even if you eat alone, mealtime is essential. 
4. Remember to be mindful when you eat and enjoy every bite if you can; try not to eat in front of the TV or the office. Focus on each bite and think about your five senses: How does the food smell? What does it look like visually? What is the texture? What is the taste? Is there a sound when you bite into it? Mindful eating helps us slow down, making our stomachs fuller faster!
5. Drink lots and lots of water! I can’t say this enough!

Last Tips

• Work on your meal plan. 

1. Don’t expect to get it right the first time.
2. Update when needed. 
3. Mix in variety every week.
4. Have fun with recipes you’ve never tried.  

Mental Health and Emotional Eating

1. As someone in the mental health field, science is uncovering just how much emotions are tied to what we eat. 
2. Eating is closely connected to our upbringing, family and cultural considerations and expectations, and habits that have been formed over the years. 
3. Seek the help of a professional if you feel like your eating habits are getting out of control; it’s never too late to ask for help!

In the next blog, we’ll discuss shopping for food!