Meal planning/prepping

I'm busy! I know everyone says they are busy and if that's the case.... You should all meal prep and plan! ;-) 

I meal plan because since starting this journey I knew that I needed to have a plan in place that I could hold myself accountable for. I meal prep because I need to make it as easy as possible for me to succeed, if that means taking 30-45 minutes out of my day sunday to prepare for the entire week, I will do it! 

I have a spiral notebook that I write all of my meal plans into. Mainly so that I can keep tabs on what we're eating, but also I have a spot that I can reference if there was a meal that we liked a lot. 

The Process :

Before you think that this is in code (well it kind of is...) MS - Morning Snack, L - Lunch, AS - Afternoon Snack and D - Dinner.  C.C is Cottage Cheese, Cuc - Cucumber, Tom - Tomato, Car - Carrots, Cel - Celery. These are items that work really well for a person on the go. I need items that I can prep on sunday and will be just as delish on Saturday afternoon. 

On Saturday I sit down (now with my hubby since he's joined the "wagon") and we plan out all of next weeks meals.  We try to bring in one new recipe every week to keep some variety in our dinners. Breakfast is taken care of because of the Powell Perfect Protien shakes we have but we plan out all of the others. (I will be loading up our meal plans shortly) then once I have my plan in place I start my grocery list. 

I create a two column list, One side is costco/SAMs and the other side is for the grocery store.  I buy as much as I can that makes sense in bulk. So my proteins, shelf stable almond milk and usually vegetables come from costco/SAMs club.Then my fruit and carbs/other assorted items that I don't need a massive quantity of comes from the grocery store.  It's always fun to go grocery shopping to see just how little our final bills are. 

I divide our meats into servings and vacuseal them to put into the freezer (except for any that I'll be using for the week) 

Sunday evening is MEAL PREP TIME!!! 

I prep out all of my snacks and lunches for the week putting them into individual serving sizes and place them into a labeled brown paper sack that I can just grab in the morning and go. For me if I didn't meal prep and have everything ready, It would've been so easy to not follow my program. 

I think that is meal prep and planning in a nut shell. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. 

Next posts will be most of my meal plans and then some of the recipes that I have found we love!