P-BurgKay

That only meal planning do is there is lot of meals that I use ground beef. I will brown several pounds at a time with onion, and divide it and freeze it into meal size portions. Then I can take out a package and add to the what ever I am making to make my hot dish. It save so much time for me. Very seldom does it take more than half an hour to have a meal on the table. I also will bake a dozen potatoes at a time and can reheat them in the microwave or fry them or hash brown them. Makes meal prep a whole lot easier.

IceLeopard

I think y'all are talking about something different than tropit meant. Y'all are talking about a weekly menu. If I'm understanding Tropit correctly, she means one of those systems where they send you the week's ingredients all packaged up with recipes for the week. So you don't have to shop or make any decisions or count your calories because it's already been done for you. In theory, you don't have any other food in the house to encourage you to break your diet.

I've thought about it but DH is an incredibly picky eater who wants meat and potatoes every night. If his mother never served it to him as a kid, or if his mother made it and ruined it, he "just knows" that he doesn't like it, so he won't even try it. It took me 10 years to get him to try rice!

Stitchnripper

Someone gave us some Blue Apron meals. They require a lot of “knife skills” and required a skillet. Tastes good but too much work. I don’t mind going to a grocery store. Never did so Covid has put
crimp in that for me

tranum

Our grandson & wife have a system. Both drive 20 miles to work & they live in the country 8 miles from town. They plan a week in advance on a chalkboard & she grocery shops just on Friday on her way home from work while he picks up the baby. On Monday, he takes his lunch for the whole week so it’s there. Makes life much simpler.

charley26

There is no way that I would do this.

Iceblossom

We have all sorts of meal plans of the home delivery sort in this area for all sorts of reasons from health/medical to religion to simple convenience. You can have foods completely fixed and portioned for you. You can have meal kits that you cook yourself to various degrees from a little bit of work to a lot. You can pick what you want, or you can get what they give you.

The one couple that I know that loves their plan is "dinks" dual income/no kids. They are active/recently retired and like to cook but they don't like to shop, and they don't necessarily want to pick what they are having. I think they get about 5 meals per week, for them it is also cheaper than going out. I've had benefit of a package or two when they've had emergencies come up and had to go out of town.

I had another friend who thought this would be the answer to her prayers, she always claimed she didn't have time to shop or cook or be healthy. But it turned out she didn't eat the healthy foods either even when they were prepared in advance and there...

For those of us who have to be serious about changing the way we eat, I think they can be very helpful. They show you portion sizes and give you options maybe you wouldn't have tried yourself. As always, our attitudes are probably the biggest thing. That and our willingness to rid the house of the things we shouldn't have and/or our willingness to eat things maybe we aren't so excited about.

I've lost 100 pounds and kept most of that off for close to ten years now. I still struggle with my eating choices every day. My hubby has lost 200 pounds and kept it off for a year now and loves eating keto. His diet and choices are not a struggle for him now, but he was very resistant to any changes in his diet when I started (10 years ago) and was always what I considered pretty fussy. Or at least, no willingness to try new things. I got very sick a couple of years ago, my blood sugar was out of control (400 range), my hubby was facing 400 pounds, and we had to change what we were doing or we were going to die. It was that serious. It's been sooooo much easier on me now that he is buying in to the eating program.

Jo Belmont

I found that working in reverse works for me. I've tried planning ahead and keeping a good main-ingredient inventory on hand. However, what does work for me is to keep track of what we have HAD in my calendar. That daily entry now (the next day) has become quite routine and gives me a retro record of the variety of meals my family likes.

I do visit recipe sites and introduce new things several times a month. When I need some inspiration, I simply examine where we've been and make something that we haven't had for a while. Works pretty well for us.

tropit

Thanks for the clarification...I didn't necessarily mean a meal delivery service, but yeah, we can talk about that too. I was just asking if anyone plans their meals in advance for the week in order to stay on a restricted diet, or budget, or just for convenience.

~ C

tropit

Personally, I think that meal planning is great if you want to change your diet. It helps you to get through those tough spots during the week and it can help save money too. I do it a lot of times, but not always. It's like I'm trying to create a habit to create a habit. Sometimes, it's just too much.

~ C

aashley333

I plan for the day, maybe the next day if more thawing is involved. I just pull from the deep freezer in the morning for lunch and dinner that day. We are on a low carb diet (lost over 30 pounds so far), so I choose a protein and a vegetable for lunch and repeat for dinner except serve 2 vegetables. This helps us stay on diet, plus I don't like leftovers. (As a retired teacher, leftovers were my lunches for 26 years!)

DH is a hunter, and thank goodness, our freezer was packed with Axis deer before the pandemic hit. Mostly hamburger (tastes like reg. beef), breakfast sausage (better than Owen's), and link sausage (like Polish sausage). We live on the coast, so lots of seafood, also. When we have business in Brownsville, TX, we stock up at the Shrimp Outlet! They sell loose frozen shrimp in 5 pound bags. (they ship-message me if you want info).