Do You Use Weekly Meal Plans?
 

There are all kinds of meal plans online, from WW, to saving money sites, to grocery store sites, to special diet restrictions, etc. Do you use a weekly meal plan? If so, please give some details on how it works for you. Thanks.

~ C

I don't have a written plan, but when I cook a casserole or meat, I always make enough for another meal. If it's grilled chicken breasts, I use the leftovers in a hearty salad the next evening. Spaghetti sauce, BBQ pork butt, meat loaf. Always more than one feeding. Sometimes it waits for an extra day before it gets eaten. We may get take-out once a week, and I cook or warm up left overs the other days. But no, no meal plan.

Now we have more of an approved foods list and approved cooking methods than an actual meal plan.

When I was younger and even poorer I had definite plans, each week would be based on a different type of sauce or large piece of budget meat. So on Sunday I made whatever it was going to be, chicken stock, tomato sauce, beef stock, etc. "Extra" cooking/leftovers was done/planned to make the next day's version. Everything pretty much had to be planned and portioned or the food wasn't going to last until the next shopping trip/pay day.

Pre-covid I would go to three nearby local markets daily to look at the marked down meats to keep hubby's keto diet going with high quality foods within our budget. Took about an hour or less, but I never knew in advance what I'd be cooking that day. There is an urgency on using mark downs.

Now I go out shopping once a week to two places total, and have to do more bulk buys and planning. I'm really lucky that my hubby has joined/surpassed me in our eating plans and he is happy to cook for himself, especially if I do some prep work ahead of the time. Like I cooked 3 pounds or so of bacon the other day -- then when he came home he made a scramble with as many hot peppers as he wanted in addition to we each had a BLT on our local (Franz) Keto friendly bread. That's another thing I have to plan for, we are so unused to having bread and it isn't the cheapest thing ever, we have to plan the bread into the rest of the week.

Not really. Our son buys most of the groceries - there is usually meat and some kind of starch available.

My "planning" consists of bringing some meat out of the freezer in time for it to thaw before cooking it for dinner/supper.

The only times I actually plan a meal is for something like Thanksgiving or "company invited a week before" dinners.

Yes, I do. Before lockdown I did not, it was more a flexible/daily trauma, although I am not sure if that describes it accurately enough. I decided to make my daily life less stressful, so I started to make a list of recipes that I like in a notebook, and I add any new recipe to it, that I try and, is tasty/lives up to the promise from whatever source that I find it in.
I now have meals/recipes that I like, and all made from scratch, into a 4 week cycle, and I find this much less stressful, and it is a more manageable and pleasing cooking session. There are some meals throughout the 4 week cycle that are part of a second meal that week. I also bake bread 3 times a week. This makes shopping so much easier too, and I have more time for my garden, sewing, reading and making and learning how to make felt.

When our kids were still home, years ago. I made a menu for the week because for some unknown reason I hate to be asked what's for dinner. It helped to plan what to buy. Now with just two of us I decide what I want to make and soup,chili,etc. I make enough for at least a week of meals.My husband can eat same thing over and over. I can not. I will eat salad, chicken or cereal.

I like to make my own weekly plan. We eat more vegetables and a greater variety of foods when following a weekly plan. Meals are more balanced and it's cheaper, healthier and fun. When I am not making weekly plans, we eat out more and choose foods that are quick and tend to be not the best for us. I save old week plans and will reuse successful dinners (or change them up a bit). I do follow my plan but I have been known to switch sides from one meal to another because I don't have time to make the specified side or I don't feel like making it tonight. I plan only 5 evening meals a week. The other 2 evening meals may be leftovers nights, evenings out, or splurge nights.

How I make my plan: Using what's on sale and what's in my house, I select an entree for each meal (variety of meats and non-meats). I find recipes to prepare these choices as entrees. Next, I choose which starchy side dish works with the entree recipes (potatoes, grains, pasta, etc.). Then I add vegetable sides. My goal is to have 1 meat/non-meat serving, 1 starch/grains serving and 3 vegetable servings for each meal. For example, one meal might start with the choice of ground beef and I decide to use it by making chili, cornbread would be the starchy side and depending on the amount of vegetables in the chili, I might have a lettuce salad. After the meal plan is complete, I make a grocery list and also stock up on pantry items that are on sale.

I don't go by weekly meal plans. My DH has always been the one who tells me what he wants for the meal instead of me telling him "this is what we are having". He always gives me plenty of time to prepare for it & never asks for anything that I don't already have in the house so it works out o.k. for me. He will eat leftovers one more time after a meal but that is generally as far as it goes. If there is more left over I will freeze for another day or just eat them myself until they are gone.

heck no ...... just give it a boost with zap in the microwave! :)

*g*a*s*p* ...... plan that far ahead? :)
I've always felt I didn't want to be stressed when a plan just didn't work, because "life happened"!!! Or the energy was not there to cook to the plan. :)

That being said, my meal planning is not on the spur of the moment.
Oft times, I will decide a few days ahead to nudge me to make something specific.

I do keep a good inventory in the frig/freezer/cupboard to shop from!
Then a running shopping list of what I need to get next shopping, whether as re-stocking, or something I am desiring. Throughout these crazy COVID-19 times, I have found most times I can go close to three weeks without shopping, other than needing more milk. Granted that will now change a bit with summer produce now being available, that I get at a roadside stand.

Most times I follow the strategy of .... "cook once, eat thrice".
Sometimes that is far more than thrice, where I make a big batch, and freeze to single meals. The bonus of that is I have good to eat quality meals awaiting, for when I want lazy meals! I even make my oatmeal with fruit and brown sugar already added, that way. Two minutes from the ice cube, and I have hot steamy porridge!



A friend used to meal plan for a month at a time!!
She kept mostly to the plan, except for example, switching Monday's supper to Wednesday.
One thing she said really worked for them, was that they would eat foods that they would probably not buy/cook, without "the" plan making her shop for them, and then cook from them! Thus, more variety in their diets.

But no, that much planning ahead for me, just is not "for me"!
Life Happens!!! :D

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.

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!

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

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.

There is no way that I would do this.

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.

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.

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

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

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).