The last two days I have sat down and looked at what has worked for me in the past, and perused Pinterest for any new recipes I want to tack on. I broke down my day into breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner and concentrated on each of these at a time. Then I basically set myself a rotation of meals I know are fairly easy that I enjoy. I allowed Saturdays for playing with new recipes at breakfast or lunch, since I'm more likely to have more time on those days - don't need the stress of new recipes on a week day.
Over the next two weeks I'll share these rotations with you and give you several good recipes to try. Next week will focus on breakfasts, while the following week will be lunches. I'll talk to you about snacks on Friday - and the importance of keeping your metabolism revving! Lastly, I'll sprinkle the dinner recipes throughout the coming weeks.
Surprisingly, dinner recipes have been the hardest challenge to find a wide variety of. I can handle a rotation of the same several meals for breakfast and lunch, but for dinner I want a wider variety and only wanted to have the same meal every two to three weeks. I have found thirty unique recipes (without meat, dairy, or grains) - ten of which will be new to me, so that will be fun!
I wanted to give you something to use so you could attempt some planning on your own, so here is a snap shot of the planning sheets I'll be posting on my fridge. (And a little sneak preview of some meal ideas!) The top sheet is my breakfast, snack, lunch, snack rotation that will stay up all six weeks. The bottom is my family's social calendar, which I post my menu on so that I can see what we have going on when I plan the meals - I don't want to be trying an elaborate new recipe the same night we have a band concert to attend!
(If I can figure out how to post a simple blank template here for you to download, I will do that.)
Finally, I sit down with my handy dandy new ShoppingList app (by hensoft) and go day-by-day, meal-by-meal, and think through all the ingredients that will be needed. This can be the mind-boggling part, because if you bought coconut milk for one recipe, you already have it for another if you didn't use all of it, so do you have enough... yadda yadda yadda - it can be a bit much. But if you write it all out in front of you, you should be able to see it at a glance and then you can go through and enter it into the app to take with you to the store! (This app is wonderful because it lets you put the prices in and holds them for you so as your list grows, you can see how much you will be spending and budget accordingly.)
The other part that can be confusing about shopping - especially when you are shopping for clean eating items - is where you can get them. Admittedly, I do go to four stores each month to make sure I get what I need. There are certain things like frozen blueberries, fresh spinach, and almond milk - that are best at Costco. But zucchini, ginger, avocados and coconut milk - I get at Trader Joe's. Then Safeway is reserved for other produce I need a lot of, but not as much as Costco, and don't want to spend the TJ's price... like oranges, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and apples. The last place I go is Maxx Nutrition, our local supplement store, for plant based protein powder, unsweeted coconut, xylitol sweetener, and pure maple syrup.
TAKE AWAY: The real lesson here is this... No matter how much planning and prepping (prepping and planning!) you do - - You must submit yourself to the plan. All the lists and shopping and stocking in the world will not make you choose the salad over the burrito when you are hungry. You have to give yourself over to this plan - submit to it - and truly decide that this is what you are going to commit to without excuse. This is the heart lesson. This is the harder part. This is the part, in my opinion, that needs prayer. Because sometimes food issues are bigger than us and we need divine help to conquer them. I know I did. (And do!)
So, take a deep breath, plan out some meals (maybe just start with a week at a time if this is new to you, or outside your comfort zone), say a prayer, and commit.
If you try this, or have questions about what worked for me - please let me know in the comments below!
