meal planning: the definitive guide to planning your meals stress-free

Meal planning is

so hot

right now.

But why?

Because it solves all of these problems…

• Figuring out what to eat after work is mentally draining

• You feel like you eat too much costly & unhealthy fast food

• You keep gaining weight and want to have more energy

• When you do cook it’s stressful and not enjoyable • You find it difficult to consistently cook at home • It’s much too expensive to eat out all the time

“Meal planning is a process by which you organize the meals you’ll cook for the

coming week.”

But what is it?

Investing a small amount of time and energy upfront

(by meal planning) can make cooking simple,

healthy meals at home enjoyable and stress-free.

But you’ve got hesitations. Let’s debunk them.

“As a millennial / gen-y, I’m too young to meal plan. Meal

planning is only for families.”

Meal Planning Hesitation #1

Sure, families are busy.

We’re busy.

Sure, families are on a budget.

We’re cash strapped with school & starting our careers.

Sure, families are stressed.

We’re stressed with insane work hours and figuring out our lives.

Young people have the same reasons to meal plan as families do. And we have much more to gain from taking control of our

food situation early in life.

“I don’t have time to plan my meals.”

Meal Planning Hesitation #2

But you do have time to wait in line for takeout, sit in restaurants for 1+

hour, or grocery shop every day?

Meal planning is an investment that provides

fantastic returns. 30 minutes, from start to finish, is all

you need to make a healthy home cooked meal.

“Meal planning is more costly than getting

takeout.”

Meal Planning Hesitation #3

Home cooked meals cost 40% to 80% less than takeout meals.

Even TIME magazine says that you can save $2,500 per year by only

cutting takeout at lunch.

“I don’t know how to cook.”

Meal Planning Hesitation #4

Everyone’s a beginner at one point.

But here’s a secret: functional cooking (tasty but not super gourmet) is

much simpler than TV cooking show hosts make it out to be.

Ready to give meal planning a try?

Great!

Let’s get to the how.

1. Assessing Your Personal Meal Plan Preferences

Meal planning services and templates fail when they don’t

take into account two factors:

1. Your personal eating preferences

2. How comfortable you are

with different foods (variety)

Figure out your personal eating preferences before getting started. Take the quiz below (click the image).

You’ll find that going through the quiz

forces you to get honest about what you want in a meal plan.

This will help you a ton in the next few steps.

2. Making Meal Planning a Breeze by Organizing Your

Week

Now that you know your food preferences, you’ll be tempted to search for recipes.

Resist this temptation (for now).

1. You need to combine meals so they limit food

waste (» here’s how)

Why? Two reasons:

2. You need to take meal plan composition (variety) into

account (» here’s how)

Otherwise, you’ll make a meal plan that wastes a ton of food and doesn’t

make you psyched to cook the meals.

3. How to Quickly Find

Simple & Healthy Recipes

Remember the personal meal planning assessment you went through?

Refer to that (click the link above) so you know exactly the type of recipes that will be best

for your unique needs.

Here’s some awesome recipe resources:

Quick and Easy Healthy Recipes (30 min or less) 400+ Healthy Recipes (That Won’t Break the Bank)

Over 100 Quick and Easy Recipes 101 Healthy Recipes That Taste Incredible

100 Days of Real Food Recipe Index

Don’t forget to save and schedule your recipes (click the image)

4. How to Grocery Shop Quickly and Cheaply

Grocery stores are amazing…

…BUT they’re also

manipulative.

Here’s a few tips to help you save money and time at the grocery

store:

1. Don’t shop hungry (you’ll purchase more) 2. Make a list of exactly what you need before

going (less impulse purchases) 3. Avoid the aisles (go around the edges) 4. Use a basket instead of a cart (less room for

junk food)

More tips can be found in our comprehensive guide to grocery

shopping (» click here).

5. Cooking Tips That Will Make Meal Planning Regularly a Reality

If you’ve made it this far, that means

you’ve done 90% of the work.

Way to go! But many fail with the last 10%.

The last 10% is how to meal plan and cook

on a regular basis. Click for a ton of resources for both objectives:

Cooking regularly

Meal planning regularly

6. Evaluating Your 1st Meal Plan and Improving Each

Week

Ok! You’ve planned and executed your 1st meal plan. Great job!

Now it’s time to evaluate what went well, what went badly, and how to improve for

the future.

Here’s how to quickly evaluate your meal

plan and make your next plan even better (» click here).

And don’t forget about other meal planning considerations like:

• seasonality • grocery delivery services • planning with a partner • using a meal planning product.

Click any of the above to learn more.

Sum Up

Meal planning is one of those high-value, high-reward habits

that has the potential to

change your life.

Get the full article that inspired this SlideShare …

… plus a free PDF of this guide at

mealime.com/meal-planning

Healthy Meal Plans for Busy Professionals.

Personalized, simple, and stress-free. Get yours at…

MEALIME.COM