Meal Planning Made Simple: Your Guide to Healthy Eating and Stress-Free Cooking for Women

Are you tired of the chaos that comes with meal times, constantly feeling overwhelmed by what to cook? You’re not alone! In this episode of Real Food Stories, host Heather Carey, a seasoned nutritionist and chef, dives deep into the transformative power of meal planning. Discover how a structured approach to meal prep can not only enhance your health but also alleviate the stress that often accompanies cooking. Heather shares her personal food journey, illustrating her shift from a disorganized eating routine to a more harmonious, meal-planned lifestyle. She emphasizes that meal planning is not a rigid formula but a flexible practice tailored to fit your unique needs and preferences.

Join Heather as she debunks common food beliefs surrounding meal planning, such as the notion that it demands expensive, designer ingredients or hours spent in the kitchen. Instead, she champions a straightforward, personalized meal planning strategy that focuses on healthy, affordable ingredients, making it accessible for everyone. Whether you’re navigating menopause health or seeking weight loss stories, Heather provides practical tips that can help you create a meal plan that aligns with your health goals.

Throughout the episode, you’ll learn how to select recipes that excite you, shop efficiently for ingredients, and prepare meals that nourish both body and soul. Heather’s expert insights on mindful eating will inspire you to cultivate a more conscious relationship with food, allowing you to savor every bite while supporting your personal health journey. With a focus on healthy lifestyle choices, she encourages listeners to embrace their unique food stories and redefine their relationship with cooking.

Whether you’re a busy professional, a mom juggling family food influences, or simply someone looking to improve your culinary skills, this episode is packed with healthy eating tips and nutrition advice that are sure to resonate. Tune in to learn how to navigate the world of food fads and diet myths, and explore the seven pillars of abundance that can lead to lasting wellness. Heather’s warmth and expertise shine through, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in cooking for health and embracing a vibrant, fulfilling life.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to transform your meals and your mindset. Join Heather on this enlightening journey and discover how meal planning can be the key to unlocking a healthier and more enjoyable relationship with food!

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hi everybody and welcome back. And if you’re just tuning in with me for the first time, it’s so nice to meet you and I am very glad you’re here with me. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relationship to health, weight, and our bodies so you can finally make peace with what you eat. The topic of meal planning is really big these days because so many people wonder if it could be the key to better health, less stress, or just even better cooking. And the answer is that they are really all right. Healthy meal planning can make life so much simpler and healthier, take it from me. But like any other skill, healthy meal planning takes practice and even maybe a few missteps along the way. And that’s totally okay. So you’ll see from today’s podcast that there’s really no perfect science to meal planning, which means though that there is a lot of flexibility to it. And I promise you that meal planning is the secret to healthy eating success. When I lived in the land of diets and quick weight losses and gains, The habit of meal planning was not even on my radar. I was busy, I was stressed out, young mom with three really young kids, and a new career. And who had time to sit down and plan their meals anyway? That was for people who had nothing better to do with their time. It didn’t even occur to me back then that a little time on the front end could mean so much time and stress saved during the week. The irony of it all is that not meal planning was making things so much worse for me. Not having a plan for the week or even the day led to so much unnecessary pressure and stress. Of course, my kids were eating well. I was making them homemade baby food with all organic fruits and vegetables. But me, I was consistently last on the list. Dinner was very often an afterthought. a quick scramble to cobble together something healthy-ish for dinner, or there was always takeout to fall back on. It clearly wasn’t working for me. I knew how to eat well. I knew all about the foods. I had been to cooking school for health support of cooking. But when you’re in the habit of putting yourself last or worrying about everyone before you, you ultimately end up suffering. So even though I’m a nutritionist, my needs were consistently coming last. And by the time I was trying to figure out dinner for myself at the end of the day, I was exhausted and just done for the day. Being consistent with meal planning changed everything for me. Knowing what I’m going to eat on a weekly and even daily basis takes the guesswork and stress out of what’s for dinner every single night. It prevents you from falling back on takeout and restaurants that are not your best and healthiest options. And it stops you from wondering what’s in your food, what ingredients they’re adding in. You become more in control of your meals. If you are cooking for others and making an entirely different meal for yourself, let’s stop that right now. Meal planning says, I am making one dinner for everybody, no questions asked. Meal planning allows for creativity so you can make dishes that everyone will actually enjoy. Now, I’ve taught a lot of people how to meal plan, and there are a few misconceptions that consistently creep up that I just want to get out of the way before we dive into the nitty-gritty of meal planning. Some people believe that healthy eating means spending more on designer-type foods. all organic or just obscure ingredients. The truth is meal planning makes healthy eating much more affordable and simple. So if you consider, for example, the price for a package of dried beans, that’s about a dollar, or vegetables in season, if you go to the farmer’s market right now, you can get food for almost a song. You are so much better off cooking than even ordering in a pizza. Another thing is that meal planning does not have to be overcomplicated. So if you find yourself just getting overwhelmed with those binders full of recipes that you’ve ripped out of magazines or complicated apps that you’ve downloaded onto your phone, just realize that meal planning can be as simple as a pen, a piece of paper, and a few of your favorite recipes. The plan is yours to personalize, not someone else’s that you saw on Instagram or something that just would feel completely unattainable. And finally, meal planning does not mean being a slave to your kitchen. I love to cook. I don’t want to be in my kitchen eight hours a day. I’ve got other things to do to live my life for. So when you organize yourself with your meal plan, it ends up saving you so much time for all of those other important things. So let’s talk about what meal planning is. Basically, meal planning means selecting recipes, writing them down on the days you will cook them, shopping for the ingredients, and preparing the recipes. That’s basically it. It’s a system for… organizing what you and your family will eat for the week, and it can be very individual. It can be as simple as working with your schedule, your lifestyle, your time, and your energy. A couple other things. Meal planning is a way to take the guesswork out of what’s for dinner every single night so that you do not fall back on takeout and fast food, unless that’s part of your plan, And it certainly can be. but it doesn’t have to be. When you’re mindful about what goes into the plan, a meal plan will ensure that you eat a variety of foods, especially fruits and vegetables every week. The act of just writing down the plan will make you more aware of what you’re eating. And mindful eating, if you have heard me talk about this, is one of the key habits to cultivate when we’re losing weight and eating healthier. And then one of my personal favorites and reasons to meal plan is my precious time. Meal planning at the beginning of the weekends ends up saving you so much time during the week, I promise. You know exactly what you are eating and you have already shopped for it. It’s like magic. So before we even start to dive into meal planning, we first need to know what to eat. to create a healthy meal plan. Now, I’ve talked a little bit here and there through other podcasts. In case you haven’t listened to them, feel free to go back and take a listen. But we’re going to do a little review here. And first to say that the internet and social media have led to so much confusion around food that the stress over what to eat is real. I get it. As a nutritionist, I want to inform you about all the healthy, delicious foods that you could and should add into your days. I understand we all have different dietary and health needs. We all have different preferences around food. You may have certain goals, such as losing weight. So again, this is very individual for everyone who is starting to meal plan. But no matter how you choose to eat, there are always a few basics to healthy eating. And I thought we would just have a little review and share those today so that meal planning can become even easier. Once you have an idea of the best way to eat, it becomes so much simpler to put together the plan, go grocery shopping so that you are not wasting time, and then putting it all into action in your kitchen. Okay, so I’m going to get a little bit sciencey here and just talk about what research has shown to be the best way to eat for most of us. I love using the concept of balance on our plates. I’m going to go into another podcast episode soon and just get really deep dived into this concept of balance. But today, we’re going to just talk about balance on our plates when we’re thinking about how to eat. So. I want you to just pause whatever you’re doing for a second and take a little visualization with me. Visualize your next meal, and maybe that’s dinner, and think about the plate you are eating on. Now I want you to take that plate and cut it in half. And then I want you to take one of the halves and cut that in half again. On the largest side of the plate would be vegetables and fruit. One quarter of that plate would be protein. And one quarter of the plate would be whole grains or some other kind of starchy carbs like a corn or potatoes. Next, we would take some healthy fats. I love to call them drizzles or dollops or dressings, such as a salad dressing or a pesto sauce. And we would use that to flavor our food in a small quantity. And then, of course, we would be sure to drink plenty of water. Now, the concept of a plate can be confusing because we don’t always eat on a plate, right? Sometimes we eat a soup or sometimes we eat a stir fry. Sometimes it is just traditional meat and potatoes with some vegetables. Sometimes we put our food in a bowl and not a plate. But I hope that you get the point. So whether or not it is a soup, it is a stir fry, take a moment to just use your imagination and visualize. Look at your plate and say, are there enough fruits and vegetables on this plate? Is there less whole grain? And is there a little less protein? We want to always keep that visual in mind. and to heavy up on vegetables and fruit and go lighter on protein, carbs, and fats. Let’s take a minute now to just break down each of these categories that I talked about, the protein, the carbs, fats, fruits, and vegetables, and show you why and what to eat. So let’s talk about vegetables first. Vegetables are the mainstay of everybody’s diet. They are low in calories, but they’re bursting with nutrients. I like to think of them as my edible vitamins. Definitely go for vegetables in season. We’ve talked about this in past episodes. They just taste better. You’ll want to emphasize dark leafy green vegetables, such as kale and collards and Swiss chard, spinach, cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, red peppers, carrots, the list goes on. Eat a variety of colors. Eat a variety of vegetables just to ensure that you’re getting all the nutrients you need. Vegetables have different types of phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals in them. So picking out different colors can help ensure that. The same goes with fruit. There’s been a trend on the internet lately, or for a little while, if you have not heard this, that fruit might be bad for us or that is too high in sugar. I get this question asked of me a lot. Is fruit? bad for me. And I am here to tell you that this is just not true. Fruit has a minuscule amount of sugar, so do not fear fruit. We don’t want to be drinking fruit juice that is all of that sugar with all of the healthy fiber removed, but we do want to eat fruit. It has its own vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients in it. So it’s the same as vegetables. Be sure to eat a variety. Be sure to eat a rainbow and… eat in season. So I want to talk about whole grains, which is another food group that gets a bad rap. To start off, we want to make sure that we are emphasizing whole grains. Whole grains are the grains before they get fully broken down and processed. We want to stay away from the white products, white flour, candy, cupcakes, anything with refined flours in it and stick with whole wheat, quinoa. farro, wild rice, things like that. Whole grains are so good for brain health, so good for heart health. They stabilize your energy and your moods. They are high in fiber. Let’s drop the whole grains are just not good for us rhetoric and add them into your diet, but make sure you keep them whole. Next up, we want to talk about lean proteins. Proteins should come from a combination of animal and plant sources. You could go all animal if you wanted to. You could go all plant. But I think the best way to ensure nutrients is to go from a variety of plant and animal sources. Protein builds muscle. It helps with energy. It helps with a whole host of essential body functioning. The best sources for you are beans, black beans. beans, kidney beans, soybeans, lentils, tofu. In the animal category, chicken breasts, seafood such as salmon or shrimp. And eggs are one of the best sources of high quality protein in the animal category. And finally, we want to talk about healthy fats. When I was growing up in the 80s, what I learned about fat is that fat was really bad for us and everything went fat free for a little bit. I don’t know if you remember snack well cookies or fat free salad dressing, but everything was fat free. Fat was thought to be a massive contributor to heart disease, and the food marketers ran with it. Now, when you take fat out of your food, you are sacrificing a ton of flavor. Fat adds satiety to your food. It makes your food taste good. It’s also an essential nutrient. Food companies replaced all of that fat with sugar as a replacement to try to make our food taste better. But what ended up happening was not a lessening of heart disease, but a greater increase of obesity and heart disease. So I think we learned a lot from that 80s mistake. Fat-free is not the way to go. We need fat. It is an essential nutrient. It’s absolutely necessary for our brain health, our hormone health, not to mention making our food taste great. And as a chef. This is so important to me that my food tastes delicious, especially when it’s simple, healthy food. So my best choices are avocados, olive oil, all the seeds such as flax seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, nuts such as almonds or walnuts, and of course, all the fats from seafood. So those are your food groups. And when you think about it, it’s pretty simple. The creativity part comes from learning to flavor your food so food tastes good. This is simple, healthy food, and we want it to taste our best. Now, I’m going to have a podcast in the future to talk about how to make our simple, healthy food taste delicious. So let’s get back to the meal planning, though. Now we have our components of what goes into a meal. So I’m going to make an assumption about… pretty much everyone listening to this podcast. I’m going to guess that you are really good at your job. Whether that’s going to an office every day, whether it’s just being a stay-at-home mom, you’re probably pretty good at your job. I’m also going to take a guess that you make sure you get your kids to soccer practice every afternoon, or you show up at doctor’s appointments right on time, or you plan out your schedules for the week at work. And the reason this all works is that you have a plan for your week. Whether or not it is for your kids, you, or your job, you have taken some time to sit down with your calendar to plan out your week. Now, the same goes for becoming a successful meal planner. It’s no different. If healthy eating is your priority, make meal planning as much a priority as any other part of your schedule. Meal planning. is not about making dinner every single night unless that is what you want it to be. So for example, if you have a standing date night out with your husband or wife on a Tuesday, or if every Friday is pizza night with your family, that’s totally fine. Put that in the plan. That’s not a big deal. The bottom line with meal planning is that it makes you aware. So if eating McDonald’s every Monday, you had like a standing McDonald’s Monday, Is just going against maybe a weight loss goal that you want to try? Consider how you can make a different choice on a Monday. Meal planning nudges you to become mindful of what you’re eating, and that is the best part of it. Now, I want to take you through the meal planning routine step by step so you can put all of this information into action. And I will have a link in my show notes to break this all down so you don’t have to get out a piece of paper and a pen right now and write it all down. Just you can grab the link in the show notes. So most plans typically start on a Monday. That’s how I do it. But before you start to pick the date of your plan, no matter what it is, I want you to rewind three days before that to give yourself time to get the plan in order and to shop. Then I want you to grab a notebook. It can be a piece of paper and a pen. It can be a meal planning sheet. It can even be an app. I love the app Paprika. I will link it in my show notes. I have been using this app for years. It’s the one and only probably app that I recommend. It is a personal favorite of mine. Whatever works best for you is what… you should do. Now, right away, I want you to slot in the nights that you do not cook. Your date night, the night you eat at your mom’s house, if that’s every Sunday, whatever it is, just take it off the meal plan. No pressure, no big deal. Now, next, I want you to create a list of your yes recipes. You know exactly what those are. Those are the ones that get a resounding yes when you tell your kids you’re going to have. fajita night to night, or whatever their favorites are, you know that these are going to be winners. These are the meals that you barely even need a recipe for, and you feel that are just so simple to make. Keep an ongoing list of your yes recipes as you continue meal planning. If you have a particularly busy night coming up, use your yes recipes in those slots. Now next, get out your computer Or if you’re old school like me, sometimes get out your cookbooks and think about what else to make for the week. Now, there’s a few great ways to shorten the list of recipes from the millions that you will find on the internet to just a few. And you want to consider things like theme night, such as Mexican Monday, Taco Tuesday, or Slow Cooker Thursday. This will take your recipes down from those millions. On Mondays, all you have to think of are Mexican recipes. Another consideration is to think about what you are in the mood to eat that week. We all want to enjoy our food. So cook what you like and what tastes good to you first. Before your kids, before your partner, before anyone else, what are you in the mood for? If you are in charge of the meal planning, the cooking, and the shopping, Your taste should come first. Meal planning can be as involved as planning out your breakfast, lunch, dinners, and snacks if you want to. I typically start planning with dinners in mind. This meal seems to be the most complicated and needs the most thought. Also for me, to take the stress out of lunch, I… almost always turn last night’s dinner into next day’s lunch. I don’t mind leftovers. My husband doesn’t mind leftovers. And we’re good with that. It’s the cook once, eat twice frame of mind. And it really helps take the guesswork out of what I’m going to have for lunch every day. My breakfasts are simple. I don’t usually eat a ton of variety in this meal. I am eating something with oatmeal or yogurt as the base. Adding in that concept of balance, I’m adding in fruit, nuts, and seeds. And it doesn’t have to take much guesswork or planning. And finally, we should never forget about the importance of healthy snacks if you are a snacker. We want our snacks to be just as healthy as our meals. So if snacks are important to you, add those in there as well. Next week. I’m going to do part two of my meal planning segment to talk about meal planning when you are insanely busy, because I understand life gets in the way. So stay tuned for that. That’s a different sort of meal planning. It’s not as this traditional meal planning, but it is equally as easy and effective. Okay, we now know what to eat. We have thought about our week. We have made the plan and we have our recipes and now we are ready for the next step, which is to go grocery shopping. I want you to take your recipes and write down all the ingredients on a sheet of paper. Then go through your pantry, cross out what you already have. You likely have salt and pepper and some basics like that. To save a ton of time and stress, always, always, always stick to the list. Walk into the grocery store with a list in hand. Mindful shopping means being aware of what and how you are shopping, rather than wandering aimlessly through a store at 6 p.m., wondering what on earth you were going to bring home for dinner, or loading up your cart with a bunch of vegetables and then tossing them a few days later because you had no plan for them. I’ve been there. I’ve done it. It’s stressful. I don’t like it. So take it from me, sticking to the list saves you tons of time and tons of stress and tons of money. A few more tips. Be sure to pick produce that is in season because not only does it taste better, but it’s cheaper. And motivate yourself by realizing that any cooking you do at home is much healthier. than takeout. Now, the thought of meal planning can get you excited to start, but if you are new to cooking or need to revisit your skills, try to stay in your comfort zone for a little while rather than what I call the delusional zone, which is where we might think we are Julia Child, but really we’ve only had practice making pasta and a jar of sauce, or you’re just used to using a microwave to heat things up. The point is to ease in. I want you to be totally open to trying some new recipes, but I also want this to be successful for you. Go slow, have a few wins, try a few more challenging recipes, understand that we make mistakes in the kitchen and that’s totally okay. I make mistakes all the time in the kitchen. That’s how you learn. And a good rule of thumb to just avoid burnout is to plan for the following week on a Friday, shop on a Saturday, and prep on a Sunday if you don’t want to do it all in one shot. And I talked about that earlier, about giving yourself whatever day the plan starts, backing up three days to give yourself some time. I know we went through meal planning 101 pretty quickly, but I want you to feel like meal planning is a real benefit to you rather than a detriment. You want to keep in mind why it is worth it. So I’m going to give you a couple of reminders just to sum up. Meal planning saves you a ton of time in the long run. A little time at the beginning of the week when you’re sitting down and thinking about your week and planning out your recipes and writing things down might feel like it takes… away from something else you’d rather be doing. But trust me on this, it saves you a ton of time during the week. Meal planning also then saves you a lot of stress, the stress of it’s 6 p.m. and what on earth am I going to make for dinner? It helps you get creative. Meal planning nudges you to try new recipes, to think about new recipes, to really give thought to what you want to eat during the week, what you are interested in eating during the week. rather than cooking for everybody else and you being last. Meal planning makes you a more mindful eater. If you have goals such as weight loss or you have a health issue that you are trying to address through food, meal planning absolutely positively helps you with this. It keeps you mindful. It makes you more mindful in the grocery store. You walk in with a list in your hand. You can walk in and out of a grocery store and 30 minutes as long as you have a list in your hand. So it really helps address time, stress, creativity, being more mindful, and most importantly, your health. Thank you so much for listening today. And as always, if you have any thoughts on today’s topic of meal planning, please feel free to leave a comment to continue the discussion. And be sure to look for my links in the show notes for my meal plan summary. And I might be putting a few bonus recipes in there for you to try. Also, if you loved this podcast, do not hesitate to rate and review. I would love it. Have a great week and bye for now.