Meal Planning and Weight Loss

It used be that I rarely planned meals and I payed for it in numerous ways - I was a food waster throwing away food that had gone bad, spending too much money with little idea of what to make, and not eating in a way that promoted optimal health or my ideal weight.

But it's just a fact that when I take the time to plan out my meals each week, we eat more healthfully, I have more energy and it supports healthy weight loss.  When I plan, I have healthy things on hand that I can grab for a snack, and we save lots of money to boot because we do a good job of using up what we bought at the store.

These days I've gotten so adept at meal planning that I coach my clients on it all the time, teaching them the basics of how to create a simple, sustainable meal planning system that works week in and week out. And to tell you the truth, it's more than just making a meal plan for a week, this is about a holistic approach where it becomes routine.

Here are the four steps that I think are critical for successful long term meal planning that supports healthy weight and overall great health:

1. Develop a meal planning mindset. Just like anything else, being successful is about having the right frame of mind, believing you can do it and creating a more positive attitude.

2. Give your kitchen a facelift. It's hard to meal planning successfully if the space in which you're working is a mess. Think feng shui for the kitchen. It's about cleaning out your refrigerator, pantry and cupboards and getting a handle on what you have. It decreases the likelihood that you'll be wasteful and makes it a whole lot easier to maneuver.

3. Get prepped for planning. It's hard to plan in a vacuum, week to week, and you have to gather certain tools like shopping lists and pantry item staples to simplify the planning process, not to mention easily accessible resources for recipes and ideas.

4. Create your weekly plan. With the other steps in place and easy to use forms and information at your fingertips, you can easily do your weekly planning, saving time, money and a whole lot of frustration. And once you get in the habit of it, it's not such a painstaking task after all!

Want to know more about how I do my weekly planning that frees up my time and helps me save money, not to mention helping me feel my best? Join me for a free teleseminar on Thursday, September 4 at 8 pm ET where I'll be sharing more details and telling you about an upcoming 4-week teleseminar course that I'll be teaching which starts September 9. You can register for the call and get all the details by clicking on this link: http://tinyurl.com/57vmmn.  And you can learn more about the 4-week program by clicking here: http://dontworrygethealthy.com/mealplanning

Comments

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

Great suggestions, Wendy. And don't forget your shopping list from Hungry Girl!
http://www.slim-people.com/2008/08/vitalicious-and.html