Personally I disliked all the meal plans I ever downloaded- free or paid. And I experimented with loads!

It doesn’t work for me. Neither I met with a success when I put some of my clients on a meal plan I prepared for them.

For a long time it was bothering me as I was convinced I make “amazing meals plans:) ” So why my clients struggle to follow it?

Well the truth is I wouldn’t like it either if somebody else plan every single meal for me and my family. Putting together ingredients that I don’t like or choosing the recipes I wouldn’t choose myself because they either are too complicated or they just simple don’t resonate with my taste buds or rest of my family wouldn’t be impressed. Also I don’t like all my meals to be planned to the very last dot. There need to be some flexibility don’t you think?

So here is the solution. Why don’t you take it easy and make your own dinner plan to start with? Just to get into a habit of planning your meals ..It doesn’t take longer then 20 min a week and

  • it will save you hours of your time trying to figure out last minute what to cook
  • you will save money by not wasting the food you expensively buy in the shops
  • it will make your grocery shopping much easier and shorter per visit (I would do anything to shorten my grocery shopping expeditions with Emilia:)
  • it will decrease food binging
  • and maybe if you wish you can even loose some weight

The most important benefits of making your own meal is

  • you will actually follow it!
  • you can choose what you and your family like
  • you will enjoy eating your food
  • cooking will become more fun
  • using my formula will make it easier to choose from the sea of internet links and cook books
  • easy system that will allow to integrate recipes you already know and you are familiar with
  • you will learn how to plan for balanced food without following any strict diets
  • you will save money on meal plan downloads:)

Here is a simple system that works for me: I plan my dinners around proteins!

For each day I choose a different type of protein and add a vegetable side dish + a carbohydrate (optional)

  1. img_9035Sunday = choose any recipe using a Red Fish (Salon, Tuna etc)
  2. Monday = Meatless Monday in our family. Choose a recipe using beans, tofu, eggs, noodles, pasta
  3. Tuesday= choose any recipe using a White Meat (poultry: chicken, turkey)
  4. Wednesday= choose any recipe using a Red Meat (Beef, Lamb, Pork etc)
  5. Thursday = choose any recipe using a White Fish or Sea food (Seabream, Seebass, Shrimp, etc)
  6. Friday and Saturday we mostly eat out and these are our cheat days:)

This is how I have been planning for already 3 years.

Make sure you fill your plan with dishes you might already know. Also make freezing part of your strategy! It is not possible to cook from scratch everyday!