A beginners guide to meal planning.

Meal planning sounds simple in theory.

You sit down and decide what you want to eat for the week, you write a shopping list, go to the supermarket, and now you’re one of those organised people that has their whole life together.

Except suddenly it starts feeling like a full-time job that requires a science degree. What do I actually feel like? What does balanced actually mean? How do I plan for the nights I know I’m going to be busy or tired?

And if you have a complicated relationship with food, meal planning can bring an extra layer of difficulty. What starts as a way to make things easier becomes a gateway for thinking about what you can and can’t eat, when you can eat, and how much you’re allowed to have.

This blog is all about how to meal plan in a way that’s practical, flexible, balanced, and realistic.

Why meal plan?

Meal planning is not a requirement for healthy eating. You do not need to know what you’re eating next Thursday to have a healthy relationship with food.

Meal planning can however:

·      Reduce the mental load of deciding what to eat.

·      Make supermarket shopping easier.

·      Ensure you have food available for when you’re hungry.

·      Reduce the likelihood of skipping meals.

·      Save money.

·      Make it easier to eat enough, eat often, and get a variety.

·      Prepare you for busy days and low energy days.

It’s not about being perfect, it’s just about making things easier. One of the most common ways to make meal planning unnecessarily complicated is actually to plan everything you’re going to eat for the next seven days. Suddenly your eating habits are being dictated by a spreadsheet. So you might find it easier to plan a few key meals with some generic extras. That way you get structure without needing to follow a strict schedule:

·      2-3 breakfast options.

·      2-3 lunch options.

·      3-4 dinner meals.

·      A few snacks.

·      Some pantry staples and back-up items.

Step 1: Start with meals you already enjoy

Meal planning shouldn’t be about reinventing the wheel every week. Starting with meals you know an like can make things more sustainable. Have a think about:

·      Meals you regularly make.

·      Foods you enjoy eating.

·      Meals that are quick and easy for you.

·      Meals you can make in larger quantities.

·      Foods that are easy to keep in the fridge or freezer.

·      You can always factor in a night or two for trialling a new recipe if you want to.

Remembering that repeating meals is allowed; your meal plan might include things like:

·      A pasta dish.

·      A stir-fry with rice or noodles.

·      Curry with rice.

·      A loaded salad.

·      Soup with cheesy bread.

·      Toast with eggs.

·      A cereal you enjoy with milk and/or yoghurt.

·      A sandwich or wrap with fillings you enjoy.

Step 2: Make it balanced

When I say balanced, I mean carbohydrates, fats, protein, fruit and/or vegetables, and flavour. So, let’s start with a few key examples from each food group:

Carbohydrates:

Bread

Rice

Pasta

Potato

Kumara

Oats

Cereal and muesli

Noodles

Crackers

Protein:

Beef

Lamb

Chicken

Fish or frozen fish fillets

Sausages, burgers, and pre-rolled meatballs

Eggs

Milk

Yoghurt

Cheese

Tofu

Tempeh

Falafel

Legumes (chickpeas, lentils, butter beans).

Fats:

Oil

Butter or margarine

Nuts & seeds

Avocado

Tahini

Mayonnaise or similar

Pesto

Fruit and vegetables (the non-exhaustive list):

Fresh fruit and vegetables like salad bags, roasting vegetables, greens.

Tinned fruit and vegetables like tinned tomato, tinned peaches.

Frozen fruit and vegetables like frozen berries, frozen stir-fry vegetable mix, frozen peas.

When you’re making something balanced, its usually easier to think about what to add rather than what to subtract. For example:

·      Add a bit of fruit to the breakfast you usually eat.

·      Add a source of protein to your lunch.

·      Grab some bread to go with your leftovers.

·      Add in a snack between your meals.

·      Add vegetables to a pasta dish.

·      Add a source of fat to a meal. 

This idea can be particularly important if you have a history of disordered eating or an eating disorder.

Step 3: Plan for your actual life

One of the biggest traps with meal planning is planning outside of your scope. For example you might:

·      Pick complicated recipes every night.

·      Spend several hours of your sacred weekend meal prepping.

·      Choose only fresh meals that require multiple ingredients with lots of prepping.

·      Pick a different meal for every meal.

Then life shows up. You’re tired. You get home late. You don’t have a certain ingredient or bit of equipment. The thought of chopping vegetables simply makes you want to cry. This is why your plan ideally includes some easy options like:

·      Frozen vegetables.

·      Tinned foods.

·      Ready-made sauces or meals.

·      Low-effort meals (more to come on this).

·      Leftovers.

·      Room for takeaways or a meal out if that fits your budget.

Step 4: Actively include some low-effort meals

I can’t recommend enough having a list of meals that require very little energy to prepare. These can be just as nourishing and flavoursome as the higher-effort meals but they save you so much mental load and energy in the long run, making consistency that much easier. Easy does not equal less healthy.

Here’s some examples:

·      Eggs on toast.

·      A baked potato with beans and cheese.

·      A pasta dish with a ready-made sauce and mince or beans.

·      Frozen vegetables with microwave rice and a ready-made protein.

·      Soup with bread.

·      Chilli beans with corn chips and smashed avocado.

·      A sandwich.

·      Cereal with milk and fruit.

·      A frozen meal with something alongside it (because frozen meals are usually on the small side).

·      A bake or, if equipment permits, a slow cooker meal.

Step 5: Remember your snacks

It’s easy to get swept up in planning main meals while completely forgetting about the rest of the day. Ideally your body is getting some nutrition every three to four hours to keep your blood sugars stable and your hunger cues regular.

A snack doesn’t have to be perfectly balanced. It might just be something you enjoy. I’ve got a few good posts on snack ideas on the Restore Nutrition Instagram page. Here’s a few examples:

·      Wholegrain crackers with peanut butter and dates.

·      Carrot sticks with hummus, and a couple of boiled eggs.

·      Rice crackers with a flavoured tuna.

·      A snack-pack of popcorn, a chickpea snack, and a piece of fruit.

·      A chia pudding with berries.

·      A slice of fruit toast and a protein milk.

·      A muesli bar and a snack cheese.

·      A muffin or scone.

·      A few biscuits.

Step 6: Make your flexible shopping list

Once you’ve got an idea on the meals and snacks you might eat, you can pop the ingredients into a shopping list. You might organise your list as follows:

·      Breakfast ingredients

·      Generic ingredients like cereal, bread, oats, eggs, yoghurt, milk, fruit.

·      Lunch ingredients

·      Generic ingredients like wraps, bread, fillings, pantry staples for quick meals (rice pots, flavoured tuna, packet soup).

·      Dinner meals/ingredients

·      Pick a few meals you like and buy the ingredients you need, thinking about whether you need to buy more than usual to allow for leftovers.

·      Back-ups

·      Now you might not need to buy these every week, but these are handy foods to have in the house in case life gets busy or you want a takeaway instead of your planned meal or you forgot to defrost the chicken.

·      These might be frozen vegetables, pre-made sauces, pre-made proteins like sausages, fish fingers, or burger patties, and quick carbs like tortellini.

A note on food rules

For some, meal planning can become another way to control food. Signs that meal planning may be becoming unhelpfully rigid might be:

·      Feeling unable to eat something different to what you planned.

·      Feeling anxious or guilty if a meal changes.

·      Believing you’ve ruined the day if you eat something unplanned.

·      Refusing food because it isn’t in your meal plan.

·      Needing to know what you’re eating days in advance.

·      Using your meal plan to restrict what you eat.

A meal plan is meant to be a tool that supports flexible but somewhat more organised eating. If you resonated with any of the above, it’s probably worth checking in with a relevant professional before proceeding with meal planning.

Closing thoughts

I’m hopeful that here at the end of this blog, you’ve got a few tools up your sleeve for making meal planning less of a chore. A useful meal plan should support you to eat regularly, include a variety of foods, make shopping easier, reduce decision fatigue, and have you prepared for busy days. The best meal plans are the ones that work around your life. Sometimes that’s cooking a new recipe from scratch. Sometimes that means leftovers. Sometimes that means abandoning ship and getting a takeaway. All of this fits into a flexible and balanced approach to eating.

You might notice that I haven’t mentioned recipes, sample meal plans, or suggested portions in this blog. And that’s just because I am not you. Our preferences are probably different, our circumstances might be different, and our nutrition needs are likely different. If you want some recipe inspiration, we’re fortunate to have a few really solid kiwi cooks that publish recipes online. Our main supermarkets also have great recipe sections on their websites. If you’re struggling with meal planning, eating regularly, food rules, or your relationship with food however, working with a dietitian can help you develop an approach that is practical, flexible, and most importantly personalised to you.