January 10, 2019

Episode 334: The Secret to Dietary Success: Meal Planning

51 minutes

Whether you're starting a new diet as part of your New Year's Resolutions or getting back into the groove after the holidays, the key to dietary success is meal planning! On this week's episode, Stacy and Sarah are here to give you their best meal planning tips to help you keep your 2019 going strong. They share their family strategies for meal planning, as well as their favorite resources and tools to save time, money, and stress and ultimately make eating healthy easy!

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The Paleo View (TPV), Episode 334: The Secret to Dietary Success: Meal Planning

(0:00) Intro

(0:40) News and views

Happy new year! This podcast is officially coming to you from 2019!

We've got a whole bunch of New Year's themed topics coming up this January so if you're starting a new diet or wellness practice or getting back into the groove of your routine, this month of the podcast is perfect for you!

(2:38) Today's topic: meal planning

One of Stacy's most frequently asked questions on social media is about her family's meal planning board.

There are many different ways to approach meal planning from extremely structured like you'll find in Stacy's cookbooks and Sarah's cookbooks or more informal and go-with-the-flow.

Meal planing is highly customizable so it's important to tailor it to what works for you, your schedule, and your preferences. That is what will set you up for success.

Start by thinking ahead:

What will my challenges be this week?

Do I have a free night to cook?

What do I want to eat this week?

What meals can I make that will give me leftovers?

Is there a night or morning that I won't have time to cook and will need leftovers?

(10:06) How Sarah's family meal plans

Sarah personally does a more informal style of meal planning because she has so much experience cooking and planning.

She buys the same staples every week - foods that her family enjoys and are easy to make - so she can throw meal together when needed.

When she first started cooking paleo, however, she preferred the more structured version of meal planning!

(12:15) How Stacy's family meal plans

Stacy's family, on the other hand, holds a weekly family meal planning meeting.

One method that's made meal planning successful is having food delivered directly to their house.

Stacy is a huge fan of Hungry Harvest because they help cut down on food waste by purchasing the foods, especially produce, that is perfectly good, but isn't "up to par" for grocery stores.

Find out where Hungry Harvest delivers here.

Stacy's family cleans out the fridge on Friday, receives their box of produce on Saturday, and based on what's in the box (because it's often a surprise!), the family creates a meal plan.

By taking the time to meal plan, Stacy's family has saved time, money, food waste, and stress!

During the family meal planning meeting, each person picks a meal they want to make that week. The boys love this! It gets them engaged in food preparation and makes them excited when their meal comes during the week.

Stacy's family made a meal planning board at an AR Workshop, but there are many different ways to make a meal plan! Stacy has found that visually displaying it has made a big difference.

(23:30) Meal planning resources and tools

This is not a sponsored podcast, but if you plan on using any of these products or services, please support Sarah and Stacy by clicking their links here in the show notes! Thank you :)

One of Sarah's favorite meal planning resources is Real Plans.

It's subscription meal planning service that will generate meal plans based on your diet preference. There are over 12,000 recipes and meal plans for Paleo, AIP, keto, etc.

Subscriptions start at just $6.

You can get incredibly specific requesting recipes with specific equipment, recipe prep time, servings, budget, etc.

You can also specify ingredients you don't want.

Based on the meal plan, the app will generate a shopping list and you can take off items you already have in your pantry.

Many bloggers, Sarah included, have their recipes on this app for an extra dollar a month! Yes, all The Paleo Mom recipes (over 300 recipes) are already loaded into Real Plans!

It turns meal planning into a 10 minute (or less) process!

Stacy loves ButcherBox, which delivers grass-fed meat to her home each month. This has helped streamline the grocery shopping process!

ButcherBox is now doing salmon! If you're interested in trying ButcherBox, for the month of January, you'll get 2lbs of Free Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon with your first order! Click here to claim that offer!

One tool that will simplify meal prep is an Instant Pot! This magical pressure cooker is perfect for making soups and stews! It pressure cooks, slow cookers, sautés, can make yogurt, rice, etc.

Sarah is a big fan of batch cooking. She likes to cook double or triple of a recipe the night before and then serves it as leftovers at another meal.

Often, while she's cooking one meal, she likes to have an extra thing cooking at the same time.

Get your questions in! We want to hear from you! And there's no end to questions we can answer and topics we can address!

Engage on social media! That's how we get feedback!

Thank you for listening.

Resources

Meal Planning: Whole 30 and Affordable Paleo Guest Blog: Meal Planning with The Foodie and The Family Our favorite cookies and cookbooks for meal planning! Month of Meals: Our Family Meal Plan January 2018 Sarah's Plantain Waffles

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