The Incredibly Useful Weekly Meal Planner
December 07, 2011
Does the thought of deciding what to cook for dinner tonight fill you with dread? Are you struggling to make up packed lunches for your family without sending them off with the same sandwiches everyday? If so, then using a Weekly Meal Planner could be just what you're crying out for! Now, I know that the thought of weekly meal planning is not going to inspire a sense of delight in many of you, but please still read on because you can actually gain fantastic benefits from including this simple tool in your weekly schedule.
Weekly Meal Planner
Weekly meal planning is a great tool that can save you stress, time and money. You will no longer have that horrible last-minute scramble where you finally decide what to make for dinner, only to find you don't have the key ingredient in your kitchen! Likewise, you will eat significantly healthier meals and be much less likely to succumb to ordering take-out multiple nights a week. In fact, a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
by Foster, Makris & Bailer, found that menu
planning was an effective tool for weight loss.
Here's how to complete this Weekly Meal Planner
in 5 simple steps:
in 5 simple steps:
1. Print the Weekly Meal Planner.
Simply create a free Scribd account, then click on the 'Weekly Meal Planner' link above and download or print.
2. Set Aside Time to Complete the Planner.
3. Sit Down with Your Recipe Books & Calendar or Diary.
4. Complete Your Weekly Meal Planner.
Simply fill in each box with the Recipe title and make a note of where to find the recipe.
5. Complete Your Grocery List.
You can then shop for all the ingredients that you will need to implement your Weekly Meal Planner.
As you become more practised in completing the Meal Planner, the time it will take to complete it will become shorter and shorter - especially if you develop a bank of recipes that you like to cook regularly.
3. Sit Down with Your Recipe Books & Calendar or Diary.
Use your calendar to note on the Planner what meals you will need to cook for. Then go through your recipe books and decide which recipes you would like to cook throughout the week and which nights are best for you to cook each one.
4. Complete Your Weekly Meal Planner.
Simply fill in each box with the Recipe title and make a note of where to find the recipe.
5. Complete Your Grocery List.
You can then shop for all the ingredients that you will need to implement your Weekly Meal Planner.
I suppose the final step is to follow the Planner and cook your meals!
Other useful tips to help you in completing your Weekly Meal Planner:
- You can make larger amounts of a recipe for dinner and then use the leftovers for lunch the following day.
- Use the Planner to help you to be more adventurous with your cooking. For example, you can now plan to make pancakes or waffles on the week-end.
- Finally, to save even more time in the planning stages, you could assign each day of the week with a food category, for example:
Monday = Pasta
Tuesday = Meat
Wednesday = Fish
Thursday = Take Out
Friday = Roast Chicken Dinner
Saturday = Eat Out or Help Yourself
Sunday = Left Overs
And there you have it... the easy way to plan your meals and a tool which I hope will become invaluable to you. If you have any other suggestions or would like further help with
setting up your own Meal Planner then please leave comments below or send an email to designstylebeauty@gmail.com.
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