5 Practical Meal Planning Tips

Much like in life, many of us don't plan to fail, we fail to plan. If you're pursing any goal in fitness, nutrition, or otherwise, having a plan is first and foremost in your path to victory. In this article, I'll be focusing on nutrition specifically and some tips that can be practically applied to attain your goals and maintain a healthy, balanced diet.

Mix It Up!

Look at the common term, "well balanced diet." Specifically I'm focusing on the "balanced" aspect. When speaking in literal terms, if you want to balance something, you generally have to have numerous forces that level each other out. The same principle applies to food. Therefore, logic dictates that a variety of food is best. To me, one of the most practical ways of ensuring variety in my diet is to just try to include as many colors on your plate as possible. Colors are generally indicative of their nutritional composition and the types of nutrients they contain. For example, carrots get their orange pigment from high levels of beta-carotene, which helps in healthy vision.

Shop The Edges

This is pretty straight forward. When grocery shopping, avoid the center aisles when possible and stick to the outer perimeter.Usually all grocery stores are set up the same, with the fresh meat, fish, dairy and produce on the walls of the store, and processed junk food in the center of the store. This isn't to say you should NEVER buy anything unless it's placed in a specific location of your favorite grocer, but rather, should be viewed (like everything on this list) as a general rule of thumb.

Simplify Your Menu

If you've got a passion for cooking then you're already a leg up on a lot of us out there. If you're like myself, though, you probably have the most basic of culinary skills at best. So if you go into meal prepping with the aspiration of being the next Bobby Flay, then you you might find yourself a bit overwhelmed. Instead, start simple with one or two dishes that you enjoy eating, offer the nutritional profile you're looking for and master their preparation. Get to a point where they're nearly second nature for you. Once you have several go-to recipes, you can build on those and form a nice rotating menu to keep things interesting, but you'll have that steady foundation to fall back on. Taking the mental strain away of constantly trying to develop a new meal plan is a huge burden that will be lifted and really streamline the preparation process.

Condense The Boring Parts

As stated above, I'm not a chef by any stretch of the imagination. That being said, one tip more on the actual cooking side of things, is do all the chopping, dicing and peeling all at once. This is generally the most torturous and time consuming part, but if you do this at the beginning of your week, it can really be a great time hack. In addition, it leaves more time and opportunity open to prepare various options throughout the week as you can select the meat or primary ingredient closer to when you want to actually eat it, eliminating the dreaded LEFTOVER!!!!!!

PLAN! PLAN! PLAN!

When I say plan, that doesn't necessarily have to mean prep. Start by looking at your schedule and lifestyle. Then decide what's applicable to you and your family specifically. For example, my work week goes from Sunday-Thursday and I teach boot camp classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. So preparing ANY meal on Monday is just not feasible. Therefore I opt to instead do my shopping on Friday afternoon usually. The point here is that you need to take an objective look at your daily/weekly routine and make a plan based on what will actually work for you. Taking 10 minutes to map out your week and what you're realistically able to do can result in not only a healthier path, but a more efficient path.