How long does it take to form a habit? Have I formed one with Meal Planning?
Some say twenty-one days (three weeks) and some say sixty-six days. Even though I’m past the twenty-one day mark for meal planning and I do feel more comfortable with kitchen skills, I would not say that I sense a habit has formed. If I became less intentional now, I would be right where I started.
Where did I start?
That’s a good question. Honestly, I think I was embarrassed to share the details of why our meal planning had hit a bad spot. My guess is that a small percentage of you have this all figured out (in which case, please tell me! I want to sing you my praise!) Our meal planning regimen looked like:
haphazard grocery shopping
reliance on my chef husband to make meals
frequent missed meals due to lack of a plan
last minute fast food, delivery or restaurant splurges.
Maybe you can relate to all or some of this lifestyle. It’s stressful, expensive and unhealthy! Yuck!
Lessons Learned from 3 Weeks of Meal Planning
- Grocery Shop Sooner than Later. This week, I went to the grocery store on Friday while Daniel was at work. It was a big stress-reliever for us. Plus, I’ve noticed that when I go, I can keep the spending at or around $100.
- Switch it up. We’ve kept some things week-over-week but this week I felt like we need to get rid of a couple things. So I added back the Mojo pork CrockPot and we decided to do Plated again (promo code below)
- Entertain. With drinks, dessert and dinner, it’s still significantly cheaper to eat in. (Yes, it helps that my husband makes food better than 90% of restaurants in our vicinity.) So, get your friends over! Tell them to bring the kids or hire the nanny, pop up the pack-n-plays and do life together! Since we started Meal Planning Madness, we have had at least one night per week with guests over.
Meal Planning Madness Week 4
I want to remind you of two special offers related to Meal Planning Madness: taco holders and Plated!
Plated Promo Code: PLATEDVIP19
We were so ecstatic to be gifted a box from Plated. It arrives Wednesday with all the ingredients for two meals and one dessert. I am so stinking happy that I get to offer you a ridiculously good deal – they are offering all of you 40% off your first 2 orders with Promo Code: PLATEDVIP19. Click this LINK.
Meal prep made easy 
meal prep made easy 
meal prep made easy meal prep made easy
Plated has been amazing. Let me know how your experience with Plated is! Tag me, message me – please let me know!
Taco Holders
Tacos are legitimately one of my favorites that Daniel prepares! He takes me back to Mexico when he makes them. I’ll be honest though – his are better! Also, we got the opportunity to work with Midelo Kitchen Products who have these amazing Taco Holders. I’ll update later today or tomorrow with a recipe as well as a promo code. So you can replicate these tacos!
This Week’s Meal Plan
What’s Next?
Well, it’s become clear to me that this is truly Phase I of Meal Planning. As I mentioned, I haven’t created sustainable habits during the first few weeks of Meal Planning Madness. Since my goal is way bigger than one month, I’ll continue to document my path, in hopes to pull anyone along who struggles like I did/do.
Phase I: Meal Plan
Improvement
In short, this exercise has been the first step toward successful meal planning. It was an extremely effective first step, in my opinion. I’ve accomplished the following:
Document Current Lifestyle of Meals
Basically, weeks 1-4 have been a documentation of our current lifestyle of meals. In short, I wrote down what I actually thought we were going to eat that week, based on what we had been eating lately. This excluded fast food and restaurants, which I was trying to cut out. It happened maybe once/week but was extremely less tempting. Honestly, this step alone made it helpful for me to understand how far off we were from the ability to get a really good meal plan. We were a lot closer than I thought! Phew!
Increased Comfort at the Grocery Store
During this time, I have become more comfortable at the grocery store. I know this sounds really dumb, but I felt a little insecure compared to my chef husband. He always knew what was good or bad, how much or little, good deals, and in season versus out of season. I knew I had a big learning curve. It was just easier to let him do all the work, because he can do it in his sleep. However, it still took him a lot of time to do.
More Efficiency
Throughout Phase I, we have been able to preempt the grocery shopping process. We are more aware that it’s coming up and we talk about it more. This has helped us cut out unnecessary purchases through overlap, week-over-week. When we wrote down the plan in the template and talk about it, we realized we had certain products in the fridge that were near end of life. So we could change our meals and avoid extra purchases:
- Less clogged fridge
- Lower grocery bill
- Reduced waste in the produce, dairy, and proteins
- One trip to store, instead of realizing we missed things (i.e. “Babe can you stop on your way home and get XYZ”)
Lifestyle Improvement
Last but not least, we just feel better. As I mentioned, we review the plan early in the week, which requires us to talk about it. We have had less surprises and are on the same page more frequently. This has allowed us to connect more on other items. We can switch things up during the week based on preference, which is a benefit of the 8-meal (versus 7-meal) plan.
Phase II: Meal Plan Improvement
Stay tuned – it’s gunna be good!
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