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How Weekly Meal Planning Changed My Life

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Weekly Meal Planning helps us to eat healthily, waste less food, save money and reduce the amount of stress around meal time.

I have attempted to meal plan in the past but was never able to fully commit. I get overwhelmed with having to plan out all of our meals and eventually just give up and go grocery shopping for whatever looks good. Then I attempt to use everything we purchased by creating recipes on the spot. In all honesty, I usually fail to use everything and end up wasting food.

So what changed? Having a third child has changed things. One of my goals for this postpartum period was to limit how much we dine out and order take out. The only way to help prevent this from happening was to create a meal plan with recipes/meal ideas that were easy for Neil to put together and it has worked. Over this postpartum period, we have only eaten out at times when it was already implemented into our meal plan, we have used up 90% of our groceries, and overall we are eating more healthily than when I wasn’t meal planning. Being able to take advantage of grocery pick up from Fred Meyer (Kroger) has been a life saver as well. 

Meal planning allows us to spend less money. We aren’t running out to pick up one or two things and coming home with five. We know what we are having for dinner in advance so we are able to prepare meals and are less apt to go out to eat or order take out. 

Just remember to…

Keep it simple. Meals don’t need to be elaborate. Many of our meals are as simple as protein, grain/pasta/bread/starchy vegetable, lots of vegetables, healthy fat and sauce/condiment.

Example: BBQ Tofu (simply Amy’s BBQ sauce + Tofu), baked potatoes, massage kale salad (kale + olive oil + lemon juice + coconut aminos), chive cashew cream (chives + soaked cashews + lemon juice + ACV + S&P) and grapes for the kids. Simple, easy and loved by everyone. 

Account for snacks, treats & drinks. When planning your meals/grocery list make sure you are including your favorite snacks, treats (ice cream, chocolate, etc) and drinks. These are most often the things that we run out for and then of course that turns into picking up some additional items. 

Clean The Fridge Meal. Include a clean out of the fridge meal. This can either be eating up leftovers or simply using up any veggies and/or proteins that are left in your fridge before you do your weekly shop. 

Give Into Your Cravings. Have you been wanting pizza all week? Add it to your next meal plan. Either make it at home, pick up your favorite frozen/take-and-bake or plan for a pizza night out. In my experience when I ignore my cravings it just makes me want them more and then I end up going off plan and eating out or buy more ingredients to make what I’m craving. Now I just plan for it and I am able to save money and be more mindful about my food choices. 

Weekly Meal Rotation. Make your life easy and plan weekly meals either the same recipe every week or every two weeks. Alternatively have themed meal nights like Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday or Leftovers Night. Here are a few more themed meal night ideas. 

Keep Staples On Hand.  Meal planning sometimes has it’s hiccups so allow yourself room to improvise. For example I ordered our groceries this week and I ended up with baby spinach with a short expiry date, a bag of potatoes that had a few bad potatoes in it and some avocado crazy kids who ate 4.5 of the 6 avocados I ordered in less than 24 hours. So I had to make a few adjustments to our meals. For this reason I like to order an extra veggie and have a few staples on hand just in case. 

At first meal planning can feel like a chore and just another thing you don’t have time to do but after a few weeks you’ll find your groove and it will become easier and easier. If you have a week that gets you off track don’t fret just return to your planning the next week. 

Do you meal plan? What are some of your favorite go to meals? 

SAHM Diaries | What I Do All Day

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A few weeks back I was watching Jane’s instastories and she shared how instead of making a to-do list she decided to write down all the tasks she did each day. I thought this was such an interesting approach because as a stay-at-home parent there are many days where I feel that I never cross anything off my to-do list and end my day feeling like a bit of a failure. So I took Jane’s lead and decided to write down everything I did in an entire day but I took it one step further to basically include almost everything. Since I am a mama of a new baby I included nursing sessions because while those are nice to do they can often feel like tasks and like my life revolves around nursing*. 

Monday September 25, 2017- start time 6am

– nurse
– package up some mail to ship out
– make breakfast for myself
– nurse
– get my littles ready for the day
– coffee shop and consignment shop date with my littles
– emptied dishwasher
– hand washed a load of dishes
– removed everything from the fridge to clean, organize and declutter to take photos for this sneak peek into our fridge.
– nurse
– cook lunch
– read books with littles
– nurse
– attempt to do a barre3 workout…..but instead nurse some more
– quite time over/prepare snack for littles
– nurse
– check emails
– nurse
– put beans in instant pot for dinner
– nurse
– re-heat coffee for 5th time and play with littles
– nurse
– cook dinner
– nurse
– eat dinner
– nurse
– eat ice cream and watch gilmore girls
– nurse
– catch up on YouTube ….
– nurse
– take a shower
– nurse

11pm go to bed.

This whole process was pretty eye opening in that I honestly didn’t realize just how much I actually do in a day. While I don’t often get all my tasks done for the day I am almost constantly doing something with a few moments here in there to take a break to eat and/or relax. My days will continue to change as Ingrid gets bigger and I would say just shy of a month later our Monday’s are already a bit different. 

The reality is being a SAHM/WAHM is not a walk in the park. We don’t just sit around and do nothing all day. Most days are spent cooking, cleaning, facilitating learning (led by our children), driving places, mediating and doing a whole lot of loving. 

*This list was made right around Ingrid’s 3-month growth spurt which is why there is so much nursing. 

::Coffee Talk:: Let’s Catch Up

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I’m back! This is the first time in 10 years that I have been away from blogging for this long. This is also the first time in 10 years that I haven’t felt like I had to put out content even though mentally I just wasn’t completely focused. I’ll be real this pregnancy hasn’t been my easiest and most nights I’m in bed with Alder at 7:30pm because my stomach is just not feeling it’s best and while I don’t want to get too political this election took a huge toll on my mind and my spirit. Pregnancy + Post-Election Stress + the Holidays left me with the decision to just take a break until the new year. So it’s 2017 and I’m feeling re-energized and I have so much to share. Side note while I have been absent from this blog I have finally converted over to Instagram stories and I’m super active over there if you want to join me.

So let’s chat about a few things:

First, I’m pregnant.  Yes that’s right baby #3 is on the way. I’m officially in my second trimester and while I have shared this on social media already this is the first the blog is hearing about it. It’s been a bit of a struggle; I’ve been pretty sick this time around and with 4.5 year old and 2 year old pregnancy is just about as easy as it sounds. This pregnancy is also feeling slightly neglected and I guess that’s how third pregnancies go. I’m trying to think of some ways that I could make this pregnancy a bit more special but I’m just coming up blank – any ideas? Also any questions about this pregnancy?

Second, RWT is getting a bit of a content face lift. I am working on a post completely dedicated to this topic so keep your eyes peeled for a post regarding content in the next week or so. Also I’m always interested in hearing what you would like to see more of on RWT so share in the comments below.

Third, I’m just really excited to be back.  That’s it. Oh and I’ll be catching up on replying to comments over the next few weeks.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and I look forward to sharing another year with you. 

Happy New Year! 

Lazy-Active Weekend

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This weekend was one of those weekends where I just didn’t want to do anything but relax on the couch.  Unfortunately I have responsibilities and a husband who gets stir crazy if he stays home for too long so only about 60% of my time was spent lounging.

On Saturday morning I made my first attempt at organizing our office/spare room which used to be my office/elliptical room.  Now that we have (finally) gotten rid of the non-functioning elliptical we have tons of space to organize the office and make it into the perfect space for me to work and to practice yoga.  I love having a little quiet hideaway to get my work done, I’m so much more productive.  After a cleaning sesh Hubz convinced me to head downtown to look for new shoes and hit up the farmers market.  Finding new shoes was a bust since nice vegan shoes and boots are very limited in Burlington, we’re hopping our trips to Philly and NYC will be more fruitful.

We stopped into the farmers market in search of a vegan cupcake however all they had this week was chocolate-mint, not quite what we were looking for so instead we headed to one of our favorite eateries Zabby & Elf’s Stone Soup.  I was really in the mood for a nice cup of chili which came with two hunk of nice bread and the Hubz decided to go with the hot bar and a hunk of my bread.  Everything was so warm and delicious, perfect for a fall day.

The remainder of Saturday was spent running errands and then home to do a short yoga session, lounge and catch up on Dexter.

Sunday came and along with it a time change, this totally screwed my day up.  I was all ready to head out the door to pick up groceries when Neil pointed out at that it wasn’t 8am but rather 7am!  We waited around for a bit and then headed out to pick up our groceries for the week which included lots of root veggies, squash, Brussels Sprouts and green beans. Any idea what I might be making this week??

After grocery shopping we headed home and I decided to just relax for awhile because I wasn’t feeling great, a little bit of an upset stomach- I blame all the gluten I ate on Saturday.  I was supposed to do a 5-Miler yesterday but after waiting out to see how I was feeling I ultimately decided I just wasn’t up for it so the Hubz and I went for a 2.3 mile walk before dinner.  When we got back he changed into his running gear and went for a run and I made dinner: Black Bean & Butternut Squash Burritos with Chipotle-Cashew Sauce and a green salad.

Chipotle-Cashew Sauce:

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 4 garlic cloves, sliced
  • 1 dried chipotle pepper
  • 1 15oz can whole tomatoes, with juices
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1 tablespoon cumin powder
  • 3 tablespoons cashew pieces
  • salt and pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a small pan over med-high heat. Add the onions and cook for 3-5 minutes until translucent.  Stir in the garlic cloves and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the tomatoes, water and chipotle pepper; bring to a simmer then cover and reduce heat.  Cook for 10 minutes on low.   Stir in the cumin and cashew pieces and cook uncovered for 5 minutes. Transfer everything to a blender or food processor and process until smooth.  Return to the pan and season with salt and pepper to taste.
In other news I have temporarily givin up coffee and alcohol.  

Goals for my 26th Year

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Today marks the start of my 26th year and just like last year I have set goals for my 26th year.  Instead of doing 26 in my 26 I decided to focus on things that I am either not doing right now or things that will improve my quality of life, my health coaching and my blogging careers.
My goals for my 26th year are:
  • Attend one blogger conference (Fitbloggin, Healthy Living Summit, ect.).
  • Attend one health coaching conference/event.
  • Eat out no more than once per week.
  • Run a 10k.
  • Run a 1/2 Marathon.
  • Write one new e-book.
  • Read 10 new books.
  • Do yoga at least once per week.
  • Commit to daily blogging with high quality posts.
  • Improve my blog (quality of posts, photos, layout, appearance)
  • Find time each week to unplug (literally)
  • Work on improving my time management.
Do you set goals? How do you keep yourself on track?

My 7 Links

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Nicole tagged me in the 7 Links post that has been a trending post on a number of blogs.  Now it’s my turn to share with you posts from each category and then tag 5 other bloggers. I was really excited to get tagged to do this post but when it came down to actually doing it I was surprised at how hard it was to choose posts for each category. Here is what I came up with:

Most Beautiful: 

Photo Flashback Friday: Our Wedding May 31, 2008.  I love this post.  There are no words just photos of a very special day.

Most Popular:

Tamales and a Sunset.  Over the past few months this has been a really popular post, is it my most popular? I am not really sure.  It is a yummy recipe that you should try and there is as beautiful sunset photo and a nice photo of Neil and I. Other popular posts: Vegan “Lobster” Roll and Bagel (no)Lox

Most Emotional:

Dealing with a loss. This post briefly discusses my husband and I’s experience with our second miscarriage.  It was one of the most emotional posts to write and I honestly was unable to write everything I was feeling at the time because it was just too hard.  Maybe one day.

Surprisingly Successful: 

Kimchi Fried Brown Rice.  I wrote this post a few years ago and yet it is still bringing people to the blog.  I think it’s time to go back and remake this recipe and take a better photo because this two year old photo is awful.

Most Controversial: 

Restaurant Review: The Pulse Café- Somerville MA.  This post received a lot of backlash after I wrote it.  I was really surprised but everyone is entitled to their own opinion and mine was based on my particularly horrible experience.

Not Enough Success:

Groove Yoga.  I was a little disappointed that this post didn’t receive more action.  I thought it might spark some discussion but oh well.  I also don’t think my Italian Almond Tart got enough attention either; one of my favorite recipes I have ever made so check it out.

Most Helpful: 

My About page. I know that it isn’t exactly a blog post but it I think it is one of the most helpful posts I have ever written.  It took a lot for me to write my story from being overweight to where I am now and I hope that it was, is and will continue to be helpful for others.

Most Proud of:

 Old Port 5k Recap.  I am most proud of this because I am really proud of myself that I accomplished a long time goal.

Now it’s my turn to tag, so you’re it!

Exciting Job Interview

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I have a job interview on Wednesday that I am really excited about, however trying to not get over stressed or over excited.  The job is at the cafe at my husbands work.  The cafe serves breakfast and lunch and is focused on organic and local eating.  The cafe is not vegan however has lots of veggie options and are fine with me not wanting to work with animal products which is great. For the interview I have been asked to prepare something for the manager to try.  Since the cafe generally sells soups, salads and sandwiches I decided to go with a sandwich and soup.  I tested out a number of recipes from The Therapeutic Chef cookbook which is filled with vegan and whole food recipes. 

Squash Apple Soup, Creamy Chickpea Soup with Lemon and Parsley and Cream of Kale-Broccoli. Sandwiches are roasted portobello and the other 2 are different marinated tempeh sandwiches all three with an Omega spread

 

I’ll update you once I found out more information- fingers crossed everything goes well! 

Also I have a new blog Eat. Live. Be Healthy that is following my eating and work-out habits as well as changes to better my personal and mental health.