Meal Planning & Calorie Counting

Meal Planning

Now I know a few years ago I would have been extremely overwhelmed trying to come up with ways to be healthy, how to cook everyday for the family without throwing Chicken nuggets in the oven. I remember those days. Something that has helped me and I hope may help you is planning out our meals for an entire month. AN ENTIRE MONTH? WHAT? Stay with me here...Theme your days...Meatless Monday, Turkey Tuesday etc., I use a wonderful "free" site: www.sparkpeople.com as my place to track calories etc., for myself, but it is a great place to find recipes. So I went to Sparkpeople recipes and typed in meatless recipes and a nice list came up. I then picked out 4 meals (as that is all I need for a month of Mondays), the recipes have nutritional content listed so you know what you are choosing and it will help you count your calories or figure your points, whatever system is working for you.

Planning a month of meals really helps you to stay on track. So far it is working for me and I am seeing a few more lbs. come off. I think it is not only because it is easy to stay within my calories but I am less likely to snack late afternoons because dinner is taken care of, and it has relieved some stress in my life...which we all know makes you hold on to weight...so there you go, it's working for me. (I do not have meals planned on Wednesday's as the kids have Midweek classes at Church and eat there. So I enjoy leftovers from the previous night) My meals for the month are listed below just for an example.

MONDAY
(meatless)
----------
Meatless Lasagna
Spinach Feta Quiche
Cheese Enchiladas
Veggie soup

TUESDAY
(slow cooker)
----------
Beef & Mushrooms
Salsa Chicken
Slow Cooker Lasagna
Tacos

Wednesday
--------
X

THURSDAY
(Chicken)
---------
Chicken Parmesan
Crispy Ranch Chicken
Spinach Fettucine Alfredo w/chicken
Chicken & vegetable casserole

FRIDAY
(Turkey)
---------
Turkey Meatloaf muffins
Turkey pot pie
Tater Tot Turkey Casserole
Turkey pasta bake w/spinach

So there you have my weeknight meals for a month. Again most of these recipes were found on www.sparkpeople.com and all the nutritional information accompanies their recipes. If you have the iphone they also have an app for that :-) I use it to track everything I eat, so when I'm out and about I can add it to my tracker and that way I won't take the chance of forgetting it by the time I get home...because I have been told my "memory is as short as I am"...for those of you who do not know me I am 5 ft even...(Thank you Mr. Trumler, my high school German teacher for giving me a complex regarding my height and memory :-) just kidding!)

I hope this helps you & your healthy family recipe!