Meal Planning Like A Boss

So I've learned in the short time we've been doing Paleo, 3+ weeks, that meal planning is key. To maximize all your eating efforts you need to be prepared to have healthy snacks handy, readily available lunches and dinners without having to think about what you have on hand, what you want and what sounds good. If you've taken the time to do it right, your hardest choice will be which meal or to eat or make today. Trust me…it’s worth the prep. Oh and did I mention it will save you BILLIONS. Really, BILLIONS. I can prove it because that statement is now on the internet and everything on the internet is true. BOOM.

What I normally do is on Monday determine what we’re going to eat for the next week. THIS REQUIRES PLANNING. Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m not a planner – I leave that to Abel. He’s good at it; I’m good at procrastination. However, when I looked at our first two weeks grocery bills, I thought “We cannot afford this crap!”. We've saved about 50% in groceries just from a little planning. Oh and did I mention that our meals aren't boring either. Double win! I get a lot of my inspiration from blogs, Google searches and Pintrest/Punchfork. If you’re not familiar with them, go there now – like right now…genius. I’ll try and post my template files for creating meal plans sometime this week. I’ll also have an upcoming post on my shopping list methodology and tell you how to save said BILLIONS.

To tide you over until the next post; here’s my weekly meals that we made this week:

Note: Sometimes we eat them out of order; shocking, I know.

Monday

• Lunch – Bacon wrapped Chicken Breasts with Sweet Potatoes
• Dinner – Pork Shoulder with Caramelized Mashed Plantains

Tuesday

• Lunch – Pork Sausage Links with Bacon Sauteed Spinach
• Dinner – Chicken Spinach Burgers with Caramelized Onions, Bacon and Avocado with Cumin Butternut Squash

Wednesday

• Lunch – Teriyaki Chicken with Red Cabbage Slaw and Ginger Carrot Dressing
• Dinner – Grilled Lemon Salmon with Zucchini Noodles

Thursday

• Lunch –  Paleo Breakfast Strata with Roasted Green Beans and Mushrooms
• Dinner – Balsamic Skirt Steak with Cauliflower Mash

Friday

• Lunch – Paleo Bread with Roasted Chicken, Mayo and Avocado with Red Cabbage Slaw
• Dinner – Chicken Portabella BLT Stacks with Sweet Potato Chips

cd