Hot June! Menu Plan Monday

 

Wow. I just walked into the house and I think I melted my shoes a little! I'm trying to get back into the swing of posting these menus since I do plan my menu every single week without fail. I got a couple emails last week about recipes from last summer so let's see if I can get better at posting! I have a lot of ideas so I am excited to get back on it!

I have overnight oats on the menu for breakfast but I've decided to switch up to something more like chia pudding with oats. I'm trying to increase both my servings of daily dairy and protein and this little adjustment allows for that, plus a half serving of whole grains. I wish I could eat my yogurt "unsweet" but I'm not there yet. It would be healthier if I could let the carbs go. I'm keeping my regular recipe on the menu but here is what I'm eating this week:

Overnight Chia Oat Pudding

Ingredients:

1/4 Cup Old Fashioned Oats
1 Tablespoon Chia Seeds
1 Tablespoon Honey, Maple Syrup or Jam (I like Smuckers Strawberry Preserves)
1 Cup Nonfat Greek Yogurt, Plain
1/4 Cup Blueberries (or strawberries, half a banana, peaches, orange segments etc.)

Instructions:

Layer into pint jar. Stir it all together.  Cover and refrigerate overnight. 

Eat and enjoy!!

Nutrition Facts
Serving size: Tablespoon
Servings: 1
Amount per serving
Calories	320
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 5.8g	7%
Saturated Fat 0.7g	3%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 75mg	3%
Total Carbohydrate 45.5g	17%
Dietary Fiber 8g	28%
Total Sugars 20.5g
Protein 23.3g
Vitamin D 0mcg	0%
Calcium 304mg	23%
Iron 3mg	15%
Potassium 413mg	9%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calorie a day is used for general nutrition advice.
Recipe analyzed by

Enjoy this week's menu.  Let me know what you like!

Meal Planning Made Easy

 Meal Planning Made Easy 

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If you have ever been part of an organized weight-loss program, you know they place a lot of emphasis on meal planning. I'll extoll the virtues of that another time. For now, I'll share how I set up my menus and a little of the thinking behind it

I'm told, "you crave what you eat." It's true for me so that's the foundation of my menu planning. If you are struggling to lose, you might try, of all things to be more boring!  Here are the bedrocks of my meal planning:

• Eat mostly the same breakfast every week day. Caveat - I only plan breakfast for myself. The kids eat what they want to for breakfast. They also make their own lunch or buy lunch at school.
• Eat the same -- or the same foundation -- for lunch every week day. 
• Plan 3 meals a day; if you skip one  -- maybe unexpectedly eat out --put it in a "leftover" spot.
• Plan at least 2 "leftover" meals a week. 
• Use set "days," like "Taco Tuesday," to guide your planning. 
• Plan healthy meals; save indulgences for eating out and holidays
• Plan a week at a time
• Repeat menus from month to month (seasonally) - no one in my  has EVER* noticed!
• ONLY cook main dishes the whole family will eat. No time for cooking 2 meals!

Why, you may wonder, do I eat virtually the same breakfast and the same lunch 5 days a week? 3 reasons:

1. It greatly simplifies cooking and packing 
2. It's cost efficient, and . . .
3. It saves so much time

For the past two school years, I've subscribed to this plan and never regretted it. I've discovered that saying is true; by Friday I can't wait for the breakfast I know is delicious or the neatly packed lunch nestled under my desk. Here's your challenge: go ahead and try it for yourself. If you don't love how much time and energy it saves, I'll eat my hat! Okay, I'll eat it for the whole week!

As for "set days," it is my main way to simplify decisions. It turns out, my kids have subconsciously absorbed it the plan and it kind of throws them when I serve something "weird." Here are my "days" -

• Meatless Monday (although I do sometimes serve fish)
• Taco Tuesday 
• (Eat out on Wednesday)
• Pasta Thursday
• Fishy Friday

Yes, I get that it's about half the week, but it really makes life easy.  Make your own days to suit your family's sensibilities. When I do my planning, for those 4 days, I have a limited choice field, and, as well, I find those four categories are the ones that stand out when I read recipes. It eliminates "decision fatigue" and ensures a variety of foods through the week. 

Finally, this month's menu is also next month's menu. When something doesn't taste great or work for any reason, I replace it on the menu right away. Next month, it's all cleaned up and ready to go. Repeating the month's menu is a HUGE timesaver. If you are really crazy, like me, you can even save your shopping lists, but that's for another time. 

How do you plan ahead? How often do you repeat menus?  What benefits do you see? I want to hear from you! 

*As soon as I completed this draft, my son said, "Veggie Tacos AGAIN??? Where's the MEAT? " So someone DID notice that I repeated the monthly menu, haha. For the record, I'd only served Veggie Tacos twice before, but he'd just returned from three weeks on the farm and was missing all the farm-fresh meats and milk!

Menu Plan Monday

 

Menu Plan Monday 

Summer Week 1

Well, hello there! It seems like years since I sat in this space. Okay, it has been years. No excuses, just life. 

So here we are again, and I'm starting with "Menu Plan Monday." I have learned a few things over the last couple years and the main one is this: For me, planning is the key to success in healthy eating. Here is the short list of reasons:

• Having a plan means I have appropriate groceries in the house
• Menu planning avoids decision fatigue. "Decision fatigue" leads to impulsivity. Impulsivity leads to fast food!
• It saves money.
• It saves time because I am not duplicating my efforts.
• It helps me keep track of what's in the freezer and allows me to use those items.
• It simplifies food logging and/or calorie tracking
• Most important to me: It saves so much time! 

This week, I'm here alone with my 14 year old daughter and it's summer break for teachers, so I've made changes to my plan that incorporate her tastes and avoid overheating the kitchen in mid-day. 

In my next post, I'll talk a bit more about how I plan and my basic planning guidelines. For now, here is this week's menu; I hope it is helpful to you in your healthy eating efforts.

Last Friday - Tips, Tricks and Inspiration

It's the last Friday of 2013. Whew!

First, the memo: I posted my menu plan to Bright Love last Monday since it was more holiday than health-conscious, but if you're looking for ideas, there's the link.

I've been reading some interesting news in the fields of weight loss and whole health lately. Firstly this:
Restaurant labeling works and I am not surprised. While getting to the point where most restaurant fare could be called healthy is a ways off, at least with the labeling, research shows people do make better choices. Hence the tip of the week: Do take the time to read those labels and go for a healthier choice -- you will feel better about it. Did you know that California has had restaurant menu labeling laws for some time? Thus, if you plan on going to a chain restaurant, take a couple of minutes before you go to look up the restaurant online and enter your location as somewhere in California. You will then be able to see the whole menu with nutritional information. Cool, huh?

My trick of the week is an obvious one that bears restating. During these challenging holiday times, instead of saying "I can't have that" and depriving myself, only to binge later on something else. As we enter into week 2 or this long holiday time, try giving yourself permission to have a small piece or a single serving of your favorite holiday foods. Pass up any food that isn't your favorite to help offset the extra calorie expenditures. Trick 2 is one that everyone knows but seldom applies -- and this applies especially to buffets and group meals: If you take a bite of something and it is not nearly as good tasting as you thought it would be, do not take another bite. Try whatever you want to try, but only eat the really good stuff. I also make a point to pass up food we eat any time of the year -- breads, mashed potatoes, regular cake, etc -- and focus on the seasonal foods to lower the calorie cost of the whole meal. Make sense?

Although some would consider this last article bad news for someone like me, I take it as inspiration. I was actually relived to read that "healthy obesity is a myth." Yes, I have "good numbers." And as I tell my doctors, "I'm perfect on the inside." Still everything in me wants to fight the fat even though it's an epic battle with no victory yet in sight. None of my doctors will tell me to lose weight because my numbers are good. It's crazy. So I fight on for another year. What inspires you to keep fighting?

Have a safe, happy, and healthy new year!

Menu Sharing

A few months ago my smart friend Colleen suggested I start keeping my menus on Google Calendar, a resource I already use to pieces anyway.  It was a brillant idea and beat the heck out of my former paper and pencil system.

The Google calendar allows me to repeat menu items, so something that is a big hit might get repeated in 2 weeks, whereas something else yummy, but very odd -- like smoked salmon -- might only get repeated every 5 weeks.

What I truly love about this is that each week when I sit down to work on next week's menu, it is already loaded with lots of meals!  Sometimes there will even be 2 or 3 choices for each meal and I just see what "feels" right this week, then set the other meals forward a week or two.

I can now do my menus in 10 minutes where it used to take an hour or more.

This week I was wishing I could have a peek at someone else's menu;  all the kids were sick and craving comfort food; I was looking for fast inspiration!  Today I thought, "Well, why not share my menus?  Maybe they can help someone out when they feel uninspired."

I have done so.  Here is the link to my menu calendar.  It's public so you should have no trouble seeing it.  If you click on "details" you can see a link to any online version of the recipe(s); if I have a photo, it's attached which you can also see under details.  For an example of both, look at the details under my lunch entry for Feb 2, Bo Luc Lac.

Disclaimer:  I only work one week ahead, so menus for two weeks from today will be incomplete and lacking detail!

I would love to see some other folks' menus too!  If you'd consider sharing, please be sure to let me know!  Happy cooking!

(Cross posted to Bright Love)

Fit Fall Friday: Tips, Tricks and Inspiration!

Welcome to November!  Are you ready for some tips, tricks and inspiration?

Today's tip is based on a saying:  "Fail to plan and plan to fail!"  Try spending some time this weekend planning all your meals for next week.  I am now making use of Google calendar to plan my menus so I can have our favorite meals repeat in two weeks, three weeks or a month.    I note the calorie count/Weight Watcher points on the menu so I don't have to re-do the math each time.

Fat-free Salad Dressings are a trick and can actually sabotage your quest to a healthier you!   According to Fooducate, those dressings are mostly water and chemicals and that little bit of fat in your dressing will help you absorb all those great vitamins in your salad!  Read more here.

Today's inspiration is coming from you!   Think of a time when you were doing well on your weight loss journey and re-read a few journal entries or blogs from back then.  What was different then from now?  Let me know what you find and I will do the same! 

Have a wonderful "fit fall" weekend!