This post was sponsored by Plan to Eat. All opinions are mine.
I must be transparent and confess that over the past few months I’ve gotten really slack with meal planning.
It started when I was writing my book. And then I organized the massive homemaking bundle sale. And then I found out our landlord is selling the townhouse we have been renting for four years and that my husband and I had to go on a frantic house hunt (more on that in a later post).
Let me tell you what hopping off the meal planning bandwagon has done for my family: It’s killed our budget, and it’s killed our waistlines (seriously!).
In a few weeks I’ll be moving, and one of the things I’m looking forward to the most is just being settled–and getting back to meal planning.
There are many benefits of meal planning, but I wanted to highlight 3:
1. Meal planning saves money.
If 5:00 p.m. rolls around and you don’t know what’s for dinner, you will either a) make a quick trip to the grocery store to purchase whatever food items it takes to whip up a quick meal (probably something like a rotisserie chicken) or b) the much worse scenario–you will load the kids up in the mini van and run through a drive-thru (let’s hope it’s Chipotle and not McDonald’s!).
I’ll tell you this: Both options above will absolutely kill your food budget. It’s a well-known fact that eating out–and purchasing convenience foods–is much more expensive than buying whole foods and cooking from scratch at home.
But you really can’t do that if you don’t have a plan.
And if making grocery lists isn’t your cup of tea, Plan to Eat is a meal planning service that has that already does it automatically! Just plan the meals and, voila!, the grocery list is made for you!
2. Meal planning helps your family stay healthy.
Again, if you are feeding your family convenience or restaurant foods all the time because of lack of planning, chances are they are not consuming the healthiest of foods. Planning out well-rounded, balanced meals is a major factor in eating healthfully.
It doesn’t have to take you hours on end to do, either. Once your recipes are loaded into your Plan to Eat account, it takes mere minutes to plan out a weekly menu.
3. Meal planning can help you lose weight.
I’ve been dabbling in (and mostly failing) Trim Healthy Mama for months now. While I’ve been reading up on it and struggling, my friend Stacy has become a huge Trim Healthy Mama convert and is now educating others on the plan! But did you catch the word plan?
The key to that particular food lifestyle–and any diet for that matter–is to eat intentionally. That means that when you’re hungry you don’t just reach for the first thing you see in your pantry.
It means that each and every meal, snack and dessert is well thought-out.
Left to my own devices, I may eat popcorn one minute and then pig out on ice cream the next.
By using a simple meal planning method like Plan to Eat, I can create intentional meal plans that will both satisfy my cravings and nourish my body–without adding to the post-babies jiggle.
So if I laud these benefits of meal planning, why has it been such a struggle for me these past few months?
I’ll tell you why: I have huge challenges in the kitchen. I am not trying to throw a pity party, but my husband is allergic to tree nuts and has quite the picky palate (he approved me saying that!); between my three girls and myself, we also have egg, gluten, dairy and high oxalate-foods sensitivities. And I’ve also been trying to wrap my mind around this whole new Trim Healthy Mama concept.
It seems that just when I start to understand one way to cook, I have to switch to another…and all my recipes go to pot.
But really? These food challenges give me all the more reason to plan ahead!
So here’s what I need to do–and you do, too. Plan to Eat is giving ALL readers a FREE one-month membership to their online meal planning service. All you have to do is go register and start adding your recipes. Easy peasy.
Now, it will take you a little while to upload your recipes…not too extremely long (unless you have thousands of recipes!), but you will need to set aside at least an hour to just focus on uploading recipes.
This is the ONLY way you will get a true taste of this amazing service! After you are finished, you will be able to start dragging and dropping and planning your weekly menus (including grocery lists!) in a flash!
I am challenging you to do this because I think far too many people get “free trials” of services like Plan to Eat and then never use them. The only way to know you if something like this will help revolutionize your meal planning (and I think it will!) is to try it.
I am challenging myself to do the same thing…with all my NEW recipes that I think will actually work with my family’s current eating habits!
If you want to see my full review on exactly how Plan to Eat works, click here.
Plan to Eat is giving away TWO one-year memberships to their meal planning site! Enter via Rafflecopter below! (If you are reading via email, you will need to click to the site to enter.)
Do you meal plan? What do you see as the benefits of meal planning?
This post was sponsored by Plan to Eat. All opinions are mine.
Ronni
How timely! I had just signed up for a PTE trial membership last night on my own. I would LOVE to win this!! 🙂
Molly Bronson
This is great! My husband & I plan weekly meals before I go shopping & that helps tremendously!
catering company Libya
Superb web site. Lots of practical information and facts right here. Now i am submitting that a number of close friends ans furthermore sharing around delicious. And clearly, thanks a lot in your work!