Weekly Meal Planner

There are many advantages of having a weekly meal planner. It makes the task of planning meals for the entire week rather easy and you do not have to keep worrying about what to cook for the next meal of the day.

When I shifted out of my parents house, there was something which always bothered me. It was what should I cook for the next meal. When I would think of something, I would realize that I had recently eaten it and had to continue with the thinking process. This went on for some time, where I also ended up eating outside quite a bit. This resulted in me accumulating a lot of weight. Once when a cousin was visiting me, she happened to comment about the weight gain. It was then I decided to take things in my hand. My mother’s advice came to my rescue. She reminded me of what would happen at my parents place with the weekly meal planner in place. The meals would be planned on Saturday of the current week for the week ahead. This helped in more than one way. All the ingredients required for the meals would be shopped for during the weekly grocery shopping. Since the meals were planned, it was rather easy to do the required preparations for the next meal. For example, if a meat dish was to be cooked for dinner, my mother would leave it in the crockpot to cook in the morning itself and it would be ready by dinner time. Often there was only one to two slots left open, where we would either do the take away or go out for food. This ensured we were eating healthy almost all the time.

When I decided, I was to organize my meals with the help of a weekly meal planner, I was stuck again. I wanted a template, so that I could use it. However, most of the meals planners I came across only mentioned, breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner column. However, I have 6 small meals a day, therefore these meals planners were not of any use to me. There were other meal planners, which were way too complicated for my taste. All I wanted was a real simple planner which would have place for all my six meals.

Weekly Meal Planner Template
Here is the template that I made, so that I could keep a track of what I plan to eat all throughout the week. The planner also has space for entering the weight at the start of the week, along with the week at the end of the week for the health conscious. I have also given space to mark the mistakes made this week. This will help me assessing, where did I falter on my diet in the said week. With the weight at the start and end of the week, how did the diet for the said week worked on me can also be assessed.

^{* B–>Breakfast / L–>Lunch / D–>Dinner / S–>Snacks}

After making the planner, I am looking for healthy weekly meal ideas. Once I have some ideas, I can plan my meals along with the grocery list. I will take all the measures required, so that I do not falter on my diet plan. If you are two people at home, then you can make a similar meal planner for two as well. Either make separate columns for two of you in the same planner or make a different plan for each. I prefer to have the planner on my laptop, rather than having it printed. If I have to print it, I am sure I will lose the sheets somewhere. While on the laptop, the data will be available in one place and it also has a eco advantage.