Keto is becoming bigger and bigger as people realize they have to change their food habits for their health. We know that obesity is a problem that is negatively affecting our health care system. Obesity is a risk factor in many chronic diseases, such as heart disease, strokes, and type 2 diabetes. So, you would think that turning to keto to reduce your health risks would be a no-brainer. Today we look at keto rule number three – meal plans and cooking.
The Importance of Meal Plans and Cooking
Have you heard the saying, if you don’t have a plan you plan to fail? Unfortunately, this is often true with keto. It’s actually true no matter what diet you try to follow. If you don’t plan ahead, it’s very easy to slide back into old habits. I get it. After a long day at work, the thought of going home, deciding what to eat, and cooking dinner can seem overwhelming. Why do you think McDonald’s thrives as a business model?
If you know your meal plan, you can at least stop the, “What are we going to have for dinner” conversation that never seems to end. You can have your meat thawing in the fridge so it’s easier to deal with. You can have your vegetables cut up in advance. And you can get to spending family time together faster. Is it easy? No. Is it easier? Yes!
Tricks for Meal Plans and Cooking
Bill and I have found a few tricks that work for us. First of all, we check the flyers each week. Sure, we want to save money, but it also gives us some ideas for meals. The hardest part of meal plans for us is coming up with ideas. Once you have some favourites, it’s easy to just go back to them until you’re sick of them. Variety is good!
Secondly, we look at our schedule for the week and plan accordingly. We aren’t going to plan a big dinner on a Wednesday evening when we both have to work the next day. Bill is definitely the cook so on days he’s going to be late, I make sure I’m comfortable with what I have to do. In other words, the simple recipes. Last week, he was going to be late most evenings. I went out and bought a precooked ham, Caesar salad, an Unbun frozen pizza, and hot dogs. Three easy meals.
Thirdly, we live and die by leftovers. We make enough dinner so we can take the same thing for lunch the next day. Put the leftovers in a microwave-safe container, and you are ready for the next day. I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner. It’s so easy and it’s a good meal the next day at lunch.
Do Meal Plans and Cooking One Week at a Time
Wouldn’t it be nice if we did it all in one weekend and then not do any more cooking for the whole month? We’ve all been there. Sure, it would be great to not worry about meal planning and cooking for a month, but is that realistic?
We found it was not realistic for us. We don’t have the freezer space for one thing. It would require us going out and buying a new one. Which would be fine, if we were going to commit to doing it. But we also found that we couldn’t really afford all those ingredients all at once. That’s a lot of food. We also knew that some of the food, like cheese or alfredo sauce, wouldn’t hold up once frozen, so we’d have to do some cooking each night anyway. For us, it just wasn’t worth it.
Getting Meal Plans that are Already Done
You can go online and get some meal plans that are all done and ready to go. I haven’t had much luck with these. For one thing, they don’t necessarily have ingredients I like or have on hand. Like I said, I’m not a cook, so if Bill isn’t home, I’m not trying anything fancy! You also have to pay for most of them. I glance at the free ones to get ideas, but I’m not willing to pay for it when I can just sit down and do it. I find it better to do it yourself. Carb Manager also has a good article that outlines ideas for doing a meal plan.
How We Do It
So, here is what we do. We sit down and plan out dinners for a week. From that, we make a shopping list. On our list, we include what we want to take to work for snacks (like almonds and cheese snacks). On the weekends, I try to cook what we will have for breakfasts for the week. This might be cheesy biscuits, blueberry muffins, or French toast muffins. We also cook some bacon up in the air fryer.
Finally, I make something for our desserts for the week. Often these are fat bombs that give us the feeling of a dessert after dinner. It’s still a lot of work, but it is worth it to not worry about meals throughout the week. We can instead focus on what’s important – like motorcycles!
Wendy
