How To Do A 1 Week Meal Plan Prep Efficiently
When you’re busy and days drag, a 1 week meal plan prep can make all the difference. I get it. We’re all much busier than our parents and grandparents seem to ever have been. How to make a menu plan weekly, no matter how mouthwatering, can prove a tricky endeavor. In this article, I’m going to break down how to plan a weekly menu for your family.
More than that, this easy weekly meal plan will give you all the tips you need to keep on the healthy side of things. I’ve detailed every section on how to plan meals for the week. Thus, it will soon become a healthy, enjoyable habit for you too. As a bonus, I’ve added our cool weekly food planner to make the meal prep moment even better for you – and your family!
How to DO meal-prep efficiently for a full week
When we decided to create our 1 week meal plan, we’ve sat down and wondered about cool healthy plan ahead meals for the week. It is not very useful to have a planner if you don’t know the tips and tricks to implement during meal prep, is it? A healthy weekly meal plan with grocery list is even more of a useful tool. Indeed, it can help both as a weekly dinner planner and for overall expenses. If you’re asking yourself ‘How to plan my meals for the week?’, follow these simple hacks to meal prep like a king.
1. 1 Week Meal Plan: Make a list!
An efficient 1 week meal plan starts with a shopping list – period. If you want to know how to plan meals for the week to stay within a specific food budget, a list for easy weekly meal plan prep is your new BFF. How to make a menu plan weekly? Start by thinking about what you like eating, and separate every food category into different columns – grains, fruits, cheese, etc.
A weekly food planner will come in handy later, once you’ve figured out what types of ingredients you will use as a base to save you time and money. How to plan a weekly menu for your family, especially if it’s a large family, will get instantly easier with this first organizational step.
2. Break everything down
To create an efficient 1 week meal plan, you need to know roughly what you need to eat during the day. When I think of how to plan my meals for the week, I don’t use a weekly dinner planner straight away. First, I wonder how much physical activity I will be doing that week. That helps me see roughly how many calories my body will need. The values commonly acknowledged are roughly 2000 kcal a day for a woman and roughly 2500 kcal a day for a man. It all varies according to your weight, your height, and your level of physical activity.
Breaking down the ingredients will help you in turn create a healthy weekly meal plan with grocery list. It’s actually pretty easy to make healthy plan ahead meals for the week when you know their nutritional values. It’s crucial to keep the balance between carbs, fats, and protein.
3. Avoid dishes with sauces
How to think of healthy plan ahead meals for the week? First, you need to think of dry foods such as roasted meat, grains, or veggies – without sauce. In your healthy weekly meal plan with grocery list, you can include sauces. However, they’ll have to be on one side and separate from the dry food. Why? Because the grains will get soaked by the end of a few days, as would bread with hummus on it, for instance.
In your weekly meal planner template, write down the sauce. Then, highlight it in such a way that you don’t forget it when you pack your lunch. When I sit down and work on how to plan my meals for the week, I will make sure to write on my weekly dinner planner the sauce/wet foods like tomatoes that might ‘leak’ and spoil other ingredients. Thus, I’ll know to add them only on the D day and/or keep them separate from the rest.
4. 1 Week Meal Plan: Think of healthy snacks!
It’s quite impossible to have a 1 week meal plan without healthy snacks if you want to stay in shape and eat healthily. How to make a menu plan weekly will get so much easier when you include it on your weekly food planner to buy some fresh ingredients. Think carrots, almonds, hazelnuts, or raisins. They’re all very healthy alternatives to usual chocolate bars or sugar-filled yogurts that overfeed us.
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How to plan meals for the week? Think of the main dish, and add healthy snacks to nibble on throughout the day. Plus, if you’re reading this article to learn how to plan a weekly menu for your family, that’s a real gamechanger. That way of creating an easy weekly meal plan will literally save you hours since you don’t even have to cook dried nuts and fruits.
5. In Your Weekly Meal Planner Template: Fruits, Always
Whether I’m looking for a weekly dinner planner or a 12 week year planner, my goal is always the same: being performant. I am rather unfond of wasting time, and I am not that much of a cook to start with. How to plan my meals for the week, I know. How to use a weekly meal planner template with snacks and a grocery list, I know too. I like organizing how my week is going to go. But I don’t like cooking – especially for myself alone.
That’s why we’ve put together our weekly menu planner template, a cool design to help you plan to the best. A healthy weekly meal plan with grocery list, and all the little spots you could need to take your mind off the details of meal prep. On your list, do not forget to include fruits. Their sugars and nutritional value are healthy and fulfilling – treasures of nature that should be enjoyed every day!
6. 1 Week Meal Plan: Organize yourself!
If you’re looking for a full 1 week meal plan, chances are you’re not that organized to start with. Or maybe you are also looking to improve your organizational skills. Your goal? Gaining more time to spend on yourself, on the kids, on your partner, or all three combined. And that’s fine to not be the most organized person in the world – that’s why we’ve put together this guide for an easy weekly meal plan.
How to plan a weekly menu for your family efficiently? Sit down, take a weekly food planner, and write down the most essential elements first. Meat, dried fruits, veggies, grains… Those are the ingredients that will show you how to plan meals for the week efficiently. One box can be enough. Still, you can meal plan with two bento-type boxes in mind. That will give you more freedom (but allegedly take a bit more time) while preparing your food for the week.
7. How To Make A Menu Plan Weekly: Timing matters
When creating a 1 week meal plan, you can choose to make everything on the same day, or on two different days. That really depends on you, and that’s where a weekly meal planner template will come in handy. Write down the week before the exact time you will be preparing the food for the rest of the week. A weekly meal planner template with snacks will always be even more useful as you can see straight away when you’ll need to be shopping for new snacks, especially perishable ones like fragile fruits and veggies.
I have seen some 12 week year planner templates that seemed pretty interesting for people who want a big planner once and for all. I prefer to stick to a weekly menu planner template so I don’t get lost between millions of pages and keep it up on the track to ultra-organization.
8. 1 Week Meal Plan: Think smart on a budget
We all want to know how to plan meals for the week and spare money while doing so. An easy weekly meal plan has the advantage that you can make nutritious choices without the hassle of being short on time. How to make a menu plan weekly on a budget becomes easier when you really take the time to make your own weekly food planner.
When I think of a 1 week meal plan in advance, I’ll think of the most nutritious ingredients I can include in my lunch box. How to plan a weekly menu for your family can actually be very economical. I have found it can even fit into a mid-range budget if you know how to implement these tips.
9. Weekly Meal Planner Template
We have created this cool weekly meal planner template with all the empty spots you could need. You need to think of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all the in-between snacks. Don’t worry, that’s some work that you’ll get faster at with time. It’s not difficult, just technical. A weekly meal planner template can be a great way of having fun while building your own Lego-like meals. You don’t need a 12 week year planner to start with – just focus on throwing on paper the dishes you’re best at. Then, select the ones whose sauce must be stored apart.
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On our weekly meal planner template with snacks, we’ve also included the sauces and a grocery list. That way, it’s the only thing you need to take with you when grocery shopping. Or why not take a photo to save space in your bag, and energy? Just make sure to write down all the broken-down recipes – it will save you time later on. How useful can a weekly menu planner template be, if it’s not as complete?
10. 1 Week Meal Plan: Have fun!
In the end, creating a 1 week meal plan is a fun thing to do. Sure, it requires some organizational skills to fill in a weekly menu planner template for the first time. But in the end, you get to think of all your favorite meals and look forward to every lunch break and dinner time! It might even allow you to try out new ingredients that you’ve never even thought of before starting meal prep planning.
Wrapping Up How to DO meal-prep efficiently for a full week
You don’t need a 12 week year planner to meal prep efficiently for a full week. What you need is a weekly meal planner template. On it, should be empty boxes for snacks, sauces, and a grocery list. You only need some free time to start putting together the whole week’s worth of plans. You’ll see – in the end, using a weekly menu planner template will make you gain time. Maybe that will even help you lose those few inches you’ve begged to go away. And to perfect your perfect package of a personality, here are 10 reasons why you should be reading books – thank us later!
