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Putting a system in place makes things so much easier. To make meal planning easy you need to find a system that works for you. To plan this week’s menu I used the system that works best for me for Portion Fix meal planning. See what’s on this week’s menu and some systems that can help make meal planning easier.
Systems Make Life Easier
It’s always nice when you set out to do a task that can be overwhelming and then remember you’ve already put a system in place to make that task easier. That’s pretty much how meal planning went for me this week.
I sat down to get started with a blank slate and then remembered I didn’t have to start from zero because I had created a system. I started pulling cards from my Color Combo Meal Cards and in minutes my menu was planned. Be sure to scroll down and watch this week’s live meal planning video to see how I got it done.
Systems for Meal Planning
Now, not everyone’s brain functions the same way so it’s important to find a system that works for you. There are many different ways to go about meal planning.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Theme Nights
Assign each day of the week a theme.
- Slow Cooker Sunday
- Meatless Monday
- Taco Tuesday
- Pasta Wednesdays
- Instant Pot Thursdays
- Fish Fridays
- Sandwich Saturdays
Having a place to start will make coming up with ideas even easier.
Meal Plan File
Keep all your old meal plans in a file (printed or on your computer) and pop them open to recycle ideas. I have a file on my computer called “Menus” where I save every weekly menu I create. I’ve got hundreds of menus saved. When I need some inspiration I call pull up an old meal plan and with a few tweaks I’m instantly done with meal planning.
Visual Meal Plan File
Oh, that looks good. If you’re more of a visual person keep a file (printed or on your computer) of pictures of your favorite meals. As a blogger I pretty much snap a picture of everything before we eat. So yes, I have a file on my computer called “Menu Pics”. Sometimes when I’m looking for menu inspiration I’ll scroll through the pictures and certain items will jump out at me that I’ve forgotten about.
Meal Planning Cards
I created a meal planning card system years ago to help make meal planning easier. The cards help bring variety to my meal planning. They also help me remember some of our favorite meals that may have fallen out of rotation. You can check out my Healthy Meal Planning System post to learn how to create or own meal planning cards. Or grab the Color Combo Meal Cards I created. Even if you’re not following Portion Fix you’ll still get loads of meal ideas.
WEEKLY LIVE MEAL PLANNING
Want to see how I meal plan in real time? Check out this week’s live meal planning video.
Be sure to join me every Wednesday around 4:00 pm Central for a Live Meal Planning session in the Healthy Meal Planning, Easy Recipes & Beachbody Support group on Facebook. Click the link to join now
PRINTABLE WEEKLY MENU
The weekly menu is a word doc so you can download and make changes to suit your needs. Just click on the image below to download, edit and print.