Three Tips to Help Stick to a Daily Meal Plan

Posted on October 19, 2011 by admin

Sticking to a daily meal plan can be a major adjustment since many people are used to eating whatever they want, whenever they want. Having the specifics of breakfast, lunch, and dinner planned out forces us to pay close attention to what we are eating. This means no eating out or excessive snacking throughout the day. A healthy meal plan or even a 17 day diet meal plan can definitely be hard to follow at first. However, there are a few things we can do to help stay with it.

Daily Meal Plan Strategies

Make a meal plan that is specifically designed and tailored to your weight loss goals. Consult a nutritionist or your trainer to make sure that you’re not taking in too much or too few calories. Then, write down everything you eat in your meal plan to make sure that you’re counting calories honestly and accurately. Don’t to forget to include drinks that are not zero calories when you’re adding up your calorie count for the day. Then, analyze the times when you go over your limit and ask yourself how you can change your behavior to prevent it from happening again.
Prepare breakfast and lunch the night before. Healthy meal plans are sometimes hard to follow because of time constraints. If you have a busy schedule, cooking in the morning and in the middle of the day can be a huge hassle. That’s why so many of us end up grabbing a pastry at a coffee shop on the way to work and eating out for lunch. It’s better to prepare these meals when you have a little extra time in the evening. You can just put them in a Tupperware container and reheat the next day. This can be done every weeknight to help you stay on track with your weekly meal plan.
Find a meal planning buddy. It’s easier to succeed if you aren’t doing it alone. Find a friend who will follow weekly meal plans with you. If you’re married, a spouse can be the perfect person to fill this role, since you probably always eat dinner together anyway. Spouses and friends can start diet meal plans together if they have a shared goal of losing weight. Researchers that study group diet meal plans, like Weight Watchers, have found that people who have moral support from peers with weight loss goals lose three times the amount that the loners lose in the first year and they keep it off, too. Get your friends and family involved and you’ll have more motivation to get and stay fit.
Reward yourself if you’ve consistently followed your meal plan for a couple of weeks. You should give yourself incentives to successfully give up some of your favorite foods and stick to the plan. For instance, you could go to the movies, get a massage, or go shopping at your favorite retail store. Healthy meal planning generally saves you money in the long run because you are not buying unnecessary items at the grocery store. So, you’ll probably have a little bit of money saved up to treat yourself. Don’t, however, reward yourself by eating more! “People generally overestimate the calories they are burning with exercise, and they may reward themselves by eating more,” says lead researcher Tim Church, director of preventive-medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge. Instead, stick to your meal plan, save up some money, and do something special for yourself.

Following a meal plan isn’t always a breeze. If you prepare your breakfast and lunch the night before you eat them, you won’t become stressed about making them when you are pressed for time. Rewarding yourself for not straying from your healthy meal plan can help keep you motivated and convincing a friend or spouse to follow meal plans with you can be a huge help. Next time you’re embarking on a new diet meal plan, keep these tips in mind for ultimate success.

A Meal Planning Chart and Other Organizational Tips for Your Kitchen

Posted on October 6, 2011 by admin

If you do the majority of the cooking in your family, you know how difficult it can be to cook in a disorganized kitchen. However, you don’t necessarily need a top-of-the-line professional kitchen to make delicious meals. Before you invest in space saving appliances and have your cabinetry overhauled to accommodate your kitchen needs, simply un-clutter your counters, organize your pantry, and make a meal planning chart – you’ll feel like you’re cooking in a professional-style kitchen in no time. Here are some meal prep organizational tips for any major cooking event:

The first thing to do when preparing a complex meal is to make a meal planning chart. So, what is a meal planning chart, exactly? This kitchen helper is simply a list or chart that you can make by hand (or computer) that lists the steps to your meal. These steps can be divided up into time and put in chronological order. The chart doesn’t have to be fancy, just something to help you stay focused as you cook and prepare everything in a timely, efficient, and orderly fashion. This will greatly assist your ability to make sure all the dishes are staged correctly and come out of the kitchen at the right time. Tape your chart up on the pantry or cupboard where you’ll be cooking and check off each task as you go.
Before you even boil your water or preheat your oven make sure that you start with a completely cleared dishwasher. The last thing you want is to start cleanup only to realize that you never ran the dirty dishes through the wash cycle. This will result in a major dish pileup in the sink and a stressful after-cooking mess.
Put your trashcan directly under the ledge on which you’re cutting. This will help you cut and clean, simultaneously. Just chop, then throw the remnants into the garbage in one swoop.

Designate a “chop time” in your meal planning chart and do all your cutting at once. While you cut, put a dishtowel under your cutting board to prevent it from shifting under you. Doing all off your cutting at one time will save you time in the long haul. After chopping up all of your ingredients, put them in separate bowls, throw a piece of saran wrap over each bowl, and pop them in the fridge until you’re ready to use each ingredient. This will keep all of your items fresh until their use.
Make sure that you’re cleaning up as you go. This includes keeping surfaces sanitized and disinfected (especially if you’re cooking with raw meats!), throwing pits, ends, stubs, bones, and fats in the trash as you go, or even quickly cleaning knives and soaking pots and pans while the main dish is cooking. Since you have (hopefully) completely cleared your dishwasher before cooking, you can easily throw any bowls, utensils, or pans in the dishwasher while you cook. Find a gap in your meal planning chart in which you can designate a “clean-up time.” This designated clean-up time will allow you to clear counters and cut out some after-cooking cleaning.
After your dish is finally completed, it’s time to store your leftovers. Make sure to label and date all food: a sharpie is a Chef’s best friend! If you have any extra chopped items, store them in individual baggies or in aluminum foil for your next cooking venture.

Overall, a meal planning chart, staging cooking and clean up, and strategic cooking will help you keep your kitchen area clean and tidy. After having a clean, professional-style kitchen, you’ll never be able to go back!

Healthy Meal Planning Help for Parents with Picky Eaters

Posted on October 5, 2011 by admin

Picky eaters are a tough crowd to please, no doubt about it. You could whip up an award winning culinary masterpiece and they would still recoil from broccoli, shudder at an egg yolk, and shun cantaloupe. The best thing to do if you have a nightmarishly picky eater is to inform yourself of its causes and effects, then take action.

Why it happens

There are two factors involved behind the making of a picky palate: genetics and biology.

Genetics: That’s right, if you have a picky eater, you may have only yourself to blame. A study by the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London showed that food neophobia, or picky eating, is about 78% genetic, while the other 22% is environmental.
Biology: Okay, you may not have _only_ yourself to blame (but it’s mostly your fault). Many pediatricians contend that young children are “prewired” to select the most energy-rich foods available. Dr. Gwen Dewar informs us that, “Smaller creatures tend to have smaller, shorter digestive tracts, making it more difficult to digest food that is high in fiber and/or toxins. So natural selection has put the squeeze on little guys: They need to focus on foods that deliver a lot of energy with little bulk.” The foods with the most energy and calories? Sweets, French fries, and sodas. While such statements are still a bit controversial, it’s logical to hypothesize that children gravitate towards the sweetest and most energy-rich foods for reasons of survival.

How to React

There are plenty of different tactics that we, as parents, can take when trying to get our children to eat nutrient-rich foods. Of course, your parenting style and the severity of your child’s “food neophobia” will dictate how you should approach your child and introduce new foods. You may try some of these options when trying to get your child to eat new foods:

Work with them: Instead of working against them, work with your children. Just relax, take a deep breath, and remember that they no matter what you do, children are not going to simply change their tastes overnight. Jean Mercer, PhD, says, “As for what we can do–it’s very clear that forcing, bribing,or coaxing children to eat specific items does not increase their preference for those foods. Working to make those foods more familiar can help.” Constantly putting broccoli or a salad on the table will help your child become more familiar with these foods. Eventually, your child will come around (or so we hope!).
Playing Sneaky Mommy: If your children are severely malnourished and you are desperate to give them the proper nutrients, you may have no other option than to subtly cook with nutritious ingredients. Reference Jessica Seinfeld’s “Deceptively Delicious,” a book of recipes based on fruit and vegetable purées that are blended into food in a way that she says children won’t notice. Seinfeld’s mac & cheese includes winter squash and cauliflower, pureed and added to the recipe and disguised under low fat cheddar cheese while her hamburger patties call for cauliflower, carrots, and sprouts. Now that’s sneaky. If trying this tactic be very careful: if your deceptive plan fails, your kids could remain skeptical of your cooking for years to come.
Getting them involved: If you’re not exactly the “Sneaky Mommy” type, you could try simply getting your kids involved with your cooking. Dress them up in an apron and have a cooking day. With a behind the scenes view, your child may be less leery of the food you prepare and, fingers crossed, more eager to try it.

If you’re feeling hopeless about your picky eater situation, don’t be! Picky eating will pass in time. “Unless it becomes a huge issue, [picky eating] tends to be a little more fleeting than parents think,” says Harriet Worobey, director of the Nutritional Sciences Preschool at Rutgers University. “I know a year can seem like five to parents, but these food jags are normal.” Like Worobey says, be patient and your child will eventually reach for the veggies.

Learning about Free Diet Meal Plans

Posted on September 22, 2011 by admin

Studies by the University of Texas Division of Nutritional Sciences show that knowledge is power when it comes to weight loss. When surveying overweight mothers, researchers found that participants with greater knowledge of weight loss lost more weight than those that were less cognizant of diet, weight loss and health information. So how does your health knowledge weigh in? If you’re trying to lose weight, get informed. Thankfully there are free diet meal plans that can help you.

Informative Resources for the Dieter

The first step to getting a free diet meal plan? Get informed. Here are some ways that you can learn about diet meal plans:

Informational websites: Websites like WebMD, SparkPeople.com, and even governmental websites, like the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases website are loaded with articles and information.
Research studies: Studies published by doctors and universities are readily available via the web. For example, Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab lays out their studies in entertaining graphics, videos, and easy-to-read summaries. You can also find studies published in health books at your local library, if you’re looking to get information on a specific topic.
Medical or nutritional professional: If you’re really trying to lose weight, you might want to get in touch with your doctor, nutritionist, or trainer (or even all three) to get informed. All three of these medical professionals, and even different professionals within the health field, will give you unique data, feedback, and advice that reflects their expertise. When you are deciding on a trainer or nutritionist in particular, don’t settle. Find a professional that’s knowledgeable in their field so that you can be more informed when making your diet meal plan.
Books published by doctors, nutritionists or trainers: Books like “The Volumetrics Eating Plan” by Barbara Rolls or “Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less” by Molly Katzen and Walter Willett have revolutionized weight loss and informed thousands of dieters. Books are a great resource when you’re trying to plan your diet meal plan, so make sure to hit your local book store and find a weight loss book that reflects your personal dietary beliefs.
Health magazines: Magazines are a great way to stay motivated and get informed, without doing some heavy reading. Self and Shape magazines are great for women and Cooking Light could give any dieter great recipes for healthier eating habits.

After you’ve determined your own weight loss philosophy, either selecting a free diet meal plan or even making your own will be simple. If you do choose a program, select one that continues to educate you through the process. As long as you stay informed, you can rest assured that you’re making both smart and healthy decisions.

“Play with your food!”: Table Games and Family Meal Plans

Posted on September 21, 2011 by admin

Studies show that traditions are critical to family happiness and bonding. In fact, family traditions encourage children’s social development and provide schedule and structure to everyone’s life. According to The Pfaltzgraff Co.’s national survey, comprised of over 1,000 married men and women, the daily ritual of eating together at the dinner table is the most important way to strengthen family ties. That’s why allotting one day a week to a fun dinner with a family meal plan, is a great way to bring the whole family together. Here are some games and family meals to go along with them:

Play the Critic: Make your kids your food critics when you’re trying out new recipes. Give a “review card” to your kids to get their opinion on new meal plans or create a thumbs up or thumbs down system. This works great with exotic dishes that you’ve never tried before.
Murder Mystery: Create a story of murder and assign everyone as the suspects. You can often find murder mystery plots and clues online to help you create your own murder mystery. This game is great for bigger families with older children.
Cooking Games: Cook fun family meals, like Smiley Face Soup (with ritz crackers as the eyes and cheese as the mouth), heart-shaped pizza, or dino-shaped grilled cheese sandwiches. All you have to do is cut out the dinosaur shape with an appropriate cookie cutter and make them green with pesto or mix butter with food coloring and put the dino to the grill. Whichever way you choose, you’ll have a green dino-sandwich ready to be attacked by hungry family members.
Guess Those Ingredients: Try to make your kids and husband guess the ingredients you put in a casserole, sauce, or sides. Tally up the points and give the winner a special price!
Dress Up to Dinner: Throw a theme night and have everyone dress up in costumes to dinner. Add some meal theme ideas. Everyone will have so much fun pretending it’s Halloween every Saturday night. Try matching your outfits to your meal plans. For example, if you’re having a Scooby Doo themed night, prepare Scooby snacks (cookies in the shape of bones) for dessert with a bit of ice cream and chocolate fudge.
Board Games for Dessert: If you’re not really the “play with your food type,” skip dessert and play trivia or board games after you’re done with your meal. Even a simple board game will promote family unity and make the whole family feel closer.

With theme nights, dress up, and cooking games your kids will be able to express their creativity, even at meal time. More importantly, after just a couple of fun game nights, you’ll feel closer with your family than ever before.

Three Ways a Family Meal Plan Can Prevent Picky Eating

Posted on September 7, 2011 by admin

Choosy eating is something that many people go through at one point or another. In fact, picky eating, or “food neophobia,” is a completely healthy reaction to food for a child in their critical developmental stages. However, household picky eaters may not be making it easy on parents to prepare dinner every night. And, unfortunately, there’s no age limit to picky eating, so mom or dad may be the culprits of finicky eating, too. Luckily, a family meal plan, often aided by an online healthy meal planning service, can help provide a healthy, balanced diet to even the pickiest eaters in your household.

What is a “family meal plan?”

A family meal plan is a service, online application, or website, that helps you plan out your food for a week (or even a month). These services, like Food on the Table, allow you to select your recipes, choose the ingredients you want to work with, compare store sales, then organize and print your grocery lists.

How can a meal plan help my family?

If you sign up on a website that provides you with weekly meal plans, you’ll be able to pick from a number of ingredients, which are then combined to make recipe suggestions. Thus, you and your family can get together and decide what foods you want included in your meals and what foods you don’t. This will ensure that picky eaters find foods they like on their dinner plates. No more wasted meals!
A weekly meal plan helps you vary your meals, that way no one gets bored at dinner time with the same ol’ casserole night after night. While dining with picky eaters can sometimes get a bit dull, meal plans will give you suggestions for new recipes, that way the family cook can experiment. You can even play a little game by having picky eaters “review” new dishes, like hosts on a Food TV program. Your family will have a blast taste-testing at the table.
Healthy meal planning, when done collaboratively as a family, can encourage picky eaters to try new things. Ask picky eaters to sit down with you, look at recipes, and find what piques their interest. You may be surprised at their selections.

Using a family meal plan every week will help you please the picky eaters in your home. You never know: the fun of planning meals together might just encourage everyone in your family to venture out of their food comfort zones and go from picky eater to foodie.

Budget Meal Planning Tips: Using Coupons

Posted on September 4, 2011 by admin

Eighty-nine percent of Americans regularly use coupons when shopping for groceries according to the Nielsen Company and they are saving big, about $3 billion a year! Coupons are great assets to any family trying to meal plan on a budget. However, it can be tricky to get the most bang for your buck when using coupons. There are plenty of couponing strategies that can help you cut your grocery bills in half.

Tips for Using Coupons When Budget Meal Planning

You may have been using coupons for years, but do know all the tips n’ tricks to getting great deals? Here are some couponing secrets that may help you out in the long haul:

When cutting coupons out of the coupon insert in your newspaper, you will find a tiny date printed on the inside edge (or the side that has the binding on it, usually on the lefthand side of a book or magazine) of the coupon insert (the coupon pages that are inserted into your local newspaper). Instead of squinting and examining this date every time you go back into your coupon archives, write the date on the outside of the coupon with a sharpie to make it more visible.
Clip each group of coupons from the newspaper together to help you keep them compact. Then, store them based on your written date. You can often use these coupons for up to 6 months.
Compile your coupons as you get them by brand or type of food to save time when you need to grab them before shopping. Staple your coupon inserts or internet printouts together and cut when you’re ready to take them to grocery store.
As a general rule, buy the smallest or smaller size. When you’re looking at a bulk deal at the grocery store, do the math. Carry a calculator in your purse or simply do the calculations on your phone’s calculator function to dictate the price per ounce. While the bulk buy may be a better deal without your coupons, with the coupons you are getting more bang for your buck when purchasing the smaller item.
Buy items on rotation, based on your coupons. You’ll never be able to go and get all of your products at the same time if you’re really trying to save. Instead, buy in bulk when you’re purchasing non-perishables if you’re getting the lowest price per ounce.
Know the rules for each supermarket. Some Grocers triple coupons that are less than 50 cents, others accept competitors’ coupons. Get the facts so that you can be informed when you shop and look for coupons.

Once you master these tips, you’ll be a coupon queen in no time. With a little practice and some studying, you’ll be shocked at how much you can save when you’re using a budget grocery list and some sensible meal planning.

7 Day Diet Plan

Posted on September 2, 2011 by admin

The statistics aren’t exactly in our favor: around two-thirds of dieters regained more weight within four or five years than they initially lost. If you’ve regained all the weight you lost, you may feel as though you’ll never sustain your goal weight. However, there are ways to get back on the bandwagon and back on track after you’ve gained weight. Try starting with a simple 7 day diet plan. These plans are achievable, no fad, no starvation diet needed. If you want to get back on track, try checking out some our article on healthy family recipes for some 7 day diet meal plans, and continue with them if they work for you.

BIGGEST LOSER DIET MEAL PLAN
Nutritionist from the television show, “Biggest Loser,” Chery Forberg, RD was asked to come up with a 7 day diet plan. This plan has 3 meals and 2 snacks a day: 45% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 25% healthy fats. Also, Forberg suggests that you drink zero calorie and low calorie drinks, such as coffee, tea, and water. Designed by a nutritionist, this is an extremely healthy daily meal plan. The biggest lower diet meal plan also highly encourages 60-90 minutes of moderate exercise four times a week, so get on your bike and start spinning!

THE FULL PLATE DIET
This 7 day diet plan was developed by Lisa MacDonald, nutrition manager at Miraval Life in Balance, a spa in Tucson, Arizona. She did some healthy meal planning to help her customers lose weight and leave her facility feeling their best. The full plate diet is a nutrient-rich 7 day diet plan with a balance of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in every meal. The great thing about the plan is that it is flexible. You can mix and match parts or if you like a certain meal, then you can have it as often as you wish during the 7 day period.

CARB LOVERS DIET MEAL PLAN
If you love carbs, you may want to try a simple carb-lovers diet plan that allows you to indulge in your favorite food group. During the first week, avoid alcohol, salt, and soda as much as you can and drink plenty of water. A carb-lovers diet meal plan also recommends that you drink a specially formulated hot tea, which can help you burn off an extra 80 calories a day. Additionally, add plenty of vitamin C to your diet within the first 7 days, which can help you absorb essential nutrients. You can add some vitamin C to your diet by squeezing lemon juice in your drink or simply taking the recommended amount of vitamin C tablets. Overall, add beans and fiber to your diet to help you suppress appetite and, more importantly, _never_ skip meals.

Following a 7 day diet plan is great if you only have a few pounds to lose or if you want to trim down before a vacation or event. If you want to lose more than two or three pounds, then you will find yourself choosing a diet meal plan, such as, the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, Mediterranean Diet or a low calorie diet. If you stick to your diet, you should have no problem shedding the pounds to ultimately look and feel spectacular.