April 24th, 2010The Importance of Meal Planning
Posted by: Heather Leonard
Let’s be honest… between work, family commitments, and other activities, making home-cooked meals can sometimes fall by the wayside. I know I have spent many nights picking through my refrigerator and pantry hoping that something healthy and ready-made will miraculously appear, only to end up disappointed. Sure, Chinese takeout or delivery pizza can save you in a pinch, but these certainly aren’t the best options when you are trying to eat healthy. The key to avoiding the pitfall of resorting to quick and unhealthy fare is planning ahead when it comes to your meals. Not only does menu planning improve your diet, but it also saves time and money. Here are some tips for easy and effective meal planning:
- Plan in advance: Instead of wandering the aisles of the grocery stores aimlessly, make a list before you head to the store. Take the time over the weekend to decide what you would like for dinner for the week and jot down all the ingredients you will need.
- Start small: Although your family would undoubtedly appreciate a gourmet meal every night, planning and executing daily feasts is a bit too ambitious. Browse through cookbooks or recipes online to find meals that are pleasing to the eye, nutritious and easy to prepare. This will give you a better idea of what’s realistic time-wise and you can adjust your meal planning accordingly. One-pot meals or dishes that have several food groups in one item are a great option for more convenient, less extravagant meals.
- Manage your time: Don’t limit your appointment book to penciling in meetings, social engagements, and kids’ sporting events. Jot down what meals you are planning on preparing each night. Save the meals that require more prep time for days when you have more free time to ensure that your busy schedule doesn’t interfere with your meal planning.
- Cook ahead of time: If your schedule doesn’t permit you to cook something from scratch every evening, don’t be deterred and resort to hitting the speed dial button for the local pizza place. If you know you have a busy week then prepare a couple of meals over the weekend and freeze some for later in the week. Our last blog post was all about make-ahead meals, a great way to do some advanced meal planning.
- Learn to love leftovers: All your hard work on a special meal doesn’t have to be enjoyed for one night only. Leftovers can be refrigerated and eaten later in the week or used to create an entirely new meal. You can even double the recipe if you are feeding a large family to make sure that there will be leftovers.
- Be flexible: Cooking should be an enjoyable activity. Don’t get so caught up in the planning to the point it becomes a rigid routine or a burden.
Advance planning can take the stress out of mealtime and make it easier to stick to a healthy diet. So grab a cookbook and start thinking about this week’s menu.




Our March inperson classes on the UVM campus are just around the corner. And to get you all excited, we interviewed our inperson facilitator Sally Ross Nolan for you all to get to know her better and learn what she loves about Vtrim. We think you’ll all love Sally’s down to earth personality and way of telling it like it is!


Vtrim Online and the YMCA are the perfect combination for losing weight and getting healthier. YMCAs are committed to serving health seekers through their Activate America initiative in an effort to combat the obesity and lifestyle crisis we face as a nation. What are health seekers, you ask? Health seekers are individuals who want to be active and healthy but continually start and stop the process and, therefore, have been unable to sustain a commitment to healthy living. That is where Vtrim comes into play. Vtrim paves the way to sustainable weight management in an evidence-based, systematic, 12 week online program. It is not intimidating and is very doable. Did I mention it is backed by 18 years of scientific study at the University of Vermont?