Hi all, I’ve missed you! In all the craziness of this pandemic, my life has become very busy I have now jumped into distance learning with my three children with very little time to prepare and I haven’t had time to contribute to the blog – but I am blessed that my family has not contracted the coronavirus and all that matters is our health and happiness right now so I am not complaining.
Plus, due to some health issues I’ve had recently (not pandemic related), I haven’t been able to practice yoga for a little while but luckily I am on the mend currently. Again, not complaining. Grateful for the health that I do have.
However, since I haven’t been able to exercise, I’ve reinvested my interest in nutrition. I’ve started listening to The Body Book by Cameron Diaz as an audiobook, and it has really inspired me to try to eat more whole foods. I haven’t finished the audiobook yet, in fact, I’m still on nutrition, but I have found it very interesting and motivating.
I’ve put together this meal plan for the week and I wanted to share it with all of you to save you the time and effort. My plan is to start sharing meal plans like this for you more often. I also created a shopping list, but since it’s for my family it has a number of items on it I’m sure you have no interest in.
I’ve tried all the meal planning services out there from home delivery grocery plans to online meal planning and shopping list creation and I have to say absolutely none of it has worked for me. I found myself either cooking a bunch of food that my family wasn’t interested in or not cooking it at all because it became too complicated. All of this chopped up to a waste of money, and time.
What works for me is creating my own plan, saving a doc and then I can go back and repeat weeks as I like and I can just print and go – but I’ve found that I’m the one who has to put in the work upfront to get a few weeks of great eating I know my family will enjoy together. When I don’t have time to create a new list, I just repeat one of my previous weeks. Hopefully, once I have enough weeks put together I can skip the planning part, mostly at least.
My goal of sharing this plan here is that hopefully, it can save you time by providing a starting point from which you can adjust and edit to your own preferences, and you can create your own google doc which you can save and revert back to during your busy times as well.
I haven’t included all the kid food I plan and buy on this list because, while we are constantly working on expanding their pallets, they just eat the same foods all the time and by this point, I’ve pretty much got it all memorized anyway so I don’t need to list it out. But stay tuned for my fun and healthy kid food ideas post coming soon.
I’ve separated out meals for my hubby for most meals of the day, simply because he has different tastes than me and I like to accommodate that for him while still trying to encourage him to eat more whole foods as well. The best thing is he does enjoy the occasional smoothie so I can squeeze in a lot of yummy nutrition for him there. I’ve also been baking these healthy homemade bagels with non-fat plain greek yogurt which he loves and they have a ton of protein in them to kick start the day. I listed them under his foods but I often have them too! He said he can’t eat store-bought bagels anymore after having mine! So sweet. Recipe here. My husband also loves to eat steak for dinner, which I don’t really like so I’ve indicated a couple of steaks just for him.
So, without any further ado, please enjoy your version of this real food menu for you and yours.
Real Food Week 1 Menu
Breakfast
Oatmeal with maple syrup, strawberries, bananas and flax
Coffee with almond milk
Or
Avocado Toast with a hard-boiled egg
Coffee with almond milk
Or
Smoothies
For hubby: Homemade bagels or a smoothie
Lunch
Turkey, tomato & avocado roll-ups with honey mustard on a wheat wrap with a side of salad, fresh fruit or veggies
Or
Turkey meatball and kale soup with fresh wheat bread – https://www.savorylotus.com/30-minute-turkey-meatball-kale-soup/
https://butterwithasideofbread.com/honey-whole-wheat-bread-recipe/
Hubby – Cold cut subs
Dinner
Beef Stew
https://life-in-the-lofthouse.com/crock-pot-beef-stew/
Or
Honey Garlic Chicken with potatoes and vegetables
http://blog.feelgreatin8.com/slow-cooker-honey-garlic-chicken-and-vegetables/
Also, get a steak or two for hubby to swap in one or two nights
Snacks
Fresh fruit and string cheese
Or
Peanut butter on wheat toast with banana slices
Dessert
Dove dark chocolate for me
Ice cream and cookies for hubby and the kids
Yummy drinks
Red Rasberry leaf iced tea with honey and seltzer
Strawberry basil mint infused water
Hi all, I’ve missed you! In all the craziness of this pandemic, my life has become very busy I have now jumped into distance learning wit…
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