5 Minute Meal Plannning

What's the #1 reason why people hate meal planning?
Yep... It takes too much time!

Meal planning is supposed to simplify your life. It's designed to save you time and money, not add to your frustration. Here's a really simple method that you can use to keep meal planning quick and easy.

I call this the P V C (protein - vegetable - carb) plan
Think of it this way, plan to have a protein (Red) a vegetable (Green) and a carb (Yellow) with every meal. Then fill in the blanks with what's left.
It should only take you 5 - 10 minutes to complete the meal plan.

**Ninja Tips:

• To keep things super simple repeat the same breakfast, lunch and snacks every day of the week. Then you'll only have to prepare one meal each day!
• Your dinners will be super simple. Pick a protein (chicken, fish, shrimp, turkey, lean red meat), add a vegetable, then add a carb (potato, sweet potato, rice or quinoa). It doesn't have to be fancy. 3 things - that's it!!!

Here's the process step-by-step:

1. Use the formula in your nutritional guide or click here to find your calorie target. I've chosen the 1500 - 1799 range. Once you know that target you can use the calorie chart to decide how many containers you are allowed to have each day.

2. Write your container break down on a piece of paper or use the 21 Day Fix tally sheets to track containers.

3. Use a piece of paper to make a meal chart. Label each meal and snack like this:
Breakfast:
Snack:
Lunch:
Snack:
Dinner:
Snack:

4. Assign contiainers to meals first by giving each meal a Red, Green and Yellow container
Breakfast: R - G - Y
Snack:
Lunch: R - G - Y
Snack:
Dinner: R - G - Y
Snack:

5. Cross those containers off your tally sheet and fill in the blanks with the containers that are left. That will leave you with a "formula" that you can use for every meal plan. Here's what my main formula looks like:
Breakfast: R - G - Y - P
Snack: R - P
Lunch: R - G - Y - P - O
Snack: G - B
Dinner: R - G - Y
Snack: P - tsp x 2

Once you have your main formula figured out you never have to do it again. Use it as a starting point and make adjustments if you need to. For example, my morning snack is almost always a Shakeology with berries and ice (Red - Purple), but occasionally I like to have a Shakeology with unsweetened almond milk and natural peanut butter.
Here's how I adjust for that day:
I take the yellow away from my lunch and use 2 tsp for peanut butter. My new lunch plan that day will be R - G - P - O, which could be a small summer berry chicken salad.

Sample 21 Day Fix 5-Minute Meal Plan

10 tips to keep it simple & successful:

1. Repeat the same breakfast, lunch, and snacks every day. Then you only have to prepare one meal!
2. Make one of your meals or snacks a Shakeology. In one scoop you'll have perfect nutrition without even thinking about it. At $4 a serving, that's a bargain compared to what you'd spend if you were buying breakfast or lunch out.
3. Use Team Beachbody's free account to access quick and easy recipes. Click here to set up a new FREE account with me as your coach
4. When you find a recipe that you like or that's a big hit with your family, keep it on file so it's easy to find in the future. Keep a "family favorites" folder with meal plans and recipes the whole family likes. Or use Pinterest and create a board called "favorite recipes" separate from your main recipe board for only those recipes that you ave tried and liked.
5. Network with other busy moms and share ideas. Create a Facebook recipe exchange group. Make it a public group so anyone can join in. Click here to join our 21 Day Fix Friends Recipes exchange group
6. Create theme nights like Pasta night, Taco Tuesday, Sandwich night, Meatless Monday, etc
7. Eat leftovers. Or use them to make a new dish. For example, when I make roasted vegetable, I always make more than enough. The leftovers are perfect for Pasta Prima Vera the next day. Just mix them with some pasta, extra virgin olive oil and garlic.
8. Search Pinterest or Google images for "21 day fix meal plans" and you'll find hundreds of meal plans that you can use.
9. Clean, cut and prep foods ahead of time. Spending that extra hour to wash, slice and prepare food when you get home from the grocery store might seem like a lot of work but trust me it will save you time in the long run. Wash and slice produce, hard boil some eggs, make a large batch of plain rice or quinoa, grill some chicken and portion some snack foods like grapes and cheese, almonds, hummus, etc so that they will be ready to go and you can just reach for them when it's time to eat or cook dinner. Another advantage to prepping food, you won't believe how much space this will save in your fridge!!!
10. Make a grocery list and stick to it. Make sure you have everything you need, ready to go and on-hand to make cooking a much quicker and less frustrating experience.

Ready to give 21 Day Fix a try but not sure where to start? Join our next 21 Day Fix Challenge Group and let's FIX it together step-by-step! Joining is easy, start by answering a few questions:

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Brenda