84// How to Plan Meals So That You Can Save Yourself Headache and Stress

Meal planning week after week can feel overwhelming and frustrating at times. Well, I have a solution for you to help you simplify this process in the long term that can allow you to eat nutrient foods that your whole family will love and that you also support your thyroid. 

 

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FULL AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

(00:00):

This is episode 84, how to develop a meal planning system that works right for you and your busy life.

(00:09):

Welcome back to the thriving thyroid podcast, where we choose to become empowered patients and take our health into our own hands. Hi, I'm Shannon Hanson, a Christian entrepreneur, a mom of three. And after dealing with my own health mysteries, I made it my mission to learn everything I could about the thyroid. I soon became certified as a holistic wellness practitioner, a functional nutrition practitioner and a functional diagnostic practitioner. And so much more. After that, I founded the revolutionary thyroid program, the Hanon method as a health professional and a mom. I fully understand the importance of having a fun, simple, and sustainable plan for achieving a responsive thyroid. So I share actionable and practical strategies for developing a responsive thyroid so that the ambitious moms and women can gain freedom from fatigue and lose the thyroid weight once. And for all each week, I will be here for you along with my guest experts, we will be sharing simple and tangible tips that work for not only your thyroid, your hormones, your family, and your mindset, so that you can get back to living the life that you envision for yourself. Welcome to the thriving thyroid podcast.

(01:31):

Welcome back to today's episode. You guys, we're gonna be talking about meal planning, and I feel like this is a really important topic because it is one of the things that I think I've overlooked. especially lately where I have dismissed the importance of planning out my meals. Now I'm pretty good. I feel like I eat pretty healthy on a regular basis and I can make good choices. Now I do love me some sugar and I got back to the sugar while I was pregnant. Partly because when I was pregnant and two, when I got COVID, when I, a lot of the food didn't taste good anymore, and I was just kind of eating to survive in my third trimester and because of life, because of all of the things, because food didn't sound good because I was having a lot of food reactions and things while I was pregnant and all of the excuses in the whole entire world, I got out of practice in planning, my family meals.

(02:44):

And it was let's just go to the grocery store and buy what looks good. And with the increase in food cost and all of the different things that are happening right now. I think it's really important that not only me personally, take a step back and start planning these things out a little bit more, but then also for you guys to do that so that we can prevent more waste especially when it comes to food. I, I know I feed a lot of the food and groceries that I buy to my chickens or the pigs or , or whoever will eat them. And I'm really looking for better ways to reduce that expense for my family, so that we can have nutrient dense foods that don't cost the sit arm of the leg, or because the way that we do our budget, we have a set monthly budget.

(03:46):

I don't wanna run out of budget money because I haven't used my resources to the best of my ability. Okay. So I wanted to give you the ideas and tips that I use when planning my meals. And of course, we're gonna be giving you guys some resources here at the end of this episode. But first and foremost, what I do when I start meal planning for my family is I, well, while I'm, I'm thinking about planning my meals, I go to each person in my household and I ask them, is there something you would like to eat this week because let's face it, I'm the mom and I run about out of ideas, or there are things that I'm like, I just don't wanna cook anymore or whatever it may be. So I go to each one of them and just say, Hey, is there anything that sounds good or anything that you would like me to get to the grocery store?

(04:46):

Ultimately I have V veto power and I cannot get it, or I don't have to make it, or whatever, if it's something crazy or disgusting or that I just don't wanna make or whatever. Right. Whatever the reason is I get to be in control of that. So that's the, what first thing that I do. And a lot of times I'll do either exactly what they said, or I try to incorporate it in or I find ways to allow them that food freedom especially since I have girls. And I think that's super important that they develop good, healthy relationships with food. And I don't ever want to tell them, you know, that's not good for you, that's gonna make you fat, whatever. So that's the first thing I, that I do. The second thing that I do is I go to my fridge, my pantry, and my Frazer.

(05:47):

And I see what items, what food items, ingredients that I have that either need to be used up or that are gonna go bad or draw some kind of idea or inspiration from the things that I already have. So I'll give you an example in my fridge currently, I have a cucumber, I , I have lettuce. I have celery, I think I have maybe an onion or two. I'm trying to remember. I don't have it all in front of me, but, and then I start to think, okay, I have this, I have that, you know, what can I do with the celery? So can I do an on the log for the kids as a snack to use it up, or maybe as I am thinking about other recipes, I can find ways to incorporate the celery into my, into the foods that I'm making so that I don't waste them.

(06:50):

So I don't have to throw that, that ingredient out. Or so when it this is the only thing that's coming to mind, on this spot. So like a chicken salad sandwich, right. I might make a chicken salad sandwich for my family and use that celery as part of that, so that we can use it up and not waste it. So that's just an idea, right? Because I know that I have those ingredients. I find that my waste for food is less when I, when I do this method also looking at in the freezer, Hey, I've got chicken already. I don't need to go buy chicken. Or if, if there's a good sale on chicken, I might stock up. The next thing I like to do is look at any grocery ads. I typically just look at them on my phone.

(07:50):

I have, so we have fries here. I just downloaded the fries app. And I look on, on my phone. What's what's on sale for the week. I don't always buy what's on sale because who has time for that? Just kidding. No, I, it is important to me, but I also don't just buy something because it's on sale. Okay. I try to take that into consideration when I am planning out my meals to make sure, like, I don't know if something, so, okay. I'll, here's, here's another example. I ran to the grocery store this morning because we don't go shopping on Sundays and somebody didn't grow grocery shopping over the weekend. And we had to pack lunches and strawberries were on sale. So strawberries were super cheap this week, organic strawberries. So I was all about that. And I bought like three or four of those little carton things so that we could eat fresh throughout the, throughout the week.

(08:58):

And I can incorporate that into meals. I can incorporate that into breakfast ideas, so on and so forth. Okay. So then I sit down and I just make a list of what things I want to make. So I already gave you the example of the chicken salad sandwich. Okay. What do I need for that? I already have chicken. I already have the celery for it. I already have I make homemade sourdough bread. So that's typically what my family eats. And a lot of times I'll do like my own chicken salad sandwich as like a, a salad. just put it over some lettuce and call it good, you know, anyways. So then I make a list of all of the ideas or the thoughts that come to my mind that I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. Yeah. I think we could do that or make that work.

(09:59):

Then I know this is a lot of steps you guys, but I promise it's gonna make a world of difference. So one of the next things that I do is I look at the calendar and our schedule for that week. I keep a digital calendar it's on my phone. So it's really easy for me to just sit, sit down with pen and paper and, you know, look at the grocery ads, know what I have in my fridge pantry and just start writing things down, cuz it's all in front of me. I don't have to get up and run all over the place. Okay. So then I take into consideration what our week looks like as a family. And one of the things my husband and I do on Sunday evenings is we talk about the next week. Hey, some of the things we know are pretty standard.

(10:47):

You know, we have I have church things that happen with our youth group on Tuesdays. Our kids have church youth group that also happens on Tuesdays. My husband goes down to the church on Wednesday nights for other things. They have dance on Tuesday, you know, all of those things that are kind of pre-planned that we already know. We just briefly talk about them, but really what we're talking about is anything that might be out of the ordinary. So for example if we have a family dinner in the middle of the week or we have a birthday party or we have a different meeting or a different appointment that is out of our norm, we will update each other on. And we also keep a digital family calendar, usually it's me adding to it and my husband. Oh, okay. So, and so has dental dentist appointments or just different things like that.

(11:48):

So , we try to stay in the loop. And so that's one of the other things that I consider while I am planning my meals because Tuesdays and Wednesdays are very busy nights for our family because we have piano lessons, har lessons, dance lessons, church activities, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of the, all of the things. And so on those nights, either I need to be prepared to do something in the instant pot, in the air fryer, in the crock pot, something along those lines or a one pan one pot meal, or we're gonna end up not having something super good. We could be going out to eat. We could do be doing drive through or pickup or something because I don't have the time to cook. I have about a 45 minute window and that 45 minute window has to entail making dinner, eating dinner, getting dressed, and ready, feeding the baby and getting out the door.

(12:57):

And if I am not prepared, something's gotta give right. Something has to give. And so on those two nights, it is really important for me to take that into consideration when I'm planning my meals. And so, like I said, a one pan meal, like I've done fajitas, chicken, fajitas, steak fajitas, and I've been able to do them on one cookie cookie sheet, one pan. And I've just been able to throw, chop everything up, throw it in, and then I can go feed the baby or I can sit down and get dressed and ready or get the other kids ready or or all of the things that need to happen before moving forward. And so again, like I said, that is something that I take into consideration when planning my meals. And then the next thing is to make down, to sit down and make my list.

(13:55):

Now, when I'm really on top of all the things and I'm doing pretty good in life, this is something that my mom, I saw my mom doing, growing up when she made her grocery list, she would make the list according to the way that she shopped in the grocery store. So we typically start with the fruits and vegetables right at the beginning. And so in the first column, I would write fruits and veggies or fresh produce or whatever you want to write. And then all of the things that I need in that section is where I would put tomatoes, apples, carrots, lettuce, if you, we buy some of the salad dressing that is in that area as well. And so if I needed salad dressing or something at the beginning of the store, I would go ahead and put it in. And then, you know, moving on to meats and our, our new grocery store here, you guys, I think has set up a little weird because the next section is like the meat section typically, and maybe this is not where everybody's is, but usually what I've seen in the past is like breads past, not pastes, more breads and like the maybe deli that happens in, in the store that they have.

(15:30):

And then you go on to the meats and the butcher and all of those things. But this one is kind of different. You, you end the produce and you go straight into the meat section. And so then I would write down, you know, ground Turkey and chicken and maybe some steaks or whatever I need in that section. And then you guys get the idea, right. Kind of break the store of section by section, make your list in that way. So you're not running all over town, going back and forth and forgetting stuff. And then actually let's talk about how I plan out my week. Cause I think this is also really helpful to people. You guys probably hear baby in the background so I don't plan out breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, all of that. What I do is I plan out my breakfast and I typically just plan out maybe two, maybe three ish items that we can rotate through through the week.

(16:39):

So I might do boiled eggs at the beginning of the week and apples or I something, right? Like whatever you guys typically do, or we might do breakfast burritos or I do a lot of smoothies. Some of my kids like smoothies, some of 'em don't . And so I just typically write down like smoothie, breakfast burrito, and then maybe a Kish or something like along those lines. And so I make sure that I have items for those three areas that we'll need for that week lunches. I typically do leftovers. But sometimes, you know, you end up eating more or you don't feel like leftovers. And so I'll once again, write down two to three items for lunch ideas outside of leftovers. So maybe salad sandwiches. I try to keep lunches pretty simple for myself. Since I am a working mom with a new baby, I need fast and easy during the day, cuz I don't necessarily feel like cooking.

(17:54):

And I know many of you guys work outside the home and so cooking is not a viable option. So being able to have something quick and easy for you to grab, I think is also important. And then the big things that I'm planning out is really dinner. Dinner is the meal that, well typically I cook breakfast for my kids. They typically have a hot breakfast and, and dinner. I don't cook for lunch and I joke with my kids, especially during the summer, I'm like, you guys have to eat again. you have to get eat again. You have to have three meals a day and they just look at me like, yeah, mom . So anyways, they're, they're actually getting to the point where they can cook and prepare things themselves. So that is a new adventure that we are on. And then so dinner is the big thing that I'm planning out and then also snacks.

(18:55):

So what, what kind of snacks do I want? I typically do a lot of fruit for snacks because it's quick and easy. I can grab an apple or a pair or some grapes or some strawberries as I'm running out the door to pick up kids or drop them off or while I'm in the, a business meeting or or something like that. They're that kind of stuff is really easy for me to, to consume. The, the next point that I want to talk to you guys about is what has saved me probably the most amount of time. And I know for many of you guys, you're gonna be like, it's one more thing, Shannon, but I promise it is going to change your life. And really the whole reason why I am making this episode, okay, here it is. This is the golden goose, the big, the big Kauna something that I think every family should do, or at least do something similar to this.

(20:09):

Because like I said, it's gonna save you a ton of time and frustration and energy later on in your life. So as you make these meal plans and these grocery lists, guess what? You can save them, you can save them and put them in a binder. I find that while I love digital items, there are certain things that are just way easier for me to have on hard copies. So I created a binder and this binder has my meal plan and my grocery list attached to it. I know it's not gonna be perfect. And because that grocery list may not have, I already could have some of the items in my home or like, hold on. How do I say this? So some of the items that I currently have in my home aren't necessarily gonna go on, on the list for me to buy at the store.

(21:12):

But if I already have a meal plan and I already have some kind of working template to work off of for my grocery list, it cuts down my time and it cuts down on my energy output. And I can, let's say the meal plan I make this week sounds great this week. And then we want to do something similar in two or three weeks. I can look at those past meal plans and draw on inspiration. Oh yeah, I forgot. We made that Asian salad and we all really loved it. I'm gonna make it again. And so that prevents for me also prevents that burnout of, oh my gosh, I'm cooking the same things. Now I will say, you guys might be experiencing this right now. Cause I had a little bit of it and I even know what it is. So one of the things that happens around the changing of the season, so here in Arizona, we have gone from, you know, normal spring weather and we're in the nineties almost up to a hundred and it's may you guys.

(22:27):

And so my body, my body's nutritional needs are changing. I need more fruit, veggies, melon, things like that because I need that added water and nutrients for my body. And so some of the things that I got into a habit or a routine of cooking and preparing I'm like, it just doesn't sound good anymore. And so having some of these meal plans from a year or two years, three years ago, whatever it may be allows me to say, you know what, oh, I forgot we made that. Oh, that sounds really good. And I can draw on that inspiration even if it's not the exact same. So that is just some of the benefits of having a binder and having, you know, this system put into place for you so that you don't have to worry about the headache. You don't have to worry about the overall and the frustration or the, what am I gonna make?

(23:30):

What am I gonna prepare? And you have some of those favorite meals in there. Now the other, the one other thing that I recommend doing is if you want to get really fancy I'll tell you, I tried a new pizza dough, crust recipe, and it actually turned out really, really good. And I was like, Hey, this was way simpler than I thought. And it was tasty and easy to make. So I am incorporating that into that binder for recipes in the back because I printed it off the internet and honestly I would forget where it is. So in that binder is also those recipes that are the tried and true and proven and you know, things that you might be getting from friends or whatever that you guys have fallen in love with. And so, again, as you go back and you look at the past meal plans and things that you guys have done, you can quickly find that recipe and you don't have to try to find that on the internet and find the link and, and all of that, again, you guys, I know this takes work and I I've been doing this for over five years now.

(24:52):

It is a wonderful thing when used regularly and it can save you a lot of time and energy and frustration. But it also takes work and it takes dedication in being able to do that consistently. So have grace and patience with yourself as you are developing your own method. I know some people don't do something as intensive as me. Some people just have recipe cards and they just put all of their recipes on the cards and they look through their own recipe cards when they need ideas. And then they just take that recipe card to a calendar or whatever they have to use to plan out their meals. And that's what they're taking to the grocery store is these little recipe cards. So whatever the method is that you guys are using, don't reinvent the wheel all the time. See if there's ways for you to simplify this.

(26:01):

I love a lot of variety of foods and so doing a taco Tuesday and a something Wednesday and a something Thursday like that doesn't work for me because I need to have variation and variety and also change with the activities and our lifestyle as our kids get busier busier. So those are my nuggets today for meal planning and meal prep. And like I said, I want to give you guys a gift. And this gift is the best foods sport. So as you guys are learning to change your eating habits and patterns and incorporate more whole foods and, and do all of these wonderful things. I want you to guys to have that guide to look at and to be able to say, oh, Hey, this recipe has B choy in it. Or this recipe has spinach in it. This is going be something that is going to help me.

(27:03):

And this is gonna nourish my body. So head over to the show notes, download your best foods guide. And I will see you guys in the next, before you go. I have one other special announcement while you guys are over in the show notes, head over and check out the wait list for the Hanson method. We are opening up new enrollment. in the end of may, early June. And this is for women who want to work with us. One on one in our VI I P coaching. This includes functional testing supplements, personalized protocols for six months. So as we help you develop these different phases of your healing and restoration process, we will be walking you through each one of those steps. So head over, get on the wait list. And I will see you guys on the next,

(28:05):

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(28:19):

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