Meal Plan Monday No. 3

M - Teriyaki Chicken & Cauliflower Skillet with brown rice (obviously I am posting late, so we already ate this - it was awesome!! Even my picky eater gobbled it up! Yay!). The boys both said the green onions & sesame seeds made their bowls look nice and added flavor, so don't leave that stuff out! Still not sure how I got kids who love raw onions of any kind.
T - One Pan Steak & Veggies
W - Leftovers
Th - Oat Crusted Chicken with Lemon Yogurt Sauce (didn't wind up trying this last week so its back on the menu for this week) & green salad &/or steamed broccoli
F - Chicken, Bacon, & Asparagus Skillet probably with brown rice again, or quinoa

I'm starting this plan today. I've been looking at it a while and its intriguing because it has you take a test to find out your fitness personality. My results were incredibly accurate and its interesting to read about why programs & "diets" can be so hard to follow depending on your personality type. Its 9 weeks long so I'm looking forward to doing my best to follow the plan. Its easy for me to keep my eating on track if I'm following a plan. I simply can't just be one of those healthy eater type people, I need the commitment of a PLAN.

I didn't get to the gym today so after the kids are asleep I'll go get my workout in. #hardcore.

Meal Plan Monday No. 2 (and some ramblings)

I have been doing a LOT of thinking lately about my health & fitness journey. My attitude has been terrible. I am not good at balance and if I'm not all in, counting macros, working out every single day, and making myself & my family crazy, then I just don't do anything. Its one extreme to the other. Tater tot casserole! Rum & Diet Coke! Garlic bread, mmmm, soooo much garlic bread. Lean Cuisine Thai chicken spring rolls dipped in sweet chili sauce!

Unfortunately I really do feel so much better when I'm eating right and working out. Ugh! Why is that? My husband doesn't feel the need to do those things. Why should I?

Because if I don't I'll gain a bunch of weight and feel like crap! 

So I'm trying to decide on a workout plan that I can maintain. That's the easy part. I shared how much I love going to the gym and my whole routine around it in my last post.

The hard part (for me, anyway) is planning healthy dinners when you have a family. If it was just me fending for myself I could easily eat chicken, brown rice, and broccoli for dinner every night in true Fit Girl style. I don't need excitement or variety in my diet. But I have been blessed with an awesome family so I must cook for them and they DO like excitement & variety! My younger son will eat (or at least try) most anything. He wants to look like John Cena and I told him that requires lots of protein and veggies. He wants to be strong and cares about which foods are healthy and which aren't. #parentingwin

My older son, however, is getting pickier by the day. He's on a potato kick right now. Like, literally, he will make himself a baked potato for a snack. He cuts a slice down the middle and fills it with all the horrible toppings (at least he loves green onions) (but we've been going through way too many of the bagged bacon bits) and then smooshes it back together; picks it up and eats it like a burrito. No knife, no fork. Its pretty funny and I gotta give him credit that he eats the skin too. I guess as far as snacks go, it could be worse.

And honestly, I don't want to be so obsessed with healthy eating that I mess up my kids. I've seen kids of 'healthy' parents go totally berserk on camping trips and at parties because they are never allowed to eat 'bad' food. Balance ..... its all about balance.

My point with that tangent was, its a challenge to sit down every Monday and come up with four nights of dinners that my guys will actually eat. This is when I remind myself that, OK, maybe it would be easier & cheaper to be a family of fatties (again I say, tater tot casserole!!) but I don't want that for my kids. Even if some days I truly don't care about myself, I really do want to model proper health for my boys.

So here's what we will be eating this week. Every night I spread out a build-your-own-salad bar since my older pickier son will sometimes just eat three bowls of salad if he doesn't like the dinner. Whatever dude. Enjoy your salad.

Meals for 1/16 thru 1/20

M - Stuffed Cabbage Soup, heavy on the cabbage - we have two heads of cabbage in the fridge that must be eaten ASAP.
T - Tacos - we pretty much always do Taco Tuesdays around here now; I wrote about how we do taco nights before.
W - Leftovers - I have simplified my life by making Wednesday always be Leftover Night - it cleans out the fridge and also ensures that we are on time for our church meeting that night.
Th - Oat Crusted Chicken with Lemon Yogurt Sauce - I'm excited to try this; the ingredients are things I always have on hand so if we like it this will be a great quick dinner option.
F - Zuppa Toscana soup - we are having a bunch of friends over so I figured I'd make this for the adults and pop in a tray of nuggets for my picky son and any of the other kids who won't like spicy soup. #balance #funfridays

I'm also going to make a batch of these; they're the perfect midday snack. I change up the recommended seasonings to 1 tsp each of salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder, mainly because I hate mustard and most spicy spices. #boringwhitegirl

Now I'm off to choose a new workout plan and then hit the gym. I am finally going to start physical therapy for my bad knee this week so hopefully that won't change anything with what I'm able to do, workout-wise. I guess I'll find out.

Meal Plan Monday No. 1

One thing I have learned over the past few years of struggling with my weight is, having a weekly meal plan is crucial for staying on track with eating right. It helps for a ton of reasons, but for me the biggest perk is knowing what's for dinner every night, and having all the ingredients in the house prevents any last minute ordering of pizza or takeout. Plus its nice to shop once and be done for the week.

Admittedly it can be hard to find clean recipes which are also family friendly and I think this is a huge part of why eating right can be such a struggle. Its so much easier to just bake up some nuggets & tots; nobody complains about a dinner like that! My kids actually like healthy food but they definitely don't want tilapia, asparagus, and brown rice every night. So I try to create meals that are versatile. For instance, we eat tacos on a weekly basis and it works because I can have a giant salad while the hubby and kids get to enjoy tortillas, and then there's leftovers to have yummy salads for lunch over the next few days.

It does require being organized; I sit down Monday morning and look at the calendar to figure out if Juston is going to be home at dinnertime or not (I don't grill - yet!), and what the weather is like (to see if we even can BBQ or not), and what evening plans we have (you don't want to plan a complex meal when you only have thirty minutes to cook and eat before rushing out the door). It sounds like a pain but once you do it a few times its not that bad.

I'm feeling pretty unmotivated to be creative this week so here are some of the meals I fall back on when I am feeling less than inspired.

Meals for 4/25 thru 4/29

M - spaghetti & Caesar salad. My clean trick with spaghetti is, I use cottage cheese instead of noodles and mix it up with the meat sauce in a bowl - it sounds gross & weird but I swear it tastes JUST like lasagna! Sometimes I will make a loaf of garlic bread for the guys but this week I'm not going to.
T - tacos. I use ground turkey and a homemade taco seasoning mix similar to this one, then spread out a "build your own taco" bar with refried beans, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, tons of avocado (my kids love it), olives, cheese, sour cream, salsa, minced red onion, cilantro, and black beans. I mix the sour cream & salsa to use as dressing on my salad.
W - grilled steak & green salad. We have meeting (church) on this night so dinner has to be quick and possibly able to be eaten in the car ;) and also the leftovers need to be easy to throw in a Tupperware and toss in the fridge before rushing out the door.
Th - literally just as I was typing this a family member texted me saying they and a friend will be in town Thursday and could they come over for dinner? Yes of course! But having company means extra food and it needs to be on the yummier side. I'm thinking we'll try a new chicken marinade recipe and our favorite corn on the cob with chili lime butter. And for a carb side for all the normal eaters I'll just grab some dinner rolls. Easy peasy.
F - leftovers. I always schedule a free/leftover night during the week because something always comes up and I hate having a whole dinner's worth of food in the fridge that won't get cooked.
Sa/Su - I never plan meals for the weekends because we are always either entertaining or at someone else's house.

And there you have it. Super simple. The weekly meal plans for the month of May will be weird because Juston and I are going to be doing some fat cutting before we start working out in June but I am going to post them anyway. I hope you like cabbage. :)