Meal plans?
 

How many of you make meal plans for the day?

I was thinking of trying it out today.. normally i just make up my mind as the day goes on.. but i'm thinking of making out a meal plan for today and see how that goes.

anyone else do this?

Planning out meals in advance is way too structured for me. Just thinking about it would stress me out! I prefer to take it as it comes, preparing whatever strikes my fancy at the moment.

Suppose I plan at 6am to have chicken tonight for dinner, then at about 4pm I have an urge for steak instead? I like flexibility.

But that's just me. Other folks thrive on structure and predictability.

Hehe Lena, that's exactly how my fiance is! I, on the other hand, prefer to know in advance. I make my food for the next day at night, but then I eat most of it at work. It helps that I eat almost the exact same thing 5 out of 7 days a week. Dinner is more unstructured (unfortunately) because our schedules are so nuts. I always have good intentions, but they usually don't quite work out.

Well I've been working from home for the past year and a half, so I've never really planned any meals.

But my boss has just decided that we should get an office, and it will happen in the next month or so. I've been so good at calorie counting for the past 2 months and I'm suddenly thinking that I might have to plan meals so that I don't splurge and eat out all the time. UGH!

The only meal that I like to plan ahead of time is supper. That tends to take up a lot of my calories. Well, it makes grocery shopping more efficient too! I use Mastercook software to organize my recipes, etc., and it has a meal planning feature. Once I've selected the dinners for the week, I can print out a master shopping list. VERY NICE. I've found that if I don't have a list and just wander the aisles, I buy stuff that I really shouldn't. :) I've also learned that going shopping when hungry is also a bad idea.

Hmmm.... As I think about this, I guess I kind of DO have a mental meal plan for the day. I normally have either a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter and jam or a bowl of cereal with fruit and either yogurt or milk on it. Lunch is normally a meat sandwich with fat free cheese on light Italian bread and an ounce of baked cheetos. Leftovers are also an option as well, but since that is something we've had for supper, it has more calories typically that my sandwich and cheetos.

Kimberly

When I first started losing weight I had to plan all of my meals in advance. Now, though, I've got a standard rotation of breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus. I know the nutritional make up of them by heart and can easily interchange them as the day goes on. Even when I eat something new or go out to eat I know what I'll have to do in order to even my calories out the rest of the day. I do tend to think about dinner in advance but that is more of a schedule issue than a diet one.

At this point my advance planning has more to do with making sure I have a stocked kitchen so that I have the flexiblity I want to decide what to eat meal by meal. I think about what I might have the following day, but I don't necessarily plan it out meal by meal.

It depends on the day. This morning I planned out my day and now I know how much is available for snacks. I might not tomorrow and I know I didn't yesterday. I don't mind changing planned meals midday either.

I usually eat the same foods during the day. I used to "plan" those but now it's second nature and my mind and body are satisfied with all my mini-snacks. I have only so many meals I usually cook for dinner (I'm not creative, and my fiance has a limited list of foods he likes :) ) and I just pick what I'm making before (usu. so I can take the meat out of the freezer) and often log everything into FitDay that morning so I'll stay on track. It also lets me know if I'll be especially high or low so I can make changes as I need to.