i am about to go to the grocery store- i was wondering if anyone in Phase 1 could share some meal plans with me- I am trying to plan out 7 days and having a hard time- thank you so much!

Hi there, I too try to make out a meal plan for the week. When I am really organized.

Taco bake is good because it makes enough for leftovers for lunch the next day. Have that with a salad and you have a great meal.

The egg cups are good cause you can freeze them and again makes it easy.

Check the recipies because there are a ton of great meal ideas there. But I do try to make a little extra supper so that covers my lunch for the next day.

Good luck

Good advice, LC!

Savanna, I also make up a menu for the week before I go shopping. I rely heavily on Cooking Light for my recipes. If you have a subscription (or buy it at the newstand), you can always get access to their online library of recipes (which is incredible), but you can do a free trial for a month to see if you like it first. You can also get their yearbooks (a compilation of the year's recipes) at your local library, I bet. I also check out the SBD cookbooks (there are four or five) from my local library and have used them extensively. I've even bought a few after I realized how much I was using the library copy. I also check out other cookbooks at the library...there are several that lend themselves well to SBD cooking, even in P1. I especially like looking for veggie ideas in the Moosewood cookbooks (they're vegetarian).

Check out Cooking Light at http://www.cookinglight.com/cooking/

You'll also find fabulous ideas in our recipe forum, as LC suggested. Besides the awesome taco bake, I love the white chicken chili recipe, the chicken and eggplant casserole from the SBD cookbook (I think I posted it in our forum), ADORE Chicken Divan, and like making regular chili too. Sometimes for an easy meat, I take boneless pork chops, cut off all the fat, and pat them with Chinese 5 Spice seasoning. Then I cook them in a pan or on the grill. Delish! There are over 10 pages of recipes in the "Entrees--Phase 1" section!

Basically, if you have a form of lean meat and a decent heap of veggies, you'll be satisfied and on plan.

I really like the Eggplant bake that's in the recipe section. The spicy chicken in paper is really good too. I've gone to BJs, picked up some precut/packaged frozen stir fry veggies, and made that for dinner... sometimes add a little chicken, most of the time not. There are always BLT lettuce wraps as well, or just a HUGE salad

I don't plan a menu for the week, I 'wing' it day to day, so sometimes I get bored and don't know what to make. P1 was harder for me to find things my DH would eat so I wouldn't have to cook 2 meals.

Good luck!!!!!

Mare, those are great suggetions!

I think one of the things that makes people quit SBD is when they find themselves bored with what they're eating. There are tons of options out there, but keeping it interesting and different does take a little work and some planning.

Just as an aside, try to incorporate some form of protein at every meal. Protein takes a long time to digest, and thus you feel full longer after a meal with protein. Plus, protein helps you build muscle mass to rev your calorie-burning capacity, and it helps stablize your blood sugar to reduce the chance of cravings. If you don't like meat much, use tempeh (P2), tofu, nuts, or other meatless options...or if you're not vegan, try cheese and other dairy sources. It really does help!

This is how I've started:

I went thru the recipe files and copied & pasted any recipe that sounded good, and that DH might eat into a Word document. Then I printed out the recipes (1 per page) and sorted them into catagories, Entree, Side Dish, Misc., Faux Sweets, etc. I put all of this into a binder clearly marked South Beach, and now when I look for something to fix I go right to my book. As I fix the recipes I make notes on what we liked, and the ones that didn't go over so well just get ripped out of the book. I also made a section with a chart for DHs blood pressure records. I'm trying to work up to actually creating a shopping list based on our favorite recipes. I think I'll have to plan out menus in Excel and then copy the ingredient list onto a new worksheet. It's still a work in progress. If someone has other ideas on how to create a menu/cookbook/shopping list, I'd love to hear them.

Our big winners so far are:
Mediterannean Chicken
Taco Bake
Refried Bean Soup
Eggplant Stuffed with Beef
Chili with Lean Ground Beef or Turkey or Soy Crumbles
All Ph1 Friendly and found in the recipe forum.

For Ph 2:
Make-Your-Own WW Pita Pizzas
WW Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

I too plan out my menus for the week. It helps me to stay on plan knowing what I'll have for dinner and whether it'll include starches or not. Also a big time saver and help for knowing what to take out of the freezer or marinate the night before.

I have a system similar to dixiedieter's. I keep a running inventory of what's in the freezer - meat and veg. When I use something up I cross it off the inventory and check it on the grocery list. I have a grocery list template of all the things I consider staples in my kitchen. Each week I print this and put it on my refrigerator so I can check things off as they are used up. The night before grocery shopping, I take a look at what I've got and need to use up and plan what menus I can from that. Then I take a look at the sales from the grocery stores I frequent and decide which has the better sale that week, and add the sale items to my list. I load up on things I use a lot when they get really cheap. I also keep a folder of recipes that I want to try and I have a list of recipes on my computer as well. I do everything on the computer, including my cookbook. I try a couple of new recipes every week to keep myself interested, and if it's a winner, I copy it to the cookbook.

Maybe this sounds complicated, but I don't really spend a lot of time on it, just maybe a half hour the evening before I shop. Some weeks I find I don't need anything except to stop for lettuce and milk, and I get to do something else instead. This happens about once a month. Most of the things I make are not time-consuming, and I do a lot of cooking on Sunday afternoons for the week.

What I did last year that worked well was to write my dinners in a calendar along with the sides. I would mark it out if we didn't like it and didn't want to try it again but otherwise it was really easy to look back when trying to come up with ideas. I would include the cookbook initials (TS for Taste of Summer, QE for South Beach Quick & Easy) and SBD for the original South Beach cookbook and include the page number for the recipe. It made it a lot easier to plan meals.

I never bought a calendar for it this year and I regretted that.

thank you girls for all the help- i really like the idea of a binder- i am getting one today- i decided to just shop and plan for 3-4 days instead of a whole week- it was much easier- now i have to get through these horrible headaches!!