Yes, I confessed early on in this blog that I have tried many many diets over the years. I have even sent away for items from this man. That was back in the days before the interwebs, when you had to call in after the infomercial.
What I enjoyed about Deal a Meal was the organization of it all. You had breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks on playing cards and you mixed and matched to create menus. It added an element of fun to the otherwise daunting task of dieting.
What I have come to realize is any elements of fun associated with food lead me down a dark path, usually one involving cake. So I need to do the same level of planning, but I can not consider it a game.
One of the most useful take-aways from Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?, which I reviewed earlier this week, was the idea of Meal Planning. Walsh tasks the reader to plan out 1 week's worth of meals, make a shopping list consisting of only ingredients for those meals and shop only once a week for all those ingredients. He says if you want snacks, put them on the menu.
He advises you do this for 4 weeks, mixing up the meals from week to week, and then you have a month's worth of menus and shopping lists.
This is both a weight loss and a budgeting help as sticking to your list forces you to avoid the impulse buys that cost money and calories every week and add up on both accounts very quickly.
It is not as easy as it appears on paper though, especially when you don't have a lot of quick healthy recipes in your rotation. I am planning to tackle 1 week's worth of planning over the long holiday weekend, any great meal ideas out there?
I had forgotten all about Deal a Meal! I always found the organizational aspects of it appealing as well. I'm finding it very difficult to build up a repertoire of meals to choose from every week, which makes planning hard (and to keep it seasonal!) so I'm trying to keep track of what I'm cooking so I have ideas for later. Maybe I should put these meals on cards like Richard Simmons...
ReplyDeleteA few things I've been making a lot recently are tilapia, vegetable stir-fry (with a tasty sauce from Moosewood), and fried rice. Though with fall coming I will probably get back into soups, roasted vegetables, chili, and lasagna pretty soon.