Every afternoon you dread thinking about what’s for dinner.  You really want to eat healthy but your family isn’t on board. The thought of planning a whole week of healthy family meals is overwhelming and you have no idea where to start. Maybe you have tried meal plans before but it was too difficult.

Well no more, below are simple tips to help you incorporate healthy family meal plans into your weekly routine.

First what is healthy family meal planning? It is deciding what foods will best suit you and your family and help you to feel good about what you are feeding your family over a specific number of days. It’s easy to incorporate healthy family meal planning into your routine and I will show you how.

By incorporating healthy foods into your family meals, you help them not only stay healthy but also fuel them for all their activities they love doing. Not to mention saving your sanity and helping give you an energy boost as well.

Benefits of Healthy Family Meal Planning

There are many benefits to meal planning including being able to incorporate healthier foods into your daily routines instead of eating fast food every night (which can also save you money). It also allows for you to incorporate a variety of foods into your family’s diet.

Meal planning also reduces stress and decision fatigue because you only have to think about what meals you will be having once instead of each day. Imagine the brain space you will free up each day when you are not thinking all day about “what’s for dinner”.

It can also save money if you create a grocery list from the meal planner and only buy what is on the list. If you struggle with sticking to your list, try ordering groceries online or having them delivered.

It also saves time on trips to the store multiple times a week.

It’s easy to create a simple healthy family meal plan when you know how.

So now that we know what healthy family meal planning is and the benefits it can provide, how do you actually incorporate it into your life and keep it simple?

Keep your calendar in mind.

Look at your calendar for the week and decide which days you will have time to cook a meal. Try to plan it for days when you know you will have plenty of time to cook.

Start where you are.

If you have never meal planned, don’t try to meal plan an entire week. This can easily lead to overwhelm and then it will seem like more work than you want to put forth, and it will never happen again.  Instead try meal planning just a few days or only lunches or only dinners. The key here is to start where you are and take small steps to get to where you want to be in a way that will keep you moving forward instead of stopping.

Be flexible.

You don’t have to specify what day you will eat a specific meal. You can simply list the meals you plan to eat for the next week (or number of days you are planning). This also allows you to eat the produce that may need to be eaten first before it goes bad.

Get the family involved.

When they have a say in what they will be eating, they are more willing to try new foods and eat what is served. Encourage them to pick a variety of meals and colorful foods.

Display your healthy family meal plan.

Hanging it where everyone can see the meals will help keep you and your family accountable to the meal plan you have developed.

Tips for keeping your healthy family meal plan simple

• Pick recipes with only a few ingredients (less than 5) and incorporate especially the ingredients you already have in the pantry and are ones you know your family will eat.
• Stock your pantry of healthy staples when products go on sale, but only buy what you know your family will eat. This doesn’t mean buying 100 bottles of mustard because they are only $.10.
• Short on ideas of healthy recipes and the thought of scrolling through Pinterest or looking in cookbooks overwhelms you, ask your family and friends for their favorite healthy family meals.
• Don’t plan all new healthy recipes in one week. Although you may want to jump in feet first, avoid the temptations to do so. Making small changes and slowly incorporating healthy recipes, will help to ensure that this habit of healthy family meal planning will continue well into the future.

Pro Tip – Save your weekly healthy family meal plan and repeat it in a month.

Incorporating a healthy family meal plan can be simple, you just need to know how to get started.  The key is to not overcomplicate it.  Keep It Simple. Getting your family involved or at least on board makes it easier for you to eat healthier and feel good about the food you are feeding your family.