Meal Planning Without the Pressure

Does meal planning ever feel daunting to you? Does it leave you in a state of decision fatigue or dread? In this episode, listen in on a conversation I had with Jenny Cheifetz, The Flirty Vegan.

We explore the mental load so many women carry when it comes to meal planning, the power of giving ourselves grace, and practical strategies for simplifying food without sacrificing nutrition or joy.

Whether you’re curious about plant-based living, looking for ways to streamline your own meal routines, or simply wanting permission to ditch perfection for good, this episode offers relatable stories, tangible tips, and a gentle reminder that “good enough” really is enough. 

Here are three key takeaways:

Give Yourself Grace: Let go of perfectionism and redefine what “enough” looks like, especially when it comes to everyday tasks like cooking. Sometimes, dinner really can be as simple as toast and an apple!

Find Your Shortcuts and Systems: Batch cooking, simple appliances- like a rice cooker and air fryer, and having a stocked pantry save time and reduce decision fatigue. 

Honor Your Energy and Preferences: When you tune into your own likes and dislikes around things like meal prep and cleanup, you can create routines that actually fuel you instead of drain you. 

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program
• Join Kelly’s Free community on Skool
• Jenny Cheifetz The Flirty Vegan. @theflirtyvegan The Flirty Vegan Podcast
  
  

 Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

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it took a lot of personal growth work to learn how to give myself grace. Going back to that story of not needing to make a from scratch, home cooked meal every day. It's grace. So yes, I do love food. I don't always love preparing it. I don't always love shopping for it. I certainly don't love cleaning it up. Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Kibbitz, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started. Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm so excited to introduce to you my friend Jenny today. Thank you for joining me Thank you Kelly, for having me on the show. This is such a delight. You are the host of the Flirty Vegan. Tell us all about it. Yes, thank you. It really is the beautiful blend of all the things in my story that matter to me. I was actually pondering this morning, and I was thinking about all the work that I'd done throughout my life Yeah. That journey of growth meaning self inquiry and curiosity I ended up watching a nature documentary that ended up transforming my life. That message was loud and clear. If you care about the planet, you duty is to immediately go vegan. This is where I say that good girl, box checker, rule follower that had followed me since birth came in handy. I felt like I was actually following the right rule in that situation. The flirty vegan finally developed when I leaned into, all of these things that were so important to me, like personal growth, empowerment, compassion, love, joy, rest, all of it. Into one, one brand. I love that. One of the people that I've learned from has a beautiful image of a spiral. Mm-hmm. And so we're going around and we're seeing the same stories and we're experiencing it differently. One of the things that changed my life completely was getting my first coach. Something we were talking about how do you even begin this investment in yourself. The workplace that I was at paid for her. It was$2,000 for six sessions. Way past where I would've felt comfortable investing in myself. And her six sessions, one-on-one with me, literally transformed my life from somebody who had no self-awareness to somebody who wants to spend the rest of my life helping myself and others grow in self-awareness. The first tool that we used was, the Enneagram. And I began to notice, these patterns in my life can be explained by the way that I make decisions based on the things that I'm trying to avoid or the things that are making me feel safe. Anything that you've done that you've found helpful in the area of self-awareness?, I do know my human design. I've done Myers-Briggs and I've kind of done a bunch of these things over the years. I do think my human design as a manifesting generator, explained a lot, validated a lot for me. It's interesting because before I became familiar with human design, I had heard a podcast and she used this term of multi-passionate, creative. Yes. I was given so much ease and permission, yes. Just by hearing that term. And then when I learned my human design and connected the two, it was like, oh, I'm not a quitter. I just have so many interests. I'm a multi-passionate, creative manifesting generator. A lot of the people around us, the voices that were loud, were like, do one thing and do it well Don't give up. You're reading a book and you don't like it. Too bad, finish it. And if you're knitting a project and you get bored, don't stop. There's more books in the universe than you could read in a hundred Lifetimes. So. Why? Why would you spend your precious time finishing a book that doesn't interest you? I think a lot of our lives can be explained by the thoughts that we've been thinking since we were toddlers, that we never took the time to just put on the table and say, why am I thinking this? Mm-hmm. Books that are started must be finished. No, thank you. Doing one thing and doing it well and not moving on to anything else does really work well for some humans. And for other humans it's better for them to notice that it's okay to stay multi-passionate. The reason we're connecting today is. Mm-hmm. A lot of the labor of creating meals falls on the female in a family, often the mom. Mm-hmm. Even if your workload is exactly the same, you both work a full-time jobs. Studies are showing us that women are the ones who pick up all the pieces, and as we're gonna talk about in a little bit, it's not one thing. Making dinner is not one thing. It might count as a chore. Like mowing the lawn is a chore, but there's so many pieces to it. What we'd love to help people with today is some simple thoughts like leftovers or dinner. I'm so glad you said that because about 20 years ago I remember being in our first real home as a family, my husband, me and our, our infant son. And I remember talking to neighbors and this idea of cooking dinner came up. They were saying, oh, I cook dinner every night. I had a newborn, I had stopped my teaching job and I was home with my son. And I was in the midst of reading a lot of Women's Day and those kinds of magazines at the time, and I'm thinking all right. I know leftovers are a thing. These busy moms were preparing food every night. Things like grilled cheese. Mm-hmm. Hot dogs, uh, sandwiches. Even something as as grilled cheese and a soup, you still have to have all the ingredients. Yes. You still have to prepare it and clean up. I'm not diminishing that concept because that's how I live today. Right. However. My young wife, young mom, vision of cook dinner had so many more steps than that. I want to give that version of me, you know, a pat on the head and, a smile and say, these women were doing the best that they could and it was enough. Well, and it's just hard when the constant need for meals three times a day. And then you have to clean everything out. Mm-hmm. And you have to repurpose different ingredients And all of that's in your brain What I have created is called Rethink meal planning. It's a workshop where we plan in advance six weeks of meals. And that sounds really, really hard, but it's not when you name your day. And what I discovered though, as I was creating, this goes back to a tool that my oldest daughter helped me understand. I try to take one day a week where I rest, and then I fill myself with joy and I pause from doing my purpose-filled work. And that one day is a day meant to refuel me so that I'm doing work out of alignment. And one thing that I used to do on repeat on that day was go to my town dump. Because I love the feeling of things leaving my house. I love the feeling of bringing the stuff there. But I mixed up the feeling of leaving things at the dump with feeling like I love going to the dump. And she helped me say, mom, you love going to the ocean. You love going out for coffee with a friend and having a good conversation. You don't mind going to the dump, but I don't even think you like it. So we created this list where you notice what I don't like to do. What is neutral, what I am good at, and like I get a little charge from it. And what I love to do. And one of the things I think no matter how much you love cooking, having to do it every single day can take away some of that joy. And so even as the flirty vegan, someone who probably enjoys making a nutritious meal that tastes good and involves a lot of ingredients, you notice if you have to do it every single day, it does fill you with energy? Or are you somebody that also needs a break? Oh, I love that. I love that whole story. And I want to weave in your question from before about what I do for self-awareness or, um, tools. While it's not those same labeled tools that you might use, I'm sure there's overlap here. It's meditation, it's stillness, it's grace, really, Kelly. Mm-hmm. Like this. Mm-hmm. I've learned, and it took a lot of personal growth work to learn how to give myself grace. Going back to that story of not needing to make a from scratch, home cooked meal every day, it's grace. So yes, I do love food. I don't always love preparing it. I don't always love shopping for it. I certainly don't love cleaning it up. Um, but I will say. When there aren't animal products involved, the prep and the cleanup feels a lot better. But it's still a pain in the neck when you've got various pots and cutting boards and knives and tools. So that's your least favorite part, the cleanup. Isn't that everyone? No. See I love cleaning. It's so interesting. I have three adult daughters. My husband's an excellent chef. He does all of our holiday meals. I do the regular food. And I don't mind looking at recipes. But I really don't like the executing part of, do we have every ingredient? Mm-hmm. I would prefer to do a more simple ingredient, or I'm fine with replacing ingredients, which the four of them are not. That's why their food tastes so good. But I really don't mind organizing, cleaning. I just don't particularly love the actual act of cooking. I'm guessing you actually enjoy cooking. You know what? And the funny thing is with the cleanup, like sometimes I don't mind. You don't mind that. Yep. I sometimes I don't mind that, that rote work. In the house that I'm in, that, uh, we downsized and I have that kitchen window. And so I kind of like doing the dishes more here than anywhere else because I do have somewhat of a view. I do have some shrubs and, and trees and birds and clouds and it is nice. So, and that's a very meditative, gratitude filled practice. Yes. And that's what my chart helps you understand is there are probably 20 steps to making dinner. From finding the recipe to grocery shopping, to cleaning out ingredients that need to be mm-hmm thrown in the garbage to being the sous chef, and getting everything together, to cooking to clean up after. Some of those things actually give you energy. Mm-hmm. And some of the things deplete your energy. And what happens to most women is we get all of the parts. And we don't even notice what gives us energy, what doesn't. My husband loves to get good spices online'cause we have the ability to do that. What are some of the things you love about being vegan? Okay. Uh, the spices is awesome. And I always e even from my early days, of being a younger wife, I loved this idea. My husband and I, we could, we could play a drink. I don't drink. I don't drink anymore, but you could play a drinking game of how many times over the course of my marriage. I've said stocked pantry. Uhhuh it. It's a term I encountered probably on a food network show at some point. I have always prided myself on having a stocked pantry. Mm. Now there are times that it's still not stocked enough, is stocked as I think it is. And it's funny, I was making something with lentils recently and the recipe called for red lentils. As luck would have it, I had green, brown, and black. I did not have red. But you said you're someone who is open to substitution. I used all three of those colors instead of the red, and it was perfect. It just goes to show you sometimes that is how it's supposed to be. I love having the huge array of spices. I love finding them at unique little farmer's markets and, indoor vendors. I love exploring produce that I had previously, one, been afraid of. Mm-hmm. Two assumed I hated. Yeah. The crazy thing is now that produce is my world. It's getting to explore and get creative with things that. I had never touched before. Like an eggplant? Yeah. Or certain types of squash. Now it's like, oh my God. The number of things you can do with an eggplant or Brussels sprouts. It's crazy. I saw somebody on threads talk about if you don't like vegetables, it's'cause you're not roasting them at 425 like there's an easier way to enjoy your vegetables. My daughter who lives outside of New York City has changed some of her diet to tofu, to more plant-based. And then a lot of spices and Yep. Not only is it saving her money, planning the meal saves you a lot of time and energy. Sure. And so is there anything that you do that helps you save your time and your energy? A lot of people say Taco Tuesday, and it's a way to not have to think about what am I making on Tuesday night? Anything you do that either saves you time, money, or energy. Yes. Uh, and I, I love that idea. I love, you know, when people have that planner and say, pasta Monday, taco Tuesday, leftover Wednesday, whatever it is. That's great. Um, I will reiterate what I said earlier about grace. Mm-hmm. Because I think that's foundational in all of this. That if dinner is toast and an apple, fine, if, especially if you're satisfied. Right. Why are we allowing ourselves to be defined by something we read in a magazine or something we saw on Instagram? Eat what you want. If it's a bowl of cereal, have a bowl of cereal. Like stop getting so caught up in this is not the well-rounded plate that I was raised mm-hmm to think I needed to have. So there, there's the grace aspect. I know there's people who are masters of the batch cooking. I'm not gonna pretend to be, but I'm an able batch cooker. And so there are certain things that I will cook in a huge amount so that I always have it on hand during the week, let's say. I will cook massive amounts of rice at a time. I will cook massive amounts of potatoes. I downsized and got rid of most of my last house, and so I don't have all the tools and gadgets that a lot of people have. But I swear by a rice cooker. Yes. And an air fryer. Yes. And that's about all I have. That and a Vitamix. Those are my three small appliances, and so I always air fry huge amounts of diced up potatoes. I'll just crumble up tofu. Yep. Put it in the air fryer, season it in the air fryer. Mm. And then, and then I have that, and I have this massive amount of rice. And then I always have vegetables, some of which are pre-chopped, right. And pre-washed. And I think those shortcuts when yes, they are more expensive. It is more expensive, actually, not even in all cases. Right? Buying a massive container of the baby spinach or shredded kale. Those are really low ticket items. Yep. And so having the greens, having some other easy vegetables, whether it's baby carrots or um, the mini tomatoes. Yeah. Having something easy. I can build meals and so simplified. I don't want to say it's simple, but simplified. And I just want to go back to the idea of grace also extends to creativity. Mm. Again, for those of us who've spent many years reading recipe magazines, cooking magazines, watching cooking shows. We've been sold this ridiculous concept of a Michelin star meal Right at every setting. Yes. And it's not necessary. It's just about having nutritious, satisfying food. And if that looks like rice, kale, tomatoes, tofu, right. Have at it. Yeah. I do think that is a very important thing is. Two, three generations before us, there were no women's day magazines. Mm-hmm. Making you feel like you had to make this big meal on repeat. There might be one a month for a birthday or the holiday season, so. Right. I love what you said. You can batch cook your rice. I never remember to do that. That is a good reminder. I rarely air fry my potato, so I really like that too. And I agree. You can go buy either frozen vegetables or the big things with spinach and tomatoes and call it a day. I love the idea of girl dinner now, so we don't feel that pressure of just whatever you feel like putting on a plate that is your dinner for the night. And so something simple is often helpful. When you began to pivot into the vegan lifestyle, what were some of the things that you decided these were non-negotiable for you? Is it that you were only gonna cook a couple days a week? Is it that you found restaurants that could support you in this? Was there anything that helped you pivot? Because part of why we eat the food that's not really very good for us is it's easy. Right. It's easy to go through the drive through. It's easy to pick up that frozen meal. So was there anything that supported you as you moved into this lifestyle? Because I went into this lifestyle from an ethical standpoint as opposed to a health goal standpoint. The non-negotiables were the non-negotiables. As long as there were no animals on my plate, it really didn't matter to me. There was an altruistic martyr ish approach at the beginning. I don't care what I'm eating, as long as it doesn't harm an animal. So I did eat a lot of junk, a lot of processed vegan food at the beginning. Uh, which is such an interesting thing because we do live in this time period where there's so much labeled vegan or plant-based or, cruelty-free, all these things when. Most of this food existed prior to my decision to go vegan. For the people that went vegan before all of it was available, they're healthier. Mm-hmm. They didn't have the exposure to the faux meats and cheeses and ice creams and things. So I did get caught up in that world for a while. But I have always enjoyed cooking. And I've also learn the grace thing. So I will cook a lot of the same foods over and over again. I also like exploring. And there's times when social media can be mm-hmm fun. A friend of mine that I, I knew back in my early twenties that I recently reconnected with has a great account for anyone who's interested. It's WFPB. Whole food plant-based. Wf pb no SOS. In the really healthy vegan community, no SOS means no salt oil or sugar. Okay. Looking at her plate, she's a home cook. She has a job. Mm-hmm. She has a life. She is not being paid to create this content. It's inspiring to me because it's a home cook that's really just cooking basic foods in different variations on repeat. Yep. So you take things that you like and you explore. If you grew up having refried beans, yep. All right. Well there's a whole lot of other beans out there, right? So maybe you try some of the different beans. If you grew up with white rice. Now you can try brown rice, black rice, wild rice, all these different. Same with quinoa. You know, there's just different varieties of things. So to the untrained eye, it might look like I'm having the same meal day after day after day. But the components do change. So I think there's this idea of simplifying the concept. And then when you're feeling adventurous or you feel like you have a little more time now you can browse through the pasta aisle and see there's all of these other red lentil and edamame and black bean pastas. One of the things that I use in my rethink meal planning is instead of basing it around a theme like Taco Tuesday, it can be, this is the night I have rice and this is the night I have pasta, and this is the night I have a potato. One of my favorite people that does a good job with vegetarian meals, is called Justine Snacks. I love about her is she got this platform, this career during COVID. Her job, of course, like many people ended and she was just in this little tiny New York City apartment with a hot pot filming herself every day, basically making beans. She made different types of beans. And so I found her and discovered, oh I like beans when they're made well.\ It does take a little bit of time, not a lot of effort. Where you get your dried beans and you soak them overnight and then you put them in the oven for the day. And then you can freeze them and they're so delicious. They taste unlike beans that I regularly had. So you follow the person that you follow. I found a couple people on threads who make some very simple meals. If someone were to follow you, what would they be learning by following you, whether it's through the podcast or what you're doing on social media? Yeah, I hope they would learn that my approach to veganism is the blending of compassion, vibrancy as you like to talk about, love, joy, ease, and deliciousness. I don't call myself a foodie, but I did own a home-based bakery for 10 years. So I do know a thing or two about sweetss. That I I will say, and as a vegan. Mostly whole food, plant-based. I still have sweets, so I want to be clear about that. Yeah. But I hope people would find my content supportive, validating, inspiring. I do try to show things that I purchase at the grocery store. Mm-hmm. Meals that I throw together that are easy. Easy in the sense that, there's not a lot of complexity with roasting or brazing. I love that you said, here's your air fryer, here's your rice cooker, right? I take kale from the refrigerator, put it in a bowl, and as healthy as I try to be, I will admit I do use the microwave. I'll throw kale in my bowl, microwave it, then add rice, tofu, sesame seeds. Tahini or hummus or something for a little bit of moisture. I'll sprinkle on additional spices that I learn for health reasons. Right now obsessed with Black Cuban seed. A few other things that I know are promoting of the health goals I desire. The affordability factor of a whole food, plant-based diet is absolutely insane. The things in my pantry, beans, rice, pasta, things like vinegar, mustard, these are low cost items. I am a fan of canned items at this stage of my life. And so having canned tomatoes, canned beans, frozen vegetables, batch cooking the things that matter to me, like the rice and potatoes. And then just throwing it all together. I mean, tofu is one of the cheapest things at the grocery store. I know. Peanut butter. I mean, and when you flavor it, it's delicious. It's part of this is learning the spices that you enjoy. Yes. And that takes a little bit of time. From the beginning of my marriage, I aimed for this stocked pantry and the stocked spice cabinet. I keep spices longer than you're supposed to. If a recipe calls for smoke paprika and you're thinking, what am I ever gonna do with that? You will use it again. One of the things I noticed on your Instagram is you're pointing out the different colors. We live in New England, it's been a long winter. Hard to get things outside of squashes. I know you said you have canned and you have frozen, but is there any way that you help keep your week colorful so you're not just having the plain pasta? Buy local when you can. But another benefit of living in the 21st century is we do have access to foods that are not normally grown in our particular area. We can get strawberries. Yeah. And we can get mangoes and we can get some of these exotic buck Cho and um, purple cauliflowers and whatever else. We have access to all those things. I know some people that I follow say like, try to have 30 things, 30 fruits, vegetable spices across a week. Yeah. Is color how you judge that? Is it? No, actually, I'm glad you asked that because I'm actually a big fan of a brown bowl. One of my joking things is Yeah. We're kind of taught to eat the rainbow, not skittles, but vegetables. And yet you could have a super nutrient-dense meal that's entirely brown beige. If it's brown rice, brown lentils, black lentils, um, marinated mushrooms, air fried tofu, i'm obsessed with sunflower seeds. Hummus. Okay. That is a beige scale meal. Yet it has more nutrients than perhaps a salad that has iceberg tomatoes and carrots, right? So yeah, you might have a more colorful bowl with that salad, but my brown bowl had way more nutritional value. I do think about having a variety, but I don't obsess. I don't have a checklist. I don't tally off things as long as I know I am varying. And even, you know, even if people do get into food ruts and some people like food ruts. If you like something and you make it and you eat it three days a week, it is gonna save you time, energy, and money, right? Yes. And if that thing actually is nutritious, great. Wonderful. So have the Bud Bowl every day, and it's okay if it's beige. Yes, yes. And then maybe next week when you shop again instead of buying mushrooms, now maybe you buy red peppers or eggplant or bok choy. It goes back to your idea of grace, where if you enjoy the tofu and the bean and the brown rice and it's nutritious, that is a great meal. Don't worry about making it colorful. I love that. I don't think I would've known that was your answer. So I love that. That's what you shared is, I'm glad you asked it less the colorfulness and more about the nutrition and the fact that you like it and it's something that you can make on repeat. The reason that I offered this workshop is because I know that the mental load for women can be really hard. You're trying to figure out breakfast and lunch and dinner. And having to clean everything up and make sure you have the ingredients. So something like, on Tuesday night, it's always a bowl. I know I have the rice in the cabinet. I know I have some frozen vegetables. Now you're not putting a giant burden of making a whole meal with all these different parts. You've got the frozen rice, you've got the frozen vegetables, and you can take a little bit of time with some spices. What would be the smallest first step somebody who's interested in trying this out could start with? I know it's easy to get so complicated. I need to go buy all the spices and I need to learn how to press my tofu. What's a simple first step that somebody could try? The Trader Joe's extra firm is so easy to just start working with Most times I literally just hold it over the air fryer or a sheet pan, crumble it. And then I will shake over it. I always have garlic, i'm obsessed with the flavor. And then sometimes a blend. What spices would you put on it? I love the Trader Joe's Mushroom Umami. Whole Foods has a couple of different blends of curry. It doesn't have to be a spice blend, but these can make it easy. Salt, pepper, garlic, onion, sometimes I'll do Cajun blend, shake it up in the air fryer so it's well coated. Put it in my automatic air fryer setting 350 for 15 minutes. I've crumbled my tofu, I've cooked it for 15 minutes. My rice is ready, my vegetables are ready, and on Tuesday nights I use my Creole seasoning for the rest of the spring. And on Wednesday nights I use my Italian seasoning. That's how I'm gonna base my menu plan. So Jen, it was so fun to get to connect with you. If people want to hear more where would you suggest they go? Thank you for asking. Follow the Flirty Vegan on Facebook, Instagram. My podcast is called The Flirty Vegan. There's always links in my show notes to everything I have going on whatever promotions or free offers, things like that. But really just the podcast and the social media are the places to go. Thank you again for being here. And I hope today's conversation helps you live A brave, creative, purpose-filled life. Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.