Meal Planning When You're Busy

 “But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” —1 Corinthians 14:40 (NLT)

Think about these 4 steps to prep and how you can work them into your new routine

1. Keep it simple. Choose 2–3 proteins for the week (like chicken, ground turkey, or salmon). Eggs for breakfast and Greek yogurt for a snack.

2. Add easy sides. Frozen veggies, bagged salad kits.

3. Batch cook once or twice. Grill all the chicken on Sunday, cut up your veggies for snacks or roasting. Prep a pot of chili for quick lunches or an east crockpot meal. 

4. Have grab-and-go items. Yogurt cups, boiled eggs, protein bars, fruit cups, carrot chips and hummus.

Heavenly Father, meal prep seems so daunting to me, will you remove that lie that’s holding me back from being accountable with my food choices? Create in me a clean heart around meal prep Lord. Father, help me to be wise with my time and resources. Give me creativity to plan meals that nourish my body and peace when I fall short. May my kitchen be a place of order and blessing, not stress. Thank you for new mercies each day! In Jesus’ name, amen.

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and NOT losing weight?

Hey there friend, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late twenties and struggled for years to get it off. Seven years ago, I found a basic system that worked and has helped me lose 90 of those pounds. I’ve been working with women in online fitness and nutrition ever since to break chains of diet culture, embrace their bodies and fueling instead of dieting.

In this podcast, I'll teach you how to:

• • Lose Weight in a Way that honors God without obsessing about the scale
  • Meal Plan and Prep for Your Family
  • Follow a MACRO based plan that allows you to eat the foods you love.
  • Recognize and pray through triggers keeping you stuck.
  • I’ll help you Plan your week and schedule your self-care time.
  • Cultivate a spirit of self-discipline in your workouts you actually enjoy.
  
  It's time to give God your health journey and watch Him make you new, from the inside, OUT.

Join The Biblical Weight Loss Framework: https://www.herweightlossmindset.com/framework

Join my FREE Community: https://bit.ly/JoinTheChristianWeightLossCommunity

Join my Insiders List with weekly tips for weight loss for Christian women: http://herweightlossmindset.com/herweightlossmindsetinsiders

Transcript

1 Corinthians 14.40 from the NLT says, But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. Oh my goodness. Okay, sis, let's be real.

Maybe you struggle with knowing what to eat, but if you're like me, we definitely struggle with planning ahead. Life is busy, right?

Like between work, family, church, all the responsibilities on your plate, cooking can feel overwhelming and sometimes impossible.

But without a plan, the drive-through often becomes the plan, and who wants to fill your body with all of that nasty stuff? Who can even afford to eat fast food these days? It is so expensive.

Like what happened to the 89-cent cheeseburger? Do you remember those days? Today, I'm going to offer some tips that you can apply right now with your meal prep.

So grab your matcha tea and a pen and let's get to work. Are you sick of trying diet after diet and not losing weight? Are you tired of doubting your ability to actually lose weight in a healthy way?

Do you wish you could find a laid out for you plan that will help you stay accountable to your goals? Hey friends, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late 20s and struggled for years to get it off.

So grab your pre-workout and let's chat. So I'm just going to tell you how grateful I am that you keep showing up and listening to the podcast. And I want to take a second to invite you to the Biblical Weight Loss Framework.

Listen, I know that a lot of the things I share on this podcast are repetitive, but I think that that's how we learn. I know that's how I learn. When you join the Biblical Weight Loss Framework, we actually dig into your personal journey.

So so many of these things you can apply right now, but when it comes to specifically applying it to your life, it can just feel really daunting.

So in the Biblical Weight Loss Framework, the first couple of steps are really getting into the mindset part, breaking up with triggers, figuring out what's going to work for you, and then we walk into the specific meal planning, the macro plan, the

workouts, and then ultimately it leads to the Great Commission. Do you know what your purpose is? Are you walking in your purpose?

Because if we're so focused on ourselves and our weight and who we think we're not, it's really hard to live out the life that God has called us to.

The entire premise of the Biblical Weight Loss Framework is to lose weight, so that you can live in a body that you feel good in, so that you can go out and make disciples that make disciples where you live, work, and play as you go.

That's the call in Matthew. So join the Biblical Weight Loss Framework. You can find the link to join us in the show notes below or at herweightlossmindset.com/framework.

That's herweightlossmindset.com/framework. So think about it. We plan for vacation.

We plan for the holidays. Why don't we plan our meals? We have to get through the mindset that meal planning is about perfection.

It's not. It's just about being prepared. Think of it like packing your armor before going into battle.

If your kitchen is stocked with options that support your goals, you are far less likely to give into the convenience food that derail you and make you feel gross.

So I was on in Florida a couple of weeks ago, and speaking down there, and when I came home, I just knew that I wanted to get back to healthy eating. For probably about two months through the summer, I just kind of gave up on macros, planning.

I was eating ice cream, and I gained like five to six pounds. Like every week, I would lose and gain and lose and gain, and I am just so sick of that cycle.

And so when I came home that Sunday, hubby picked me up from the airport, we stopped at the grocery, I loaded up on fruits and veggies and proteins and grains, and on Monday, I just started cooking. And we have made so many fun things.

Like think about in season, I went to the Amish grocery that week, and I got a honey nut squash, I made honey nut squash soup, we made bulk cooked some quinoa, and we ate healthy all week.

And I'm telling you what, the scale went up when I weighed in, but I just felt really good. And so think about those things.

When your kitchen is stocked and it supports your goals, you might not reach your weight loss goals in that week, you're definitely not going to, but you're going to feel good and that's going to lead you on to continue to make better choices when

you feel good. So I want you to think about these four things that you can do to prep and how you can work them in to the routine that you're going to create in the season of life that you're in.

So the first one is always, always, always keep it simple. Keep it simple. Choose two to three proteins for the week.

Maybe you want to get some chicken or ground turkey. Maybe you want to incorporate salmon into your meal. Or think about eggs for breakfast or Greek yogurt for a snack.

Two to three proteins for the week. Just start simple. And then the second thing you can do is add sides that are easy.

Stock your freezer with frozen vegetables or bagged salad kits. Just be careful with bagged salad kits because a lot of them are very unhealthy. We like the Caesar salad options.

They're typically fit in a little bit better if you're trying to eat clean. So I want, do you know about the Yucca app? There's an app that you can download on your phone.

Yucca. Y-U-K-A. It has a little carrot picture on it.

Download the app. You can actually go to the grocery. It's a free app and scan things in the grocery, and it will tell you if it is good for you or not.

We are using this for everything. For the baby, for my food or bathroom products, shampoos, my face stuff. Like, it is life-changing.

And there is an option to upgrade to pay, and you just donate something. I think I pitched in like $10 or $15, and then you can actually type in the products, and it will tell you whether it's good or not. It tells you the additives that are harmful.

And then, my favorite part is it gives you a recommendation. So my Amazon Save for Later Cart is filled with things from the Yucca app that I am going to replace with current things when they run out. So download the Yucca app and take a look.

Just things that we like to keep on hand at all times are the Kroger Organic Rice Pouches. They cook in 90 seconds. I always have sweet potatoes and russet potatoes on hand.

Just make sure that you know the ingredients in your food when you're thinking about easy sides. Okay? The third step is batch cook once or twice a week.

Grill all your chicken on Sunday. Put up all your veggies for your snacks or for roasting, like in one day. Maybe you want to throw together a pot of chili for quick lunches or an easy Crock-Pot meal so it's ready when you come home for dinner.

Batch cook once or twice. Don't try to cook every single day. And then the last step is have, grab, and go items.

Think about yogurt cups. Now watch the sugar in these. They can be very, very high in sugar.

Hard-boil some eggs. Grab some protein bars. I love the RX bars.

They're made with dates and most of them have clean ingredients. Like if you get the blueberry ones, I like to buy two boxes of blueberry RX bars at a time. They're delicious.

They support your goals and it's a great source of protein. And then keep like, think about having fruit cut up. So think about what's in season right now.

In season, fruits and veggies are usually a lot cheaper. So I just cut up a melon. It's in the fridge.

We can grab a quick snack if we need to, carrot chips, think about hummus, just easy things that are grab and go.

So as you think about how you're going to apply these things to your life in this busy season, I want you to reflect on a couple of questions as you prayerfully make a plan and reframe your mindset around food prep, okay?

So think about what usually derails your planning. Is it lack of time, lack of ideas, lack of groceries? Maybe you're in a hurry, your time management needs a little bit of updating.

These are things we work on in the Biblical Weight Loss Framework. We go through an entire section just on time management. Then think about if you only had a plan for three days instead of seven, would that feel more doable?

It's like I just share the podcast with you about if you have a lot of weight to lose, we're not looking at the 50-pound mountain, we're breaking it down into increments of one to two pounds a week. So think about that with your food prep too.

Three days that you can plan instead of a week. Get that to feel really good. This is not all or nothing.

This is not about perfection in your meals right away. This is about consistently making better choices. Then think about how your week would look different if meals were easy instead of stressful.

When you're batch cooking once a week, you can come home and throw things together that are not always the same.

If you grill a bunch of chicken on Sunday and you have some potatoes cooked up, and some vegetables roasted, you could make a soup one night. Just throw it all in a pot and put some chicken stock in it. You have soup right there.

Or you could make a taco, throw all those things in a tortilla. You have a taco, like you don't have to eat the same things all week. You don't have to and you shouldn't.

You don't need to spend hours in the kitchen. Start small, keep it simple. Plan a few dinners, two to three a week.

Prep a few grab and go items, and let that bring peace to your week as you continue to make a plan. This is going to take time. God is never going to ask you for perfection.

He's only going to ask you to steward your time, your efforts, and your choice as well in ways that glorify Him in this journey. So this week's challenge is to create a simple three-day meal plan. Don't worry about the whole week, three days.

Just get three days under your belt and then build out from there. If that takes you a couple of weeks, that's okay. Slow and steady wins the race.

When you ask the Lord to lead you, He is going to. So look in your pantry and see what you already have in your fridge, your freezer, and use up what you have before you buy a lot more things. Get creative.

Get on Pinterest. You can join my free community. Find the link in the show notes.

I often share easy meal prep tips and recipes. Be resourceful. This is on you.

You have to make different choices if you want change. If we always do what we've always done, then we'll always get what we've always got. It's time to make change.

You are responsible to feed your family and teach your children about healthy meal prep. Heavenly Father Meal Prep seems so daunting to me. Will you please remove the lie that's holding me back from being accountable with my food choices?

Lord created me a clean heart around meal prep. I want to be wise with my time and resources, Father. Give me creativity to plan meals that nourish my body and give me peace when I fall short.

Lord, may my kitchen be a place of order and blessing and not stress. Thank you, Father, for new mercies each day. I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen. Hey, sis, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend?

Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple Podcasts. It lights me up to know this podcast is helping you. Okay, it's time to go make a protein shake and get my sweat on.

No more standing in the kitchen waiting for motivation to appear. I will meet you back here for another episode. God bless.