ONCE UPON A TIME, Celie DID NOT MEAL PLAN
Once Upon a time there was a woman named Celie. Celie liked to cook and enjoyed food but had reached a point in her life where she needed to make a change. She was getting ready to turn 50! She had a family that she had taken care of and had worked hard at a demanding job for over 20 years and had not realized that she was making everyone and everything a priority except for her.
Over the years, Celie had gone from 135lbs her freshman year of college to well over 300lbs. Celie was feeling very sad about where she found herself and felt like losing weight was hopeless.
But little did Celie know, that breakthrough was coming soon.
One day, Celie had taken her daughter to training at this quaint little fitness studio in Fishers, Indiana and on that day, she met a woman by the name of “Cheeks”. Cheeks was an energetic, positive, upbeat, TOGETHER woman and she saw that Celie was sad and was in need of help.
Cheeks talked with Celie at great length and convinced Celie that she would be making a potentially life changing decision if she joined the studio and followed their program.
Celie joined the studio and over time began to learn the program, but she quickly learned it was not easy, but that it was okay. The first and most important lesson Celie had to learn was how to meal plan. Celie had never done meal planning to this level of detail and was reluctant to do it because it was going to require of all things … time!
Celie learned that meal planning entailed determining what foods you wanted to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as snacks. Next, spending about 30 minutes pulling up nutrient information from the Calorie King app or website and writing the information down so that she could see her calorie intake, fat intake, carbohydrate intake and her protein intake. This allowed her to see if she was hitting her target goals that Cheeks had set for her. What Celie soon discovered was that she was able to make herself a PRIORITY also for 30 minutes a week for the sake of her HEALTH AND HAPPINESS.
Celie began to get good at meal planning over time. Celie learned that when you first start to meal plan, it’s best to keep it simple. She learned it is not a good idea to do your first meal plan with several new recipes because Celie cooks slower when she is cooking something she has never cooked before. As Celie got her system down of meal planning with scheduling time to grocery shop and then scheduling a block of time to meal prep, she got really good at it, and began to reap the benefits of it.
Celie’s weight started to come off. Celie found that in meal planning so that she could cook 1-2 times per week, rather than every night, she had a lot more time in her evenings to do other things. One of the biggest surprises to Celie in changing this part of her life was that her family soon followed suit. Celie learned that she and her family did not have to eat the same things and that maybe some of their food/dishes could be for everyone, but then maybe Celie could have a different protein than the family was going to have, if she needed to in order to meet her target goals, or if she just wanted something different to make her happy. She learned how to incorporate meal planning for the whole family to make it work for the household and sometimes this included cooking maybe 3 times a week rather than 2.
Celie learned that if she was willing to open herself up to learning as much as she could about how to meal plan and then begin to learn the nutrient and calorie numbers to her favorite foods, as well as the foods that she ate the most, she was better able to manage her calorie intake on a weekly basis. Managing what food she was going to eat on a weekly basis through making ONE DECISION (the weekly meal plan) versus managing what she was eating on a daily basis and making 3-5 decision a day (if she includes snacks), she learned that she had a much better chance of making MORE GREAT FOOD CHOICES on a weekly basis by following her meal plan, than she would if she were making multiple choices, 21 – 35 food choices a week.
Celie is in year 3 of her journey of healthy and happy and still meal plans every week. Celie is still learning different tricks and different ways to make meal planning come together no matter how busy she gets.
Celie is so happy and healthy in her new life and is forever grateful that she met a lady named Cheeks!
Thanks for reading. 😊
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