Meal Planning, Grocery Shopping and Food Prepping for the Whole30

Probably the biggest lesson I learned to make the Whole30 process manageable and therefore enjoyable is that planning and preparation is a necessity. That doesn’t mean that you have to spend all of your time thinking about recipes, endlessly grocery shopping or slaving away for hours on the weekend prepping food. It just means you have to be smart and a little strategic.

Being prepared has 3 steps:

Plan your meals Create your list (and actually use it) Prep your meals

After that, it’s pretty simple. I mean it! When you have all the pieces of the puzzle, all you have to do is put them together when it’s time to eat. You might actually find that you save time during the week (I know I did).

Also remember that you’re making this commitment to yourself. No this isn’t the path of least resistance, but that path is super freakin’ boring and can often make you feel like crap (at least that was my situation which is why I’m doing this).

Before you start:

Make sure to clean out your fridge and pantry of any off plan foods (dairy, refined sugars, grains etc.) If it’s processed you’re better off throwing it away for good. If non-perishable ingredients like honey, peanut butter, oats, quinoa, beans, or any other healthy food that is off plan, but you might re-incorporate it when you finish, put it away on a shelf you don’t look at or in a storage box. This way when you start meal planning you have a clean fresh slate without any foods to trigger a craving.

Here are tips for each step

Step 1: Planning Your Meals

• Get inspired: find blogs and (there’s tons of them!) Print or save those recipes to your own board to keep handy.
• Look at your pantry and fridge and see what ingredients you already have. This can help you search with some purpose.

• Look at the meals you are planning to make throughout the week and see what foods you can prep in advance to make life easier