I’d like to start off by saying *Thank You!* for all of your positive comments and feedback both on my blog and my results from the 21 day fix. I had multiple people ask me what a typical week looked like in terms of meal planning for the 21 Day Fix. Before I share that with you, here are a few tips that I learned along the way:
1. It can be overwhelming, so start simple!
When the 21 Day Fix kit arrived, I read the booklet it came with from cover to cover. However, I was still lost as to where to start with meal planning. That’s when I turned to my trusty friend, Pinterest. I quickly found SO many recipes and they even gave the container amounts aligned with the fix! PERFECT! Or so I thought…. now came the hard part…figuring out how to fit all of these great recipes within a weekly schedule.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed–my advice is to keep it simple! Don’t worry about making fancy dinners every night. You can simply grill chicken, throw in some veggies & seasonings, and have an awesome stir fry! The only reason I didn’t do this is because I knew I would get sick of having chicken and veggies every night for a week straight.
2. Plan your dinners first.
I found that it was WAY easier to meal plan if I planned out my dinners for the week first. Then I could sort of work the other meals around that. For example, if I knew dinner already had 1 1/2 carbs, I knew I only had 1/2 a container left for the rest of the day.
3. Your meal plan can be flexible!
Being a teacher, there were many days that I couldn’t have a snack between breakfast and lunch {it’s difficult to eat when there are 25 kiddos staring at you all day!} Therefore, I would just add that snack in with my lunch. This is another reason why you’ll see that I had hard boiled eggs for breakfast during the week. The protein would keep me full until lunch time!
Make sure your meals fit into your regular weekly schedule! Wednesday nights I have grad school, so I would often switch my lunch and dinner meals that day. Also, many of these meals make A LOT of food….like 4-6 servings worth. So be prepared to have leftovers!! 🙂
4. It’s ok to go a little over on your container measurements.
This is up to your own discretion. Personally, I still had great results with maybe going over a little on some containers one day, because I knew that I may be a little under the next day, so it would sort of balance out.
I remember the first week I was a drill sergeant and all of my containers had to be perfectly measured. By the second week, I told myself it was ok if I went 1/2 over on my carbs one day, because I would maybe cut back on them the next day.
5. Yellows = Treats
Save your yellows for some treats! This is where you can have your chocolate or occasional glass of wine if you’d like!
Now for the part you’ve been waiting for….a week’s meal plan! Keep in mind that it was rare that I would cook 7 different dinners a week since there were always leftovers–this is just a sample week to give you an idea of how to balance out all of the colored containers!
Please leave a comment and let me know if you’d like any of the recipes, or if you have any other questions! 🙂
Thanks Gina! I feel like you were talking directly to me!
I hope this helps a little. I know it can be confusing at first!