Food is my #1 time suck and I’m honestly dying to get a consistent plan down, but it’s terribly hard to make a plan that allows you to buy the same things every week and use up all the perishables.
Food is my #1 time suck and I’m honestly dying to get a consistent plan down, but it’s terribly hard to make a plan that allows you to buy the same things every week and use up all the perishables.
Ive started eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch every single day and supper is my wildcard that changes every day. I also have standard snacks that I have in hand that doesn’t change (like apples and grapes). To be clear, I am not a dietitian, and I’m not positive this is particularly healthy, though I do try to make my breakfast and lunch as healthy as possible I’ve found be streamlining those two meals has really cuts down on my decision fatigue and so I feel less burnt out only having to plan for the next week of suppers. It also has made me enjoy deviations from my routine much more, like when eating out. I go grocery shopping every Tuesday after work. Shopping weekly, but not on Saturday or another popular day helps avoid the crowd AND Monday is when my grocery store gets it’s weekly shipment, so everything is fresh and lasts all week. I hope this helps!
I’m not a dietitian either, but I am followed by one, and their recommendation for me specifically was to try it and report back with a list of what I ate and whether the Master Plan ™ stuck. The lack of variation isn’t ideal, but in my case, as per their rationale, the potential benefits outweigh the downsides because I tend to default to junk food when my culinary life gets too complicated (she isn’t wrong). Granted though, I don’t plan to eat the same thing daily, so for someone who’s literally on repeat every single day or who already has a very healthy diet, I imagine the recommendation would likely change.
Maybe there’s a good middle road. come up with, say, 3 breakfast plans and 5 lunch plans that you rotate between. For what it’s worth, my breakfast is a bowl of pecan granola with homemade almond milk and some fresh berries (usually blueberries) with a cup of coffee. For lunch I have an OM mushroom protein shake to drink and eat a roasted red pepper hummus sandwich with a spinach salad topped with olive oil and vinegar and a side of carrots/cucumbers/apple or something else from the garden.
Now that I think of it. I guess I do change things up a bit. So could have some staple items and them some items that you change for variety, but it’s not overwhelming like planning a whole meal. Like how I change my granola berries and my lunch side fruit/veggie occasionally
There’s probably also a difference in the variety within each dish and the effect it has. “Eating the same thing” is probably better if you eat granola with dark chocolate, cashews, blueberries, and spinach topped with almond milk and banana for breakfast versus a banana for breakfast. The nutrient profile is still always the same and that’s not great, but at least the former has different nutrient profiles within it.