STEP-BY-STEP: how to create a healthy weekly meal plan.

We all know that healthy eating is easier with a plan. But sometimes it’s the making of the plan that’s the hardest part. It’s like… which recipe should I choose? There’s too many herbs! I can’t think of ANYTHING for breakfast other than eggs! We hear you, we do! That’s why we’ve put together this simple step-by-step guide to creating your own healthy weekly meal plan.

If you’re already like I don’t got time to create my own healthy weekly meal plans! Can’t someone do it for me?! Well yes! Yes WE can!

MerryEats is our Annual 2 Week Meal Plan Program… we start on 12 November 2018! It’s 2 weeks of meal plans, shopping lists, prep tips and brand new brekky + dinner recipes (lunch is leftovers!)! Along with body positive mindset to completely change the way you feel about yourself and the food you eat. The recipes are all refined sugar free, gluten free, grain free and dairy free but oh sooooo delish, quick and easy!

STEP ONE: CREATE YOUR COLLECTION OF RECIPES

Keep your eye out and create a collection of tasty looking healthy recipes. You know those moments when you’re scrolling through Instagram or Pinterest and you see something totally delish? Don’t just scroll on by! Take a screenshot, save the link OR Pin to your own board. Start a collection of recipes so you have a bank of inspiration to look to when it’s time to create your meal plan!

Inspiration can come from everywhere: magazines, old recipe books and you could even ask your friends what they’ve been enjoying for brekky and dinner! It’s always fun when you get your friends involved!

We have 300+ healthy recipes right here on the blog and the Get Merry app… so even if you decided to just use our recipes, you’d be set for a while!

STEP TWO: SELECT YOUR RECIPES

It’s time to pick your 7 brekkies and 7 dinners for the week! This is the fun part… but it can also be the hardest part! A couple points to remember when selecting your recipes:

  • create a flavour theme for your dinners. You don’t want to have to buy 15 different fresh herbs just so you can make your weekly healthy meals. We recommend selecting 1-2 fresh herbs for the week and ensuring your recipe choices use up all the herbs to make sure there’s no wastage. 
  • cook once, eat twice, even three times. This especially goes for your breakfast! You don’t want to be playing Masterchef every morning before rushing off to work! You want this to be stress free and fun! Maybe you make a batch of healthy muffins and a batch of granola and alternate during the week, perhaps adding in a smoothie here and there. This way you only need to select 2-3 recipes for the week of breakfasts. You can use this rule for your dinners too, pick recipes where you need the same element, for example, roast sweet potato.
  • get creative. Just because a recipe uses coriander doesn’t mean you have to use it! Really own your meal plan and make changes to the recipes to make it easier for you and your pocket.

STEP THREE: WRITE OUT YOUR PLAN

We love making our meal plans online, so we can easily use them again and again. Make sure you write it out, otherwise you’ll forget what you planned!

STEP FOUR: MAKE YOUR SHOPPING LIST

This is probably the hardest part of the meal plan! We like to make sure we only need to go shopping once a week… which means… we need to know exactly what we need for every single recipe! We copy and paste the ingredients into a new document and then collate all the ingredients. It’s time-consuming but totally worth it. Don’t forget to check your fridge, freezer and pantry for anything you might already have! Nothing sucks more when you have like 3 cinnamons in your pantry 😛

STEP FIVE: MAKE A PREP LIST

Look at all your recipes and take note of what makes sense to prep on the weekend before you begin. It might be that you make those muffins and granola on Sunday so you’re oh so organised! Maybe you chop all your veggies and store in airtight containers in the fridge? Maybe you whack your smoothie ingredients into zip lock bags and into the freezer for a super quick morning smoothie! 

STEP SIX: GO SHOPPING AND START PREPPING

Save your meal plan and shopping list to your phone or print it out, or maybe you hand wrote it (yay you!) because it’s time to go shopping! Head to your local farmers market or supermarket on the weekend so you can feel super organised. Once you’re home (if you have time), start on your prep list! 

STEP SEVEN: HAVE FUN!

We’re called The Merrymaker Sisters for a reason! To ‘merrymake’ means to bring joy to! Make this fun and stress free! After all, this is LIFE! Add joy where you can and get your loved ones involved. It’s always better when you have a supportive household!

So there you go! These are the steps we use to create our own healthy meal plans! Give it a try and let us know how you go!

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If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch and we’ll get back to you! 

Always merrymaking,

Emma + Carla

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