As I have mentioned before, gluttony is one of my "regular" besetting sins. To help me in this area I have to make a plan for my meals and then execute the plan. I begin with reviewing my calendar and determine when I will not be eating out and plug it into an excel spreadsheet. (I usually do just two weeks at a time but since I will be out of town for a week in January I went ahead and did the month.) Then I determine how many meals I need - this time I needed 23 breakfasts, 20 lunches and 17 dinners.

Using some old recipes as well as new recipes I then start plugging meals into the spread sheet (breakfast usually doesn't change.) Here is my spreadsheet with a few days plugged in:

Weekly Meals Example

The recipes I used this time were Lime Chicken (4 servings), Easy Turkey Meatloaf (8 servings), Mexican Chicken Casserole (8 servings), Autumn Glazed Pork Chops (4 servings) and Vegetarian Chili (15 servings). Once the spreadsheet is filled out, I can then make my grocery list. After going to the grocery store on Friday night, I cooked Saturday morning and made yogurt, the five recipes, bag of brown rice above as well as eight smoothies. All are frozen in single serving sizes and I will thaw each out as I go through the month.

By doing this I save LOTS of money, calories and stress. Let me know if you try doing this as well.