We’ve all been there.
Five o’clock rolls around, it has been a crazy day running around without a thought about dinner. Now, you are hungry and your family is starting to ask …hmm…take out sounds good, maybe grab some fast food on the way to evening activities, or I think there’s a frozen pizza in the freezer.
In spite of our best intentions, this scenario happens more than we want to admit. So, how do we avoid it?
Planning ahead has been a lifesaver for me to get around the 5 o’clock and nothing to eat problem. In fact, it’s been so effective; I plan all of our meals now.
How does it work? Follow these three easy steps: plan, shop, and cook!
Plan:
- Think through your week: Which days do you have more time to prepare food, and which days will you be crunched for time? Those time crunch days are great for crock meals, throwing together a salad, or simply reheating an already prepared dish.
- Involve the whole family: When I was a kid, our family did weekly “dinner nights”. Each member of the family chose a meal that our family would have that week. When it was your dinner night, you were in charge of cooking or at least helping to cook your meal of choice.
- Cook a big batch of something: Use extra meat for several meals throughout the week. You will see this strategy in my meal plan for this week below.
- Remember to use simple whole food ingredients: Avoid canned, bottled, and other packaged foods with a long list of ingredients. Think about easy, healthy snacks to have on hand; fruits, nut butters, veggies, guacamole, and hard boiled eggs are some of our favorites.
Once you have your plan for the week, it’s time to shop!
Shop:
Based on your meal plan, make a list of ingredients that you need to buy to execute your plan. Having a plan and all of the ingredients on hand takes away excuses. You don’t have to think when dinner time comes; you know what you will be having and have the ingredients to make it.
Cook:
Here’s where it comes together. Take your plan, your ingredients and cook a wonderful dinner. With my current unpredictable schedule, I choose meals that I can prepare in advance because I often don’t know whether cooking at dinner time will be an option with a new baby. Often, I whip up dinner while the baby is sleeping or before my husband leaves for work in the morning and I have extra help. Later, I cook it. Figure out what works best for you and your family and do that!
What does this actually look like? Here is my meal plan this week!
| |
Breakfast |
Lunch |
Dinner |
| Sunday |
Butternut squash and spinach hash topped with 2 eggs. |
Plantain Lasagna |
Pork shoulder roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions in crock pot with roasted asparagus. |
| Monday |
Butternut squash and spinach hash topped with 2 eggs. |
Plantain Lasagna |
Italian Stuffed Peppers |
| Tuesday |
Egg Casserole (we used sausage, sweet potatoes, spinach, onions, and eggs) |
Plantain Lasagna |
Leftover Pork Roast and asparagus. |
| Wed. |
Egg Casserole |
Leftover Pork Roast |
Italian Stuffed Peppers |
| Thur. |
Egg Casserole |
Plantain Lasagna |
Roasted salmon, broccoli, and sweet potatoes |
| Friday |
Sweet potato topped with 2 eggs and avocado |
Salmon, broccoli and sweet potatoes |
Brown rice sourdough pizza (a Friday night tradition) |
| Saturday |
Sweet potato topped with 2 eggs and avocado |
TBD |
TBD |
Dr. Jamie's meal plan for the week.
| |
Breakfast |
Lunch |
Dinner |
| Sunday |
Eggs with vegetables - each day choose several from sweet potato, green pepper, onion, zucchini, and leftover veggies from dinner that are not needed for lunch (e.g. spaghetti squash)
|
Lunch at a friend’s house |
Grilled Lots of Chicken to use all week
Chicken in a salad with homemade honey mustard, avocado, and tomato.
|
| Monday |
same |
Most lunches are leftovers from last night's dinner - Pack the lunch right after dinner. |
Salad with grilled chicken, onion, red pepper, carrots, and homemade Asian dressing. |
| Tuesday |
same |
same |
Grilled chicken with Spaghetti squash, shredded carrots, shredded zucchini, and onions cooked in a coconut milk curry sauce |
| Wed. |
same |
same |
Pork steaks with roasted broccoli and coleslaw. |
| Thur. |
same |
same |
Jamie- sweet potato with avocado. Jared out |
| Friday |
same |
Salad with pork steak |
Butternut squash soup and salad. |
| Saturday |
Breakfast casserole |
TBD |
TBD |
Some notes on how I create our meal plan:
- As you can see, we LOVE leftovers. I will often cook big batches of things that we will eat it several times throughout the week (egg casserole, plantain lasagna, roast, and stuffed peppers)
- Every day, I aim to eat at least 5 servings of vegetables and make sure to eat fruits and vegetables from a variety of different colors (Eat the rainbow!)
- I usually leave a few meals at the end of the week “to be determined”. This gives us room for flexibility to shift things around if something comes up. and if not; we get creative and throw something together! I make sure we eat EVERYTHING that I bought for the week. I plan to use it before buying more food for the next week so that nothing is wasted.
So there you have the first weekly wellness challenge. Go forth and plan your meals for the coming week! What tips and tricks do you use to create a meal plan? Let us know on our facebook page.
Author: Joelle Kurczodyna, NTP
Our newest little Illini Fans!After a much needed break and two babies later – we are back! If you’ve followed the DuPage Family Wellness blog, you know that we are passionate about eating real food. However, over the last several weeks of welcoming newborns into our homes, we have seen firsthand how difficult it can be to actually shop and prepare real food for your family. We’ve found that planning ahead and being organized are crucial to getting a real food meal on the table and not succumbing to the ease of convenience, processed, and fast foods.
If you are trying to be healthier and interested in removing processed foods from your diet and incorporating more real foods or if you are a seasoned veteran, there are several, simple things that we have found to make eating real food possible in the midst of the busyness of life. In light of that reality, we will be posting “real food weekly challenges” over the next several weeks. These will be basic weekly cooking challenges that you can do to help make your life easier and provide real food for your family for that week. Overtime, by implementing a few of these things every week, you will find that preparing real food meals for your family will be much more doable and hopefully even enjoyable. We may also throw in some movement challenges to help incorporate more movement in your day. Time after time, we have seen how the combination of eating real, unprocessed food and moving the body have allowed people (including ourselves!) to reach their health goals! We are excited for you to do these challenges along with us and see what happens!
Along with posting these regular food challenges, we will also be offering another 5 week long RESTART® class to help you kick those sugar cravings and look and feel your best as we head into spring. The next class will begin on Wednesday April 6th from 7-8:30 the Warrenville Office and continue for 5 weeks on Wednesday nights with the last class being May 4th. Learn more here and email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with questions!
Also, Dr. Thomure is back in the office seeing patients with the following hours:
Monday: 2:00 – 6:00
Wednesday: 2:00 – 6:00
Friday: 10:00 – 1:00
Call our office at 630-448-0255, or email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) to schedule.
Eating out can be very tough! You don't always know how your food is being prepared. It seems like 90% of the options come with some sort of bread/tortilla/French fry, etc. Sauces are almost always thickened with flour or corn starch. One of my favorite ways to keep things in check is to sub out items on the menu for healthier options!! While this isn't always possible, you never know if you don't ask!
Top 5 restaurant substitutions I have managed to get- just by asking!
- Veggies instead of Tortilla Chips at a Mexican restaurant (Changarro in West Chicago did this for me!) I didn't think they'd do this for me, but I asked if there was something else besides chips to dip in the delicious salsa, and they brought me some veggies!
- Veggies instead of fries (occasionally there will be a small up charge, but well worth it!)
- A Stir Fry with extra vegetables instead of rice or noodles
- A lettuce wrap or bed of greens instead of a bun or bread. This could be with a burger, chicken, fish, heck I've even eaten an "italian beef salad"
- Oil and Vinegar instead of other salad dressing. This one I recommend because salad dressings are notorious for having all sorts of weird added ingredients and sugar. My best bet if I'm eating out is always Oil and Vinegar, because at least that way I have a better idea of what I'm eating. Sometimes if there are enough delicious ingredients in the salad, I just leave off the dressing all together.
If you are being very strict or have food allergies, you can ask your waiter about what types of oils they use for cooking and where the meat/produce came from. Depending on the restaurant, they may or may not know the answers to those questions.
If there is an option of cooking oil, my top choice would be coconut oil, or a form of animal fat (butter, lard, duckfat, etc) They have more saturated fats, and can go to high temperatures better. I would stay away from highly processed cooking oils like vegetable oil, canola oil, etc. Here is a guide for which fats to cook with, which to eat raw, and which to avoid all together!
Since I don't go out to eat very often, I typically just try to do the best I can, knowing that it is a treat, and I can't control everything about the way my food is prepared all the time.
Dr. Jamie
Tis the season for pumpkin everything! However, before you pick up that can of pumpkin puree, maybe it’s the year to make your own! I know that the canned stuff may seem simpler, but making your own is not hard. Plus you get way more bang for your buck and it tastes WAY better! So how do you do it?
Homemade Pumpkin Puree
Ingredients: 1 Pie Pumpkin (That’s it!)
Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stab the pumpkin 7-8 times with a sharp knife all over the surface of the skin. Place the whole pumpkin on a glass dish in the oven and let cook for an hour. Once cooked, cut in half and let cool. Once cooled, remove seeds (reserve for roasting), and scoop flesh into a bowl. Puree using an immersion blender, food processor, or basic blender. Store in a mason jar until ready to use. Pumpkin puree also freezes and thaws well for later use.
Amazing Pumpkin Bars
Once you have that delicious homemade pumpkin puree, I always make these delicious pumpkin bars. The thing about this recipe is that it only seems to work with the real homemade stuff; canned pumpkin does not result in nearly the same delicious flavor and texture.
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup of coconut flour (available at most health food stores)
- ½ tsp Sea Salt
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 8 Eggs
- 2 cups Fresh Pureed Pumpkin
- 2/3 cup of Honey (raw) or Maple Syrup (Grade B) -or a combination of the two
- ½ cup Coconut Oil, melted
- 1 cups Chocolate Chips
Directions: Mix together coconut flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Add eggs, pumpkin, honey/maple syrup, and melted coconut oil and mix until well blended (I use my immersion blender for this). Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into a 9x13 greased baking dish. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes until cooked through. Cool, serve, enjoy! This is a crowd favorite but also freezes well and can be made into muffins instead of bars (just lessen cooking time to 15-20 minutes).
*Adapted from this recipe: http://elanaspantry.com/paleo-pumpkin-bars/
Author: Joelle Kurczodyna, NTP
We roast a whole chicken about every other week. It’s easy, nourishing, and can be stretched into several meals in our weekly meal plan. 
