Planning the week

So it’s Saturday again! Time to sit down and plan my week. For some reason, it doesn’t work to do it any other way. Saturday is planning day! :o)

When I first started on my “healthy lifestyle”, I religiously planned every week in great details, and then I got a little cocky and stopped doing that. A few weeks ago I reviewed the results and decided it was time to start planning again!

Planning ahead just simplify my life by taking out the whole “what’s for dinner” dilemma every night. Also, since I have 3 jobs and a schedule that keeps moving around, it permits me to keep trying new things without having to spend a lot of time on it. If I know what’s coming, I can just take food out of the freezer the night before, stop by the store on my way home and be ready to cook as soon as enter the house. This sure beats coming home at 5:30pm with everything frozen and half of my ingredients missing.

The first part of planning my week is to take a good look at my planner. Once I have a good sense of what the week is going to be like, and how it might change around, I can decide which nights I have time to cook, which nights I need a quick fix, and which night my husband is going to have to cook.

Once I have reviewed my week, I can plan in the meals. Breakfast is generally steel cut oats with different toppings. Still I try to plan in 2 or 3 different breakfasts that will make it more interesting (see previous post!).

Lunch up to now was more often than not frozen fare. I like to cook soups, curries, stews in bit batches and freeze them in 1 portion containers. That way I can just grab a container and bring it to work. This has worked for both of us for the last 3 years.

My new lunch obsession is Bento boxes. I’m just starting to look into it, and will share my exploration of them in this blog. So keep an eye out for that! If you want to sneak a peak at what Bento boxes are, look this blog up http://lunchinabox.net/ There is a lot of good information, tips and ideas on how to put together a bento, gear you need, where to shop. Only down side is she make me regret leaving San Francisco!!

Dinner is my favorite meal to plan for. That’s the meal my husband and I sit down to eat together, and that when we have more time to experiment with different foods and recipes. We have favorites, of course, but we both enjoy trying new things and playing “mad scientist” in the kitchen.

We try very hard to plan in at least 3 new recipes every week. Sometime we try something new almost every night! We both like ethnic cuisine, I love Indian foods, and though my husband likes it too, he has a liking for Asian fare. Pitch in some good Mexican recipes and we’re happy campers! I’ve also been looking into vegetarian recipes lately, not to become vegetarians, but to add to the variety of what we eat.

Did I mention that I have more than 140 cookbooks now?

I also plan my activity. Again, it helps by taking the “what do I do?” out of it. I know what I’m doing, when I’m going to the gym, when I’m working out at home, and I can work the rest of my life around that.

I’m an early morning bug when it comes to going to the gym. I’m still getting back into my routine, but it’s much easier for me to get up early and hit the gym (before I wake up he he he) than to make a side trip after a long day.

My plan is to go to the gym 6 mornings a week, alternating cardio and weight lifting. When I know what I do when, I can prepare my gym bag the night before and not have to look for my socks or my gloves at 5:15am. That’s the back bone of my activity.

Because I’m a substitute teacher, I never know if I’m going to work or not on any given day. The rest of my work outs (a yoga and a pilates DVD) are on a “whenever I can” basis. I plan the day, but not the time that I’m going to do it.

I also have a general plan for non-sub days, which is to hit the road early in the morning and take the dog for a long walk (90 minutes minimum).

The idea here is not for you to follow my plan, but to understand that you have to take a good look at what your day to day life looks like, and see where you can fit those healthy behaviors. That way you can make your own plan, one that will fit your own life.

I hate the feeling of “what do I do now?” even more the question “Honey, what’s for dinner?” At the end of the day, when I’m tired, or at the beginning of the day, when I’m not yet awake, I don’t want to have to figure out what I’m supposed to do.

I’m often asked how I fit everything I do into my days and still go to bed at 10pm the latest. I plan ahead, that’s how. I know what’s coming, I can prepare for it, and I can organize myself so that I rarely end up standing in front of the freezer with 30 minutes to make dinner and everything frozen solid!

I can hear the “well it’s easy for you, you don’t have kids.” True… I don’t have kids; I have 3 jobs though, to each our own challenge.

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”