Meal Planning - Why it is saving my life*

*Saving my life refers to getting a handle on those co-morbidities I suffer besides PCOS: High Blood pressure, high cholesterol, Insulin Resistance, Pre-Diabetes, Non-Alcoholic Liver Impairment, abdominal obesity. . . . . 

I've been planning our dinners for the last two weeks and have found that it really helps to know what's coming up during the week: it helps me defrost any meat I might need in the fridge overnight and it helps me to not make impulse purchases at the store, thus saving some money.

I also am really enjoying the creative control it is giving me. I can plan out fourteen nights' meals without repeating a key ingredient, and it is helping me pull out recipes that I have always wanted to try, but never got around to. I'm the kind of person who will print out a recipe they see on a blog, file it, and then forget about it. Not any more! I've created a recipe database on google drive that has over 100 recipes added to it (and counting!). I spent a weekend looking through my stack of food magazines and putting a post-it on recipes that are low-carb and low GI and I've been working my way through the cook-book library with the same idea in mind.

The database has different sections, namely Chicken, Pork, Beef, Lamb, Sausages/Mince/Bacon, Vegetarian, Salads/Sides, Baking/Snacks. Each recipe is typed into the relevant section with a short list of the main ingredients, and the location of the recipe.

For example:

Yes, this is a lot of work, but I'm planning on using this database for the rest of my adult life, and it helps immensely when planning a couple of weeks dinners in one session. I can block in vegetarian meals (I'm working on 2 vegetarian dinners a week) and freezer meals for days when I have a late class at uni. I really like being able to use my freezer. Often, when I make a soup and have leftovers, I wait for it to cool and then place the soup in zip-lock bags and lay them flat in the freezer. They end up like terracotta tiles made of soup, and are so space efficient - you can stand them up like books on a shelf once frozen. 

For example:

I'm able to write in a shopping list working from the ingredients list from the database. It also helps to schedule meals that use the same type of vegetable - for instance I could make a coleslaw on the Monday night, and then cabbage pies on the Thursday night, utilising the same ingredient and saving money. It's also very good for being 'mindful' while shopping. It's much easier to stop and question whether you really need that bag of corn chips or not when you have a list to stick to, and don't even have a reason for going down the sweets/snacks aisle. 

It is also helping me steer clear of those high GI foods that are easy to rely upon because of convenience. Things like rice and pasta are so often seen as "quick meal" fillers for many different reasons. One reason is that they are relatively cheap starch sources that fill up tummies. It was a real revelation when I decided to go through my magazine collection. If a recipe relied on rice, pasta or noodles I skipped over it. It wasn't long before I began to see how much the modern Australian diet embraces these high GI carbs. Granted, the magazines I usually buy are the 'cheaper' sort: Super Food Ideas, Recipes+, Coles Food Magazine (it's free!), and Diabetic Living. I don't often buy the other sort of food magazine as the food inside is often a bit more 'fancy' than I want to spend time on. I've never used truffle oil and likely never will, so buying a magazine that includes speciality provedore ingredients in their recipes seems a bit silly to me. Having said that, I do buy Gourmet Traveller or SBS Feast if there is an interesting focus - like the Feast Yum Cha special a few months back.

*Updated edit: I was working from out of date information during this time period. Pasta and rice are acceptable foods on the Low G.I. eating plan with restrictions - the best kind of rice is basmati and the best kind of pasta is cooked al dente. I will add that the recommended portion sizes or rice and pasta in the Low G.I. eating plan are much smaller than what I had previously been consuming.

So there I was, with my stack of magazines and sticky notes and my determination to exclude all pasta/rice/noodle/potato recipes, thinking of the amount of rice/pasta/noodles/potatoes I've relied on in the past in my cooking, and I made a decision: I wasn't going to forgo these things entirely, but I was going to allow them once every two weeks, in small portions, if at all desired. So far things have been good. Mr. Oso and I have enjoyed mashed potatoes, in a smaller size than previously. I'm planning on making a spinach and ricotta cannelloni in three weeks, but it will be in small individual casseroles, not a large one that is easily returned to for seconds. It's this very mindful awareness of meals that I believe is contributing to a more balanced and understanding relationship with food. It's not a magic bullet, it's not a fad to follow, it's part of a complete re-hauling of the way I look at, approach and consume food.

This week I'm also moving towards planning lunches for Mr. Oso and myself, which adds another level of control over my eating habits: basically, if I know what I'm going to have for lunch and dinner, that's two meals that are known and accounted for every day, which helps steer me away from odd snacking instead of proper meals (which is a big problem for me during the day).

I'm yet to work out breakfasts. I don't like to eat in the morning, and I know that's a bad thing for my metabolism. I'm going to try some things out, though, which will most likely be blogged here, so stay tuned for those developments.

All in all, I feel more in control and a lot more positive about changing my relationship with food since planning meals (and it only took two weeks!) and that is such a positive difference that I just want to share it with the world :)