It's dinner time. Again. All too often this means a mad scramble to throw together a meal.

In one scenario you're ravenous and in no mood to wait for your food to cook. So you order takeout or eat chips and ice cream for dinner.

Or it's witching hour and you've got hangry family members raiding the pantry for snacks. By the time dinner gets on the table no one is hungry.

You know you need to eat a nourishing diet to be healthy. You also know that when you don't have a plan you're going to reach for whatever is fastest and most easily available. Yet even though you know this it can be hard to change your habits. So you continually find yourself facing one or the other of the above scenarios over and over again.

Meal planning is a vital part of achieving optimal or complete nutrition. If you don't have a plan for what you're going to eat, you will end up grabbing whatever is fastest and most readily available.

This leads to eating an energy (calorie) dense/nutrient-poor diet. That can cause a whole host of health issues like weight gain, headaches, fatigue, bloating, diarrhea, and/or constipation.   

So what's the answer? Meal planning.

What is Meal Planning?

You've probably heard about meal planning. And if you're like most people you're envisioning this super-efficient-mad-ninja-kitchen-skills person and immediately discounted the idea thinking that this wasn't you.

Meal planning isn't difficult. It simply starts with deciding what you're going to eat in advance so you're not caught unprepared. By planning your meals you can make shopping, cooking, and preparing food, (and eating), a much simpler and healthier process.

Eight Tips to Make Meal Planning Easy 

1. Shopping

There are lots of ways to approach shopping. If you can only shop once a week then you'll want to plan your entire week's worth of meals. If you are able to shop every three or four days then only plan for those days. The trick is to not get too far ahead of yourself.

These days you don't even need to go grocery shopping. Many grocery stores offer curbside pick up where you can order ahead and they bring the groceries out to your car. Other services will actually go grocery shopping for you and deliver to your home.

Both of these services charge a modest fee plus, with the delivery option there is a tip for the driver. But one side benefit of not actually being in the grocery store is the ability to avoid the dreaded $50-Taco-Meat-Syndrome. That's where you run into the grocery store for 'just a second' to get taco meat. And you walk out $50 later.

You'll need to decide if the extra fees are worth the time savings for your family. But deciding your shopping strategy is the first key to success when it comes to meal planning

2. Snacks

All too often when you plan for meals you may forget to plan for healthy snacks. That's one area where you can really tend to let go.

You allow yourself to skip label reading, buy junky choices, and tell yourself that it's okay because 'it's just a snack.' The truth is that if you're going to meal prep and plan to eat well, you want to eat well all the time. If you're looking for a few good snack ideas (and really, who isn't) check out these tasty ideas.

3. Deliciousness

When choosing what to eat you need to make sure it's something that you (and your family) like. You can absolutely choose a bean burger entrée with cilantro lime sauce. But if you don't like cilantro (funny enough there are some people who can't stand cilantro and claim it tastes like soap), or bean burgers, this meal is not going to be a hit.

You will have put all that effort into a healthy meal that no one wants to eat. Not a great use of time, money, or ingredients. Plus then you're probably going to have a science experiment growing in the back of the fridge while you hope that someone will decide they're into bean burgers with cilantro lime sauce. It eventually get's moldy and you have to throw it out.

Choose what you really want to eat, buy good quality, healthy food items, and make sure your recipes and ingredients don't go to waste.

4. Recipes

Speaking of recipes...just because you're going to start a new eating plan doesn't mean you have to pitch all of your favorite recipes.

Yes, you're meal prepping, and that means thinking a little differently. But instead of trying to re-invent the wheel (so to speak) by choosing all new recipes, why not start by simply improving the recipes you already have.

Read the label, choose ingredients that are better quality (for example organic and grass-fed), and avoid additives, preservatives, and other harmful ingredients. If you want to add in a few new recipes that's never a bad thing. Let's face it we all love tasty food.

5. Organize

When you create a system to help you organize and plan, things go much more smoothly.

Figure out what day or days of the week are best for you to go to the grocery store. Make sure that you plan out (meaning write down, don't try to keep it all in your head) a strategy. If you write it down it's much more likely to happen.

So what are you writing down? The following items:

• Your meals and snacks for the week
• The ingredients that you will need to get to make these meals
• When you plan to serve these meals. This is super important. You may make a list of what dishes you think you want to serve, but if you don't identify when you're going to serve them things sometimes don't get made. And that's when we get more of those interesting science experiments in the back of the fride
• What time you plan to go shopping. This is super important. Because you do not ever. Not ever. Ever want to go to the grocery store when you are hungry. If you're ordering ahead like we discussed in #1 above, that's not a problem. But I promise, if you're trying to grocery shop while you're hungry two things are going to happen. 1. You'll buy junk food because your ability to resist is lowered by those hunger pangs and “feed me” hormones. 2. You'll over-buy because...well...you're hungry and everything looks good. Have a meal or a decent snack before you go grocery shopping and you'll do much better. (Plus you'll save money and that's definitely a good thing too)

6. Get help

When you're cooking for your family there is the temptation to simply get meals on the table however you can and as quickly as possible. When you're meal prepping (and to make things easier) one of my favorite tips is to get others involved in meal planning and preparation.

When family members, especially your kids, can take some ownership in the creation of a meal and what you serve they are often more open-minded about what they're eating. If you have more than one child at home you probably want to have just one child at a time in the kitchen unless they're older and work well together. Have each child choose one meal a week that they are responsible for planning and preparing (with supervision).

7. Contingency

Let's face it, no matter how much you plan there are times when something unexpected happens. A change in schedule, an unplanned illness, or some other interruption. In case of situations like this, it's a good idea to have a contingency plan. You may not have any leftovers handy, or perhaps not enough leftovers to feed the family. This is where having something that you can rely on for a backup, without having to fall back on takeout or fast food, will be helpful and ensure you have a nourish meal ready to go.

One backup idea is to have prepared foods available for a simple yet easy-to-prepare dinner such as soup or an omelet. Additionally with a well-stocked pantry, you can create a quick meal in a flash using ingredients you already have on hand. 

One of my favorite contingency plans is to have a few make-ahead recipes. These are healthy recipes that you can prepare in bulk, freeze, then prepare for dinner when you need them. I love doing this so much that I created my Fast Fun Freezer Meals program. Using this program you can quickly prep 20-24 servings of dinner at a time. You'll then have meals in the freezer for when you need them.

8. Adventure

Once you have a meal plan it's easy to get into a rut and start to rely on the same thing over and over. While planning provides a framework and makes mealtime easier, it can also start to feel limiting if you're continually following the same plan.

In order to make things interesting, you'll want to mix it up here and there. Not to make it overwhelming, leading you right back to where you started, but in a way that keeps meals interesting and fun. Plan to include one new recipe each week. This provides a little variety and can help you to avoid mealtime boredom.

To get into the flow of meal planning can take some getting used to. It requires you to create some new habits. But, once you've integrated these habits into your routine, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it. It’s a great way to make sure that each meal is nutritious and delicious.  And easy.