Healthy Meal Planning: April

That's right. I'm at it again. Or still. No... again would be more correct, after the quarter of a carrot cake I consumed in Oregon over the weekend. I am back in the healthy meal planning saddle for April- and ready to give you the low down, in hopes that your peer pressure keeps me honest.

At the beginning of the month (or actually the end of the month) I sit down with my iPad and sort through my Pinterest recipes. I have two boards- "Suppertime" and "Suppertime Skinny".

When the smarest and I decided to try to lose some of our "yay-we-are-married-and-eat-baked-goods-all-the-time" weight, I started the "skinny" board, to collect the lighter options all in one place. I try to use a mix of recipes from each board, so that the smartest doesn't slip into a starvation coma due to a sudden onset of salads.

The skinny board looks like this:

And the non skinny board looks like this:

Note the large amount of dairy occurrence in the latter. After I decide on my recipes and make my list:

I decide which meal to put where on our magical meal calendar. This calendar is one that mama artist gave us for Christmas. I'm hoping April's stern faced owl will help me avoid snacking. We will see. I try to space out the "good" meals, and plan light on days we are busy in the evenings (like cereal on Wednesdays).

After the calendar is full, I set about filling out my shopping list. I made a template for my list so I can categorize everything into the appropriate section, and limit the running back and forth throughout the store because I forgot the turkey bacon AND the crackers AND the pepper jack. The template looks like this:

While in the store, I am the geek walking around with my pencil, crossing things off my list. Whatever it takes, guys. Whatever it takes.

I did April's big shopping trip yesterday, in my typical Aldi and then Walmart fashion, and loaded our fridge. You can always tell what time of the month it is based on the state of my vegetable drawer. Currently- it looks like this:

Which means that it must be the beginning of the month. I usually have to do a mid-month fruit/vege stop when we try to go the healthy route and don't just eat applesauce and chicken nuggets. Just kidding- I don't think I have opened last month's chicken nuggets yet.

This month, here are some of the healthy and quasi healthy meals we are partaking of:

Pasta Salad
Turkey Bacon Avacado Grilled Cheese
Fajitas
Stuffed Peppers
Breakfast Sandwiches
Salt rubbed baked potatoes
Quesadilla Salad
Greek Yogurt Chicken
Corn Chowder

We had the pasta salad for dinner yesterday- and are having the leftovers today. It was pretty tasty!

So there you have it- that's where we are so far on the meal front. I will keep you posted on whether or not we actually stick to our guns and avoid the clearance Easter candy...