Meal Planning Without the Daily Food Stress! How to Reduce Decision Fatigue and Make Dinner Easier for Your Family / Ep 189

Welcome to Wellness Rebranded. We know there is so much conflicting health and fitness advice out there. And you're tired of the wellness fads, endless diets and impossible standards that make you feel like nothing you do is ever enough. You're ready to tune into your mind and body and feeling powered around health. We're the healing trio here to help you redesign your relationships with food, fitness, and yourself. I'm Elizabeth, Registered Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. I'm Maria Licis-Mendoe Health Therapist and I'm Tara, Personal Trainer. Together we're changing the narrative on health away from diet culture, hustle culture, and toxic positivity in towards healthful self-care. So grab your water bottle, get ready to laugh, learn, and grow, and let's start rebranding your wellness journey. Hey guys, does anyone else out there struggle with what the heck to eat for dinner tonight? Three single day. Tell me. That is probably one of my biggest worries and challenges is what to feed my family and myself. Tell me why, like what's going through your head? It's going like, okay, how can I make the best choices? Put it in front of them and in my case, I have an 11-year-old that is very selective about what she eats. So how to offer something that is nutritious, that is supporting their health without me feeling the most overwhelmed mother out there. So for me at this point, I feel like I'm so impacted by this that even going to the grocery store and thinking like, where do I even start? Imagine like, there's a thing in Spanish like a cockroach in a chicken dance. It's like, looking everywhere like, where, what? Probably that's how I look like at the grocery store. It's like looking everywhere like, where do I start? What's my next step? Is it even going to work? I don't know how to do it. I get so overwhelmed that it's a difficult task. And may I ask like, how does that impact you? Very much. It's horrible. And I'll tell you this. I didn't realize until my recent therapy session. That's one of the many ways I measure my motherhood. And when I feed, what you're feeding them? Yes. So when my kids are having, you know, like three days in a row of easy junk food because I don't have the mental capacity to plan for these and offers better options. I feel terrible as a mother. Terrible. Very great. Well, not when it comes to feeding. I think a lot of people relate to that though. Actually, I think that's so relatable. I hear it a lot. I struggle with that too. I'm not exactly a cockroach in a chicken dance. Because I haven't been a good teacher. I like the two favorite things, by the way. I'm definitely going to use that for now on. Because I have a good idea of like quote unquote, "should be feeding my family." But my family is also selective. You know, and I love eating lots of like fresh fruits and veggies and beans and things like that. But sometimes like I made Elizabeth's recipe one time, which by the way, guys, here's a plug for Elizabeth's salmon bowl recipe. Ooh, it is on my website. It's on her website and I looked it up. Krispy salmon bowls. We talked about it one day. It's so good. And I thought this would be wildly popular with my family because it's kind of like Chinese haystacks where it's like you have a base of rice and then you can add like all the things, whatever you want. And so I created like 15 bowls of toppings for my family. Everybody I love to rice in their bowl and then I put in some salmon and then I was like, oh, and here's like a mame and cilantro and cucumbers and like whatever. I just had tons of stuff. The boys didn't put anything but salmon and rice in their bowls. So I went through the process of like juliennening a bunch of carrots and shaving cucumbers and doing all this prep work for me to eat when I would have been just as happy to take like a bite of a cucumber and a bite of a carrot and call it a day. And that happens to me. It's disappointing. It was disappointing. And it kills my motivation to maybe the next day come up with something that is, you know, that it could be funnier than what I told you. So here's what I told you. And that happens because sometimes I make dinner that you know, like something similar could potentially happen. And I think awesome. Now I get to eat all that for the rest of the week. Which I totally did, but I'm also like, that was a lot of work to prep all that for only me and you. You're gonna take off, friend. And here's the other thing for me. I feel that I make so many other decisions during the day for my personal, for my business and for my family in other ways. That when it comes to that, I'm like, why? I can't. I love those memes that I see occasionally on social media. That's like, no one ever told me that being an adult means that I have to answer the question what's for dinner every single night for the rest of my life. Or like, figure out how to feed myself three times a day for the rest of my life. And it's not just dinner. I like a second beginning is like, what am I packing their launch box in the case of my kids? What am I eating in the middle of the day when I'm in a rush? So the whole meal planning sounds amazing. I wish I could do it. Just dedicate Sunday afternoons to cook stuff. But that in itself is extremely overwhelming for me. So if I could daily and have like a personal, a personal chef, you know, that would be, if I remember, I'm definitely just hiring a personal chef. The first thing. Yeah. That's funny. The first thing I'm hiring is somebody to blow dry my hair for me. So I never have to do it again. Yes. That too. And that sounds how pretty that your life is when he comes to food. Okay. Because like, I would rather look like the Lion King on a daily basis. And, you know, but being able to just leave that way to my shoulders of feeding people. Oh, but I like feeding people. That's my love language. Okay. Let's do a trade meal plan from, you know, come blow dry. I am freaking hair. I have the taste. Don't leave me out. Okay. I might find out for that. More and more I think people should like have a little community where like, dude, I'm in a wash dry and fold all the laundry. You cook all the food and you blow dry all the hair. Yes. Use your talents wisely, appropriately. And then yes, it would be awesome. Yeah. It's like a little mom commune. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So how can we make meal times easier? Just make them for me. No. I know that the decision fatigue taken out of it. So like, tell me what to cook and I'll cook it. I like cooking. But what I don't like doing is having to decide what am I going to cook. Let me go to the grocery store and get it all. Make sure that I got the right things and that's right or not right or whatever. And then having to come home and prep it while being interrupted 50,000 times. And then putting it on the table and having everybody go, what is that? It's like two minutes steps. Yeah. Okay. Well, though, I don't have another idea. Thinking about monitoring your podcast or taking yours to the next level, Juliana Barbati and her team are the experts you need. They take care of everything from episode funnel design to production and marketing so you can focus on creating content that connects. Check out JulianaBarbati.com and mention that we sent you. So for me, this is my idea, right? Being realist, okay, because the idea will be I'm a millionaire and I have personal chef. But in the real world, even sitting down, what are we having this week and coming up with the shopping list is extremely overwhelming. So I need Monday shopping list and the super easy way that I'm putting all those ingredients together Tuesday shopping list. And so I can go once a week to the grocery store with the shopping list that you gave me. I bought it. I buy everything you told me there. And then I group them all. That's what I'm doing with this. I put it to any has to be something super easy like to to done. That will be my deal. Yeah. Interesting. So currently, how do you decide what's for dinner? I don't. Thursday at 6 p.m. and you're like, okay, what's for dinner? You're deciding in that moment. Okay. I went to the grocery store. This is my typical grocery store day. Okay. Do you go every day? No, no, no, no, no. I'm like when I go, which I hate going so very unfrequently. So I go and I'm going to go grocery shopping together. I know. And I told you about the pantry audit. We should share that with the listeners because that's my business idea for you. So, okay. So I go to the grocery store with my. Can I ask you a different question? Okay. It was last night. When did you decide what you're having for dinner? Oh, like half an hour beforehand. And then you did what? What did I do last night? Wait. What day was. Last night was Thursday. We decided we were going out to dinner because friends invited us like at noon. Okay. Oh yeah. I went to DC last night to have dinner with a friend. How did you do? That's why I leave and I leave those three people with the hands of God. What I'm trying to understand is like, are you just like, okay, now it's 4.30 and someone saying what for dinner and then you're trying to figure it out. I'm going to explain it to you. I go to the grocery store and I'm like in my head it's like, okay, the protein. So I hear some salmon, hear some chicken press and I bought some like ground beef. Okay. But you don't necessarily know what you're doing. No, I saw it in my cart and that's exactly what I do too. Protein. I'm going to share some tips with you. I might have like a vague idea of like, ooh, I'm going to make tacos. That sounds good. But like it's not planned out. It's really just like, that'll work. Okay. Then I grabbed the bread that you recommended for me one time with the goat cheese that you recommended to me and I'm like, oh, that's breakfast. It's like toast. It's like toast. It's like, okay, toast it and I'm like, okay, breakfast is done. I toast it with cottage cheese. Okay. And then I buy eggs, so I always buy eggs because you can always. more of a fried egg. And then, okay, so once I see the protein in my cart, I'm like, okay, let me get some salad bags. Okay, so I get some salad bags. I bought some homas and the carrot chips. Okay. And then I'm like, okay, I have like a little snack that at the end, nobody eats but in my head is good to have in their refrigerator. I was just thinking we were the salad bags. I buy fruits. I buy strawberries and bananas and grapes. That's what we do at home. And then, okay, so the night comes. And I'm in my desk taking care of what really motivates me, which is my business. I'm taking all those decisions. And then I'm like, ooh, it's 6.30. I hear a kid saying, what's for dinner? I'm hungry. I go to the refrigerator. Oh, remember the salmon perfect. Let me put in the air fryer or the oven. And here's the bag of salad. And that saved me one night. Onto the other kid says, I don't want salmon. So then I make a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Okay. Or even worse, those days that I don't like at all, both of my kids complain. And then they end up having cereal for dinner. And I just don't care. Or the mac and cheese. Got it. So mine is kind of similar, but my family will eat. Like, if I make a fruit salad, if I buy a bunch of mangoes and kiwis and all this stuff. But like for me, it's the prep that gets in the way because if I have all the fruit, nobody's going to eat it. If I cut it up and make it into a salad, then everybody eats it in this gone in one day. You know? So like, if I could just commit to making the time to prep it, it'll get eaten. I think that's like the ideal scenario. Right? It's like having the time to cut up the fruit and prep it and everybody eat it. But if you know that like week after week, that doesn't happen and the fruit just rots in the fridge, because you had all the best intentions of cutting it up, but then real life happened. Then that's not the best solution for you. So then I would start looking at, okay, well, what are the fruits that I don't have to cut up that can just be eaten? Or can I buy it pre-cut? And yeah, it is a little bit more expensive, but at least it's getting eaten and you're getting fruit totally. So and then same with vegetables. Like I always talk to people about like I have in my mind three different categories of vegetables. And the first one is I call them no brain or vegetables. And they're the things that don't require anything for you to eat them. So for example, I always, always, always just about have a bag of shredded carrots in my refrigerator because I can pick up a handful of shredded carrots and throw them on a bag of pre-made salad and add a can of tuna and add a can of chickpeas and there's lunch. And I didn't have to chop up anything and it took me three minutes. So same like I can pull out snap peas and we can just eat them. I don't have to do anything to them. I can put them on the table with dinner or I can put them on my plate with lunch. I always have microgreens. If anyone out there is from arrow, arrow farms, please call me. I'm dying to talk to you. I love your microgreens. Where do I buy those? Any grocery store? Lots of grocery store. Farmer's markets also have also microgreens. And now it's getting to be springtime. Then cherry tomatoes. Like they're another one that you don't have to do anything to them. Baby carrots. You don't have to do anything to them. Those little tiny cucumbers. Those are all vegetables that you can literally just add to your meal and eat them or add to your lunch and eat them or add to the lunch box and they don't require any effort on your part other than buying them at the store. Then there's things that like maybe you know you do need to cut up the broccoli and roast it for example or cut up the broccoli and steam it or whatever you're doing to the broccoli. Like it requires a little more effort. And then there's fancy like oh I'm going to make stuffed artichokes tonight and that actually requires like a recipe and a lot of time and intention. So like in my mind there's three different categories of vegetables and I think you need all three. Same with fruit, right? If you have a watermelon that you actually have to cut and chop it up, well maybe having some blueberries and blackberries and grapes that don't require that is a better solution for you or like you always want to make sure you have some of those around. Okay I chopped the fruit. That's not my problem. Good job. That was my problem. Yeah, not but I'm saying but nobody eats it. But then it's in the container in the refrigerator and we've free. Yeah, it's just that we forget is oh yeah no maybe not in the front but it's like oh we just go to the exact same thing which is for my kids it's like chips and whatever. Well so that's where like I always say when you're putting a meal together what do you need to have? You need to have protein, you need to have a carb, you need to mostly have a fat and then you need fruit and a vegetable. I'm like what do I want to eat? Then do I have a protein, do I have a carb, do I have a healthy fat and then I always always ask the question can I add a fruit or a vegetable? If you get in the have even if there's already one there I ask myself can I add another one I can throw those shredded carrots or I can throw those micro greens or those pickled red onions or whatever. So if you get in the habit when you're making mac and cheese for your kids now you're gonna be like how do I add a fruit or a vegetable? I'm gonna grab the strawberries and bananas out of the fridge and throw them on the plate or whatever. So it is like building the habit of asking the question that even if you're making them some up in a butter and jelly sandwich then you're also putting the fruit or the vegetable on the plate because you're in the habit of doing that you're more likely to eat that man that's an area. I like that. I like that it sounds easy to do. Do you know like for example this happens to me I have my closet with clothing okay and maybe I have more than what I need and it happens that I end up wearing the same thing over and over and the same combinations of clothing right and then you hire these people that come and do like a ring yeah yeah that's what happens with me and my pantry closet is like I am doing the exact same things over and over and over even if they don't work and nobody likes them because it's what easy for my brain and what I know I can do. So there's creatures of habit yeah but I'm just gonna work that so I need like a redesign of hey yeah you never thought about I don't know these lentils with blah blah blah and then retrain your brain yeah okay so I'm doing a new way the first one remind me to circle back to the kid thing and the selective eater thing because I do have like a little dietician tip of wisdom on that okay before we get there what I do with my clients like sometimes we literally do this together in session as I will say to them okay tell me the meals you make on repeat over and over again that generally everybody likes and we come up with a list of them and I say those are your core meals those are your no brainer meals those are your go-to meals you know the ingredients probably you can make it pretty easily and people generally eat it right now if you can pull together a list of 10 of those no I probably have eight of those okay eight if you can pull eight I bet you have more if I really like sat down and did it with you but even if you only have four or five let's say for now we're gonna go with you can come up with eight that's two meals a week that you could make two different meals I mean you now have four weeks worth of at least two different meals right because you came up with eight with the item then there's four meals in a I mean math is hard there's four weeks and a month yeah and two meals a week is eight meals yeah so now you're not going to be eating the same thing right because you're not having this in in food services called the cycle menu which you know we also have to do food services the dietitian so then like every fourth week you're gonna have two of the same meals but no one's gonna mind the last time you had them was four weeks ago and those are your easy meals then most people also need probably two other meals for the week because then you figure like we're eating leftovers we're having something super simple or we're going out to dinner so then maybe sometimes you're gonna have to pull a filler meal which is why if you can come up with 10 of them that's great but then you only need to find a couple new things to make every each week but I recommend that you go to the grocery store with like a little bit more of a plan than what you're currently doing what I like to do is like look at a bunch of recipes or like old recipes that I used to make like Marcus brings this recipe up all the time that I used to do that was like salad with like sliced steak on top of it and I would take Parmesan cheese and like melt it in my like saute pan and create like a little bowl out of Parmesan cheese that I would put the salad in in the meat and it had like sliced grapes and it like it was nothing fancy but sounds interesting it was interesting and he brings it up all the time and you don't make it anywhere I haven't made that in like years because the idea of like oh I gotta heat up this pan and like make up lacy Parmesan bowl is like yeah going here some Parm on your salad so I think the other thing that I generally teach people that people have told me is relatively life changing for them is to get out of the mindset that you have to cook every night in order to eat well and that you can make a dish like I think that this is a I don't know I suppose a particular skill of mine that I've developed over the years is like figuring out how to make one thing and then read it in three or four different ways so that it's not like exactly leftovers you're not pulling it out eating the exact same thing five times in a row but you are incorporating that thing that you made into three or four different meals whether it's lunch or dinner throughout the week and if you do that like I always tell my clients like if you don't enjoy cooking or you struggle with this my goal is to help you cook less and eat more this is probably like the most life changing tip I've learned from you and that is one of the ways that I help people do it is like teaching you how to think strategically about what you're making so that you can reuse it in different ways okay and it helps eliminate time in the kitchen and decision fatigue around what you're gonna eat okay I want to be the party pooper but I want to think strategically okay I have a lot of fun. I have a solution for you on that one. - I want somebody to think for me. - Yeah. - You're great. I don't know everything else, but. - Well, I have. - So hire Lisa with the Finstra-TGP people. - So many people have told me that this is a struggle for them, that I have actually created something really cool. Do you want to hear about it? - Yes. - I do. - Is it cool? I'll think strategically for you. - Pretty much. - Okay. - I'm in. - Yeah. I mean, I don't know that that's the actual title, but yes, basically. - It could be Lisa with I'll think for you. - How do people are like planning dinner? - So you don't have to. - Yes. - So, so, so many women have told me that they've really struggled with the pressure and the fatigue of trying to decide what's for dinner and the constant, like, here's another meal. And I don't like cooking and I don't know how to do this. And even figuring out what to make and get at the grocery store is overwhelming. So for now, we're calling it a recipe club. By the time this episode comes out, you will literally be able to go and join it. And essentially, I'm going to pick five recipes a month to send. So now imagine if you took that strategy that I just told you where two of your meals at least are already done for you, because you came up with eighth that you make all the time. And then I'm sending you five recipes that you can try. But you don't just get the recipes, you get that done for you shopping list and my ideas for how to repurpose that into different meals. - Yes, I'm in. Take my money, sign me up. (laughs) I'm in. - Thank you. - And take my brain. - Yeah, it is basically you'll know that there are all meals that I chose, so they're going to be pretty colorful and tasty and good for you and good for your family. But it's like helping relieve some of that pressure and guilt to do it perfectly. And also the emotional fatigue of having to decide on taking it off your plate. - Okay, I have a question for you. In those recipes, do you say when you have the ingredients, do you add which of those like what brand and which one specifically you recommend? Because that I appreciate very much from you. - For certain things I do. - Okay, you know, I'm not necessarily going to tell you what brand to milk to buy, but if it's like something a little bit more that I have a particular thing, yes, I will tell you. - Okay, because that, for example, for you listeners out there, at least I would recommend that this bread, that's what I eat now and I love it. And that cottage cheese, I don't know the name, the cottage cheese, yeah. - The cottage cheese is like life changing, okay? Because if you don't like cottage cheese, don't be disappointed, you might not need this one. - What is this? - You need this cottage cheese. - We're going to tell you when they sponsor the podcast. We'll name that. - Yeah, we're going to contact this cottage cheese. - You might hold that on me. - We will contact this cottage, or you can message a list of it on our Instagram, "Wilness rebranded" and we'll let you know you can send you a picture of the cottage cheese, but in the meantime, we're going to contact these people and find them or sponsor them. - Yeah, I will do that for you. I'm super excited about it because I know that people are so excited about it. I've talked to so many clients about it. We're all in a women's networking group. Like people are messaging me all the time. Like when is it, when can I sign up? - Yeah. - If you're listening to this episode, you can sign up now and I'm super excited to offer it. - How could you sign up? - There's a link in the show notes and it is very low cost and it is a great way for me to teach you some of how I do this and also just take the decisions off your hands. - Can you still come to my house and do a pantry? - I can. - I will. I would love to. - Okay. - I'll blow dry your hair. - Okay. (laughing) - Then I'll definitely do it. - Hell yeah. - Can you curl it because that's even like - You're all lasting good curl. - I'll curl it. - Whatever you want, okay. I'll become the best hairstyleist ever. - But wait, can we go back to the kid thing really quickly? - Yes. - Yes. - But I like to think about being considerate without catering. And so what does that actually mean at meal times? Like you don't want to turn into a short order chef, right? - Yeah. - Short order cook. - Who's just like, okay, this one doesn't like this. So I'm making this one peanut butter and jelly and that one grilled cheese and this is what I'm making my husband and this is what I'm eating. Like nobody has time for that. And it's also not that helpful for your kids because part of how kids learn to eat a wide variety of foods is by being exposed to them and having them on their plate and having people model eating them. And kids need many, many exposures to different foods and I'll say new foods, but it might be the same food prepared in a different way. Kids need multiple exposures to it before they might even be willing to try it. So a great tactic for parents is to be considerate without catering. And this comes from Ellen Satter and her division of feeding responsibility. But it's basically, if you're making a dinner, the goal is to have at least two things on the table that you know everyone likes. And that might be everybody likes rice or I know my kids like milk or everybody likes strawberries, right? And so you make like how I approach meal times and obviously my kids are older at this point, but I don't worry about what people like when I'm cooking dinner. I worry about what I feel like eating, what I feel like making, what I have around and that's what I make. But I will make sure that there's at least two things on the table that people generally I know they like. Now that doesn't help you if like this week your kid loved bananas and next week they hate them which we all know kids do. That's kind of like you generally know that they like them, that's on the table, they can choose to eat it or not eat it. It's not your job as a parent to get your kids to eat. It's your job to provide them with food to eat. But you can't force them to eat it. - My son sometimes will like choose to just not eat dinner. - Mm-hmm. Like he's like, oh, I didn't want chicken. He's really anti-chicken right now, which is unfortunate because we eat a lot of it. And he'll just be like, well, I'm gonna have a banana and I'm always like, okay, fruits always yes food in my house. - Yeah. - So sometimes they'll have a piece of fruit and sometimes they'll just play around at the table until it's time to go to bed and then leave this ghost. - And when we talk about being considerate without catering, milk and bread count. - Count for what? - As like a food. So if your kid just do people not count them? - Yes, some people would think like milk doesn't count as one of the two foods for them to like, but it does. It's protein and calcium, man vitamin D and whatever. And then bread like some people would also think like that doesn't count, but it does. So it takes pressure off appearance essentially. - So hopefully you picked up some sort of meal planning tip in this episode or dinner time tip that was helpful to you. - I think I'm really gonna lean into buying fruits and veggies that don't have to be prepped. - Yeah. I think that's my big takeaway. - Okay, Maria, what's yours? My big takeaway is the core meals. - Yeah. - I'm gonna make a lace try to come up with aid. I love that idea and then switching them. Like maybe even those core meals, how can I play with it and serve them different ways? - Yes. And I would also like, I have a simple meal list in my head. And I would encourage you to do the same. Like for example, again, actually I just had a for dinner the other night. Nobody was home. I didn't know what to eat for dinner. I didn't have anything around. I have really hardy dense English muffins. They actually have 10. In fact, I'm gonna be posting a reel about it so you can go check my Instagram page. But there's 10 grams of protein in these English muffins and like four, five or six grams of fiber. I can't remember, I'll pop my head. But I take those and I make a pizza bagel and then I serve it with edamame, which is protein and I serve it with fruit. And for years, I've given that to my kids when like we just needed something fast that checked all the boxes that I knew everybody would eat. That's what they got and it is a balanced, nutritious, nutrient dense meal that takes five minutes. I always have it, those English muffins in my freezer. And so like maybe also have one or two meals like that that are like not even really cooking. That's just you assembling. - I do like specific English muffins. - Yes, I'll tell you about those. - Okay, you see that's my point. You see my point with a lace of it? - Yes, you guys are. - That's what I was like. (laughing) - But if you have a couple of those, then you got like some pinch hitters in the mix as well. - So anyway, thank you for listening. I hope you came up with something that will help you make meal time just a little bit easier or something to try. If you want personalized guidance reach out to me. I do a lot of this kind of stuff in one-to-one sessions and I do take insurance. And if you want to join the recipe club and get me to pick out five recipes for you and tell you how to repurpose them and give you suggestions for my favorite products. Be sure to click the link in the show notes. Love, love, love to have you and not membership. - Thank you for listening. If you want to connect with me outside of these podcasts, you can find me on Instagram at coaching_therapist. - I'm Elizabeth. You can find me at Elizabeth Harris Nutrition or in my Facebook group, Health and Healing with Intuitive Eating. And I'm on Instagram and Facebook at Teradaleon Fitness. Guys, if you loved this episode or any of our other episodes, we would love it if you would leave us a review on Apple Podcast. It really, really helps us get the non-diet word out to the rest of the world. So please leave us a review. Yes, thank you. (upbeat music)