Mealplanning

Those two dreaded words that have been all the hype lately, for good reason that is. When I mention meal planning to my clients, I often get a blank stare, as if they are hearing the words in slow motion. Let’s be honest here, meal planning can be intimidating and make you want to run for the hills. The never-ending grocery list, the never-ending ingredient list with things you’ve never heard of and prepping a zillion different meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. What if I told you that it can be EASY? Would you give it a shot? 

With the Fall here, it’s the PERFECT time to get into the habit of meal planning. Think of those warm, home cooked, mom and dad comfort meals you grew up on. You can do it too! I’m going to break it down for you using three of my favourite meal planning words; PREP, BATCH and REPURPOSE. You’ll see how easy it can be! 

Prep

Prep, prep, and more prep. Honestly, this is the KEY to successful meal planning and changing your lifestyle. I’m saying lifestyle instead of diet because let’s be real here, diet is so 1990’s. Prepping will allow you to have meals/snacks readily available for you to grab and go instead of opening and closing the fridge several times before you actually choose something to shovel in your mouth. Chop up a bunch of your favourite fruits and veggies and store them in the fridge so you can easily grab them to chomp on by themselves or to dip them in something like hummus. BOOM. Easy peasy right? 

If you’ve picked some recipes that call for ground turkey/chicken/beef, cook up a pound of each and divide them up into servings and freeze them. They defrost in no time. I like to use ground turkey in tomato sauce, tacos, in a quinoa salad – the possibilities are endless. 

Saturday’s are a good day to get stuff organized. Plan what you want to have for the week and hit up the grocery store with your list. You can start to prep when you get home or get to preppin’ + cooking on Sunday. Another great tip for prepping is choosing several recipes that have similar ingredients so that your grocery list stays short and sweet. 

Batch

Batch cooking is my jam. If you see a recipe that only makes 2-3 servings you can easily double, triple, quadruple (you get the picture) that recipe to make more. Some awesome choices are hearty chili’s, soups, muffins (yes, muffins can be healthy) and dips. You can eat all of these throughout the week. Batch cooking takes the stress off BIG time. Another great batch cooking perk is that you can freeze portioned meals and just grab and heat it up. 

Repurpose

Repurpose and batch sort of go hand in hand but what I love about repurposing is that the same food/ingredient can totally up your meal. What I mean by this is that I will make a big batch of things like quinoa, lentils and roasted chickpeas and I will use them in different recipes. One night I might have a side of quinoa with my grilled chicken and then the next day I’ll add some into my salad for lunch. You can even use quinoa as a repurposing item when you are batch cooking soups and chili’s if you’re looking to add some more carbs to your meal. 

Meal Planning Tools 

As a nutritionist, I use a variety of tools to get the best meal plans to my clients. I get my inspiration from so many cookbooks but here are some of my favourites: 

Joyous Health + Joyous Detox by Joy McCarthy 

Meals that Heal Inflammation by Julie Daniluk 

The UnDiet Cookbook by Meghan Telpner 

Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo 

I also use meal planning tools like Meal Garden and That Clean Life. Through these platforms, you can search through thousands of healthy recipes and design meal plans right in the platform. They also have meal plans already done for you! Check them out! 

Getting creative in the kitchen is my favourite thing to do. While it gives you a chance to really get to know what you’re putting into your body, it also makes you feel like you are in complete control. Planning ahead gives you that sense of accomplishment and once you feel that, you’ll be a pro at meal planning and you’ll never look back! 

Photo credits: The lovely Jennifer Barr from The Planted One (Instagram: @theplantedone). Check her out for more meal planning inspiration!

Meet Tina Gravalos

Constantina (Tina) Gravalos is a Certified Nutritional Practitioner (CNP) and a Registered Nutritional Consulting Practitioner (RNCP), who graduated with honours from the Institute of Holistic Nutrition. Tina started Tina Gravalos Holistic Wellness where she sees clients for one-on-one consultations and meal planning, with a special interest in pediatric, digestive and preventative wellness. Tina also practices in Oakville at The Poppy Clinic, where she and Dr. Michelle work together to combine their skills,  expertise and their passion for helping others, to provide their clients with optimal holistic care. In addition, Tina is the in-house nutritionist for Meal Garden, an online meal planning tool and recipe database. Most recently, Tina has become a wellness contributor for Well TO Do, an online wellness and fitness guide, where she will be contributing wellness articles on a variety of topics. Her overall goal is to make a positive impact on people’s lives by encouraging and supporting them to make healthy choices to lead the healthiest life possible! Here’s how you can find more about Tina! www.tinagravalos.com | Facebook |Instagram 

Tina’s hours: Thursday 10am-7pm 

Online booking here

In vibrant health,