Our Daily Vittles to Battle the Bulge...week by week healthy meal planning

Tell me if this sounds familiar to you...I've chatted with a lot of friends, scrappy and non-scrappy ones, and one thing I hear over and over is that one of the hardest parts of their day starts to hit around 4:30 when they say, "oh no, I have no idea what I'm making for dinner". I know that has been true for me.

Here's what was happening in my house...

• Sometimes I had something in the fridge and/or pantry that I could throw together but it wasn't always the healthiest choice. At least we weren't eating fast food though, right?
• Sometimes my fridge was empty and any meat I had was still frozen and I'm so afraid of rapid defrosting and getting the family sick so off we went to a restaurant or fast food. We always spent more money than we needed to and oh, we still had to get back home in time to do homework, baths/showers for the girls, etc. Again, not a very healthy choice usually.
• Other times, hubby or I would run by the store on our way home and grab a rotisserie chicken, or chicken & apple sausage, or a frozen meal like Bertoli's or PF Changs, frozen steamable veggies, or whatever sounded good. This was a decent choice but who wants to go through this every day.

And then, the Battle of the Bulge started to set in. Da. Da. Daaaaaaaa!

So, we started weekly meal planning, which has been great but, and this is a BIG BUT, it included things like King Ranch Chicken casserole (using chips & canned soups), some creamy Pasta, fried food or meat & potatoes type meals. While these wonderful comfort foods are quite tasty and we enjoyed more meals at home, it did nothing to help me Battle my Bulge. It didn't help that I was eating the leftovers for lunch the next day either. I have no idea how many calories I was consuming but it was way too much.

I started reading about different healthier lifestyles, like Paleo, Clean Eating, etc.  You know what? My very picky kids, who I had to practically beg to eat every night, starting cleaning their plates with little prompting.  Great right?  Who would have thought they'd enjoy the healthier foods more than the comfort foods. But then life got busy and we fell back into our old patterns.

Well, with a 2 week trip to Hawaii coming up in July and just a general desire to eat healthier and teach my kids to eat healthier, I've finally gotten serious. I need to shed those extra pounds and we need to get back to eating healthier.

The point of the story...
So back to the chat I was having with friends about meal planning. Many people said, I just don't have the time to scour all the "skinny" recipe sites, Pinterest, etc. for meals that may or may not taste good in addition to planning our meals for the week.  How about I do that for you?  Since I'm already doing this for my family, I thought I'd share my weekly meal schedule with links to the recipes. I'll also share photos of what my meal looked like, if I can remember to take them and what the family thought of the meal. That means I'll be sharing what I made the previous week with you.

I'll post this on Saturdays so that you can take a look and do your shopping on Sundays.

I also started working out 4 - 5 days/week for at least 45 minutes. I'm taking classes at my local gym and I actually love them. They are fun! Maybe I'll list my workout for the day as well so I will stay accountable.

By the way, I started this last week. I didn't work out (for personal reasons) and I am already down 3.5 pounds. Yay me! The Battle of the Bulge has begun.