The Benefits of Planning Your Meals in Advance

A meal plan is an inventory of the foods you’d like to eat for the next few days or weeks. Whether you want to lose weight or live a healthy lifestyle, planning your meals can be extremely beneficial.

This article discusses how meal planning can help you achieve your ideal weight or adopt a healthy lifestyle, as well as other benefits you may not have considered.

Helps you not gain weight

Planning meals ahead can improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity refers to the amount of sensitivity of your body cells to insulin. When insulin sensitivity is high, your body’s cells use glucose more effectively.

On the contrary, low insulin sensitivity can lead to many chronic diseases.

You’ll be able to keep your blood sugar in check if you schedule your meals ahead of time. Improving insulin sensitivity and consequently lowering blood sugar, benefits you by reducing the risk of developing type-2 diabetes.

Moreover, recent studies show that a low-calorie diet that reduces insulin production leads to a longer lifespan. (3)

If you also plan for your meal hours, you can benefit from improving insulin sensitivity even more. Because this avoids your blood sugar fluctuating heavily. This way, you will be able to lower your blood sugar and lose weight significantly.

When your blood sugar drops, your appetite for sugars and junk foods increases. That increases the possibility of having bigger portions.

Moreover, planning when you are not hungry and more able to make better decisions can help you achieve a balanced meal with nutrient-dense ingredients.

Healthier lifestyle

You cannot be sure you live a healthy lifestyle if you dine out more often. You don’t know what you’re actually eating in a restaurant. Or how much your food has been processed. Sometimes foods are cooked multiple times, so they become more inflammatory. Inflammation can lead to several chronic diseases, including cancer, over time.

Even cooking at home without a plan will probably be less healthy than following one. We usually tend to eat our favorite meals or fast cooking ones more often, so we may lose other groups of nutrients and vitamins. You can plan for gaining a wider range of vitamins and nutrients. Moreover, it is easier to follow a specific diet in case you have particular health concerns, such as gluten intolerance or lactose intolerance. Because Planning your meals ahead of time can save you time and give you time to go grocery shopping. But having no plans for it can mean you don’t have all the ingredients needed.

Further, when your sugar blood has dropped you may not be able to self-control or decide about the right food. But when you plan your meal, you have more options than eating at a restaurant, therefore you can gain a wide range of vitamins and nutrients.

You can keep the count of calories

Planning meals helps you to get or stay fit. When eating at a restaurant you do not know how much you are actually taking in. But with prep ahead meals, you can eat the right amount of food.

Saves you time and money

You can save a lot of money eating in. Eating at restaurants costs 60% more than what you prepare in the home. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average american spends about 3000$ a year dining out.(4)

Moreover, planning ahead saves your time and energy by reducing needless shopping, and reduces waiting time in grocery stores since you have a monthly meal plan. So you do not have to walk among shelves and get distracted by all the offers, but you can make a list beforehand of all the ingredients you will need for your next meal.

Less leftovers

When you know exactly what you’re intending to eat for the next meal you will have fewer leftovers. When you have a list ready for shopping, you know the right amount of ingredients you must buy. This way it’s less likely to find bread that got moldy in your fridge.

You also help nature a lot by reducing food waste. It may be interesting to know that we waste around 7 billion dollars each year on waste food! (2)

Less Stressful thoughts

Having a plan for a day or so makes you feel more confident and organized. Since you know what exactly you need for the next meal, you don’t have to think about ingredients the night before. It takes a burden off your shoulders and you can enjoy cooking without stress, since you will be sure you have all the ingredients in your kitchen.