Food Planning

I'm struggling with planning my meals ahead of time. I get a couple meals planned, and end up with about a third of my points left unplanned, and just get stumped of what else to schedule to eat. I know I'm going to eat more, I just feel like I'm just scheduling in random food for the sake of filling in tracker space and having all my daily points accounted for, but at the same time I just don't know how my day is going to go.

Meal planning was actually easier in the past when I wasn't home all day. When I was working or in school and had to pack my lunch, snacks, and sometimes dinner I had to pick foods, and didn't have much access to other food choices to change my mind. Being home all day with full access to the kitchen it is too easy to change my mind about what I want, or just figure it out at I go.

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I let this post sit as a draft for a few days as I tried to work on my planning more and so I could think on it some more. I figured I would document how I was working on planning meals ahead of time. But, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it is really worth it to try and force myself to solidify my meal planning when there is really no purpose or benefit of doing it for my life right now. That's not to say I am not going to plan at all, but I do not need to keep trying to force myself to plan full days in advance. General meal ideas for the week is fine. So is "winging it" as the day progresses. I need to plan in a manner that allows me to have ingredients on hand, or to defrost items from my freezer to use. But there are definitely mornings when all I can handle is a VitaTop and a cup of milk, while other mornings I want eggs or a large bowl of oatmeal.

I'll worry about larger scale planning when my life calls for it. Its not worth stressing over, especially since I know I'm getting better at planning meals (whether just before making them if not further ahead of time). I am doing better about adding vegetables to my meals. I'm trying new foods and new combinations. I'm figuring out my food triggers and working to eliminate them (finding that some versions of foods are ok for me to have around, while others are not). I'm slowly minimizing the quantities of processed foods I'm eating, for a whole host of reasons. I think these are areas I should be focusing my attention on for now.