A Typical Grocery Haul + Meal Plan for the Week
Happy Monday! Are you enjoying and extra day off like Henri or are you heading off to work like me? Luckily one of us is off because Lavinia’s daycare is closed to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I wish it were me so that I could get an extra day with this adorable face…
… but track season is officially in session so off to work it is. 🙂
In my end of year blog survey from last month the topic that I got the most questions about was my nutrition and fueling. Everything from what I eat on a regular basis to how I fuel for workouts, long runs and races. I’m planning to touch on all of the related topics in the coming year but I thought that it would be good to start with what a typical grocery haul + week of meal planning looks like for us.
I personally don’t feel like there is anything special or crazy about how we eat – I don’t count calories or track macros and we don’t stick to any one particular “diet” or way of eating. My overarching theory on food is pretty simple – stick to mostly whole, unprocessed ingredients and cook the majority of our meals and snacks. I don’t buy a lot of boxes/packages and one of Henri’s most common complaints about our food situation is that if you want to eat something in our house you have to cook it because we don’t have a ton of easy/convenience foods around (although, that has changed a bit with Lavinia – we like to keep some fruit pouches and granola bars on hand for her).
Every week before I go to the grocery store I make a rough outline of what I want to make for dinner that week – and leave some wiggle room to shift things around depending on sales. I also go through our pantry and take an inventory of what we have that we can use to make dinner or snacks we like to keep around that we may be running low on. While I only plan out our dinners the following grocery haul covers all of our meals for the week, including breakfasts, lunches and snacks. We usually go out for one meal as a family (or as a date night) on the weekend, Henri eats one lunch out per week with his co-workers and I usually grab a lunch or a breakfast at work one day per week as well. Other than that all our food for the week is either from this shopping trip or we already had it in the pantry/fridge (which is why it looks like a lot of groceries/comes out to a big grocery bill for 2.5 people, haha).
Below the list of groceries I bought, I also made note of the things that we already had on hand that I didn’t have to buy on this shopping trip but will get eaten this week.
Grocery Haul
Dairy
Whole Milk – we drink a LOT of milk in our house, we originally switched to whole milk 2+ years ago when we were starting to think about getting pregnant and I don’t see us switching back to 2% anytime soon
Greek Yogurt (vanilla for me/blueberry for Henri) – I’m trying to eat less ice cream at night to Greek yogurt with strawberries and granola is my current substitute
Butter – I LOVED reading in the “Run Fast, Eat Slow” Cookbook that Shalane goes through a lot of butter and olive oil every week because, us too Shalane, us too!
Protein
Steak
Ground Beef
Ground Chicken
Eggs
Fruit
Bananas
Apples
Strawberries
Frozen Mixed Berries – for smoothies (some days Lavinia is randomly picky, but even on those days I can get some good nutrition in her in the form of a smoothie!)
Veggies
Onion
Garlic
Bell Peppers
Kale – my sister turned me on to the Lacinato version of kale a little over a year ago and it has changed kale for me! I can tolerate the curly/normal version of kale but the Lacinato kale is sooooo much tastier to me
Broccoli
Sweet Potatoes
Grains
Organic Oat Bread – good for pre-run toast and sandwiches for lunch in a pinch when we don’t have leftovers
Cascadian Farms Honey Oat Cereal – Henri loves cereal for breakfast and I can’t seem to break him on the habit so I try and get him healthier options, while Liv and I like oatmeal for breakfast I’ll also enjoy the occasional bowl of cereal for “dessert”
Whole Wheat Pasta
Misc.
Chili Powder
Coconut Milk
Coconut Oil
Perfect Bars
Guacamole Mix
Chicken Broth
Food We Have on Hand That I Incorporated Into the Meal Plan for the Week
For Meals:
Brown Rice
Quinoa
Frozen Chicken
Curry Paste
Frozen Veggies
Frozen Salmon
Oatmeal
For Snacks:
Almonds
Cashews
Trail Mix
Apple Sauce Pouches
LaraBar Bites
String Cheese
Meal Plan
After the holidays I’ve been getting back on the meal planning wagon the past few weeks. One thing I’ve found that works best for me with meal planning is to plan 5 meals for the the week and buy enough to have leftovers for lunches and the other two nights of the week. Most weeks we’ll also go out to dinner at least one night. I used to assign each meal to a specific day but then I would end up shuffling the meals around to different days anyways based on how much time I have to cook dinner and what we’re in the mood for. So now I don’t bother with planning out ahead of time what day I’ll make what. This week the 5 dinners I have planned are.
- Chicken + Butternut Squash Chili
- Steak w/ Quinoa and Kale + Sweet Potato Salad
- Spaghetti w/ Meatballs + Broccoli
- Chicken Curry w/ Mixed Veggies Over Brown Rice
- Pesto Spaghetti Squash w/ Salmon
For breakfasts Lavinia and I generally have oatmeal and Henri has cereal. Lunches are usually leftovers + then we pack snacks to get us through the work day. Our go-to snacks are apples, bananas, nuts/trail mix, yogurts, snack bars (LaraBars, PerfectBars and Kind Bars are our current go-tos) and string cheese.
So there you have it! A typical grocery haul + meal plan for the week. Nothing fancy, just good food made with real, good ingredients!
The next food related post that I’m planning to do is a look into what I eat over the course of a whole day, so you can get a better idea of how I use the above ingredients. Let me know if you have any questions or topics you’d like me to touch on in that post. 🙂
Do you meal plan? If yes, how good are you at sticking to your plan? I used to be 100% good at sticking to my plan but when I was pregnant with Lavinia meal planning didn’t even serve a purpose because I never knew what I’d be in the mood to eat! haha
What are some of your go-to snacks?