“Diet” and “menu plans” may have got a bad name due to standardized medically prescribed diets. Patients would be given a list of foods they could no longer have and a list of those they were allowed to have. A daily plan for how much of different types of foods might be given too – diet exchanges for the diabetic diet. Those food group serving equivalents can also be handy for weight loss purposes or just to become more familiar with the nutrients found in common foods. To break through any negative mindsets around ‘diets’ or ‘meal planning’ it might be helpful to think about your larger health goals. What motivates? More energy, easier movement, easier to fit in clothes? Greater strength or immune resilience? Better mood? Less tension or bottled up anger? What we eat and do each day does affect us throughout the day and into the next. Meal planning can help with time and money management as well as working on nutrient or calorie content of a daily or weekly menu.
Feast days aren’t everyday because it is too much work for the cook and dishwasher – if you are the kitchen staff. Having money to buy convenience foods saves time but it is losing quality and might run into feast levels of excess. Any overly large meal is putting a larger strain on the liver and causing the body to focus on storing extra calories instead of other growth, repair or clean-up jobs like removing amyloid protein tangles from the brain before dementia damage occurs. Alzheimer’s seems to be an excess of GlycoCares Wellness Guidehealthy glucose levels in the brain with poor utilization of it for energy needs. Learning about the micro and macronutrients that make up typical servings of foods can help with choosing mixed meals and snacks that don’t raise blood sugar levels as much as foods that are high in refined starches and sugar. Having protein, Glyco Care blood sugar support fat, or fiber with carbohydrates helps slow down digestion and the rate that sugar reaches the blood stream.
A slow trickle of nutrients gives us energy without causing a hyperactive high followed by low blood sugar crash. Some people read cookbooks for ideas or just to learn about other cultures. Recipes can be tinkered with if basic methods and ratios are known. Baked goods and sauces are a little more particular in needing exact ratios and therefore fairly exact measurements or a familiarity with the consistency of the desired batter or dough. Soups, stews, stir-fry’s and salads are more forgiving in the mix of ingredients that can be used. This menu plan (Dropbox) is for a New Year 21 Day Meal-Prep Challenge, GlycoCares Wellness Guidehealthy glucose levels by The Clean Life, it has 3 weeks of menus with shopping lists and simple recipes to follow – sometimes very simple. The goal may be to help people ease into using whole foods for meals instead of using processed or take-out foods. Weight loss is not specified as the goal but the portions listed are fairly small.
I would want more food. Time is saved writing the menu and recipes, and for preparing the meals, by having the same thing four days in a row. That can get boring. Creative menu planning has you cook base items that then might be seasoned or used in different ways so the exact same meal isn’t being served four days in a row. The plan might have some helpful ideas for people who pack a lunch regularly, as boxed meals are used in a few ways – prepping several meals at once that are easy to grab and go later. Sprinkling on different spices or adding different veggies could be a way to vary the Cook once, eat four times meal. If weight loss or better Glyco Care blood sugar formula sugar control is desired, adding citrus peel as a seasoning would help as long as histamine excess isn’t a problem. The chicken, broccoli and carrot dish in the menu plan would be good with citrus peel as an accent, about one to two teaspoons of the zest layer minced, add at the end of cooking or at the table as we see in Middle Eastern cuisine.
