Customizable Meal Plans: How I Simplified my Life

REMOVE STRESS, EAT WELL, AND  MAKE DINNERTIME ENJOYABLE AGAIN with customizable meal plans.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

You want to eat better, want to stop grabbing takeout, going out, and reverting to quick, unhealthy options at home, but are just too busy or cannot seem to get organized enough to make it happen.

You have the best intentions. countless meals plans and planning systems have cycled in and out of your hands, you even buy loads of fresh ingredients each week, but invariably most of it gets tossed in the trash at week’s end along with the plan that failed.

This just adds to the frustration.

I know how you feel because that was me!

There was this desperation to eat better because I knew I would feel better If I did. But because I couldn’t get organized I kept returning to our old standbys- like nachos or frozen pizza- or we would just go out because I was too tired and frustrated to cook.

I was wasting so much produce this way, which made me feel so guilty: I was wasting money, contributing to the global food waste epidemic, and was feeding my family crap.

My husband is an amazing help when I have a plan, so when I attempted to make customized meal plans using a system I found on Pinterest, it worked pretty well for a while.

But it was labor intensive and stressed me out. I am a teacher and deal with enough paperwork.

Feeling hopeless, I gave up on it and tried another. And another.

This created a terrible cycle. We were eating well when I could get it together, but more often than not this wasn’t the case.

A nasty flare brought the wake-up call I needed. I resolved to get serious about not just my health, but the health of my family as well. I needed customizable meal plans.

Enter Customizable Meal plans with Real Plans

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For those of you who are struggling with meal planning for whatever reason, be it lack of time or specific food sensitivities, or even lack of creativity, I cannot recommend Real Plans highly enough. I have been using Real Plans for a little over a year now and it has changed the way I view meal planning.

When I originally joined I thought it was awesome that I could manually select ingredients to remove from all recipe recommendations and meals plans (dairy, soy, peanuts, nightshades, gluten). It was an immense time saver to not have to sort through ingredient lists or recommended recipes for offending items while trying to figure out replacement ingredients. Now it is even easier.

There are now preloaded selections for GAPS, KETO, Paleo, AIP, Traditional, Whole30, and Vegan, so once you click this, all noncompliant foods are excluded. You can further customize where necessary.

It is perfect for those with food allergies and sensitivities.

Also, more and more developers are adding their recipes to the program.  I have followed  Nom Nom Paleo for years, so imagine how excited I was when they got on board. Autoimmune Wellness is another addition I am super excited to see.

thousands of recipes are included, but if you are like me and love searching for new recipes on Pinterest, there is an import option that loads any recipe into the database by simply copying and pasting the URL

It makes following a specific diet much easier.

Are you still thinking that following a Paleo, AIP, or Whole30 plan is too difficult or expensive? Or do you think spending money on a meal planning service will make it even more expensive?

I thought so, too and I put this purchase off for too long.  The reality was quite the opposite.

 When I had a concrete plan for the week instead of just good intentions and a customized shopping list I actually saved money.

Now I choose recipes that match my skill set and time constraints and shop only for the ingredients I actually need and know I will use. This means less waste.

When I think back to the rotten, unused ingredients I have thrown away in the past, I could have paid for this many times over.

What You Get

Every week a meal plan based on your dietary specifications is generated. It is completely customizable. When you are happy with it, just select it, generate the shopping list, and customize it further for your needs.

The last step is to text, print, or email the shopping list to someone else to do the shopping for you. HA!

It really doesn’t get any easier or better than this.

Let me know if you try it out!

Feature Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash