Weekly meal planning

Meal planning is something that I am passionate about. I value having healthy meals for me and my husband. We both work full time (yes, this is an excuse), and try to work out (another excuse), which can leave not alot of time to make healthy meals. We try to eat paleo most of the time. This is just a post on what a typical week of meal planning looks like in the Grenell house.
1. When I have time during the week to look at cookbooks or online blogs, I email myself the recipes that I want to make in the future.
2. On Sundays, I take the time to plan for the week. I try to incorporate a variety of proteins, so 1-2 beef meals, 1-2 fish meals, and 2-3 chicken or pork meals. Josh and I are fairly simple people, so the recipes we make are basically a protein, and a vegetable. We cook with olive oil as a fat source.
3. I make a few meals ahead of time in large Tupperware containers if I am on a stretch of days. That way, in the mornings, I can throw the food in the crockpot, and I have dinner when I am done with the gym. If they are not crockpot meals, it is something that I can easily heat up when I get home from the gym and have supper within 30 minutes of getting home.
4. A couple recipes that are easy to make ahead of time that are on the blog: picadillo, jambalaya, chili (beef chili, or the Colorado green chili), shredded Mexican chicken, just to name a few. The Clothes Make the Girl has a great blog about meal planning too- I really like her meatball recipes. Those are nice to have on hand for snacks as well as meals. In the evening, if I heat up a meal, I can cook some frozen broccoli or make cauliflower rice or a salad in just a few minutes.
5. I like to grocery shop just 1 time per week if I can manage- its easier, cheaper, and fits in my schedule. I can gather what I need for recipes, and get staples like meat, eggs, milk, bacon, and fresh and frozen veggies, in one shopping trip. Sams Club is wonderful for buying big bags of frozen meat and frozen veggies- we get salmon, chicken, cubed pork for chili, pork chops occasionally, eggs, bacon, fruit, and milk. I do hesitate to go there on the weekends, but if I do go its early! Also, we try to get 1/4 cow- grass fed preferred, to have beef on hand in our big freezer. That is a really convenient way to have roasts, steaks, and hamburger meat on hand.
6. The nice thing about making meals ahead of time, is that this is often more food than the 2 of us can eat for 1 meal, so we usually have leftovers for the next day's lunch. So, get some smaller tupperware for those meals.
7. Snacks- We sometimes will make some veggie side dishes: Spinach and artichokes, cooked carrots, or pack some nuts, lara bars, hard boiled eggs in little tupperwares for middle of the day snacks, or post-workout nutrition. So, get some even smaller tupperware this stuff. Alot of these recipes make for great post-workout nutrition, so don't be afraid to eat some chicken while others are drinking protein shakes.

Hopefully that helps. I will post more ideas as I can think of them!