Happy weekend! I did my weekly menu prep, groceries are bought and we are ready to take on a fresh week.
Last week, we took an impromptu trip to Michigan for a long weekend, and it was lovely (and nice since I was taking time off from workouts to see if it would help my knee pain from last week). But that said, I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things on the food & fitness front. Plus, Bryce starts his second year of preschool this week, which we are all excited for.
With Bryce starting back to school, we also decided on a family challenge to kick off the school year. It consists of a few things:
1) no eating out for 30 days
2) no snacking after dinner (circadian intermittent fast for at least 13 hours)
3) aim to limit dairy, carbs and sugar as best as possible
We are excited to see how the no eating out challenge affects our overall health and grocery budget, along with a couple diet tweaks, over the next 30 days. We don’t eat out a TON…maybe one dinner a week, one lunch a week and one dessert a week as a family– but after reading Dave Ramsey’s book and talking with friends, we want to give this a go. We will continue to meal prep, make our coffee at home and pack lunches.
Here’s what is on the menu:
Thursday // breakfast bowls for a quick and filling meal before back to school night! (carrying over from last week’s meal plan)
Friday // turkey meatballs over edamame pasta I am curious to try from Aldi. Otherwise, I might serve them in a pita with mozzarella cheese. (carrying over from last week’s meal plan)
Saturday // zucchini pizza boats
Sunday // steak (we buy individually wrapped 6 oz portions and store in the freezer), green beans, sweet potatoes
Monday // one of my all-time favorite dishes- taco cupcakes. Bryce loves to help assemble them! Served with fat free refried beans and rice.
Tuesday // a healthy, flavor packed jambalaya with cauli rice
Wednesday // campfire turkey meatloaf packets. Approved by the boys and easy cleanup!
What I’m loving this week:
Prepping for back to school with a freezer stash!
We had a rainy day on Monday so Bryce and I made a couple things to have ready in the freezer for breakfasts & snacks/lunches. First up, we made a double batch of zucchini carrot pancakes. These are SO tasty, and I love that there are veggies in them. FYI- the recipe makes a TON. We just made them as pancakes and they worked well. And I highly recommend her cream cheese frosting topping! We also made some no-bake cranberry chocolate almond energy balls to have on hand for snacks or as a sweet treat in his lunchbox. These are really tasty and fun for Bryce to help make too.
[…] I’ve got a new meal planning notepad (it’s linked below), and I’m nerdily taking advantage of it and staying strong on our no eating out for 30 days challenge that I talked about last week. […]