How to Meal Plan if You Hate to Cook ⋆ Earth and Water

Any one who knows me knows I highly dislike cooking. This poses several problems in my life. My body is very sensitive to things and if I eat something that isn’t good for me, I feel like absolute crap.

I’ll have digestive problems, causing serious cramping, bloatedness or gas. Indigestion causes my chest to hurt which raises my anxiety and stress levels.

I’ll feel nauseas or just overall not great, lethargic and have trouble focusing on work or getting anything done.

Eating right is very important for me and a huge part of my daily life. Unfortunately, it’s been an extra level of struggle for me because I don’t like to cook but my husband does.

Sounds great on the surface, right? But he loves to cook everything that makes me feel bad. He’s a great cook when it comes to meat and potatoes, fried food and bread oriented what-nots.

Not so great with the veggies. Bless his heart he does try sometimes though and is getting better.

This contrast in our eating needs poses a constant battle with myself and him. As someone who hates to cook, it’s oh so tempting just to eat whatever other people are cooking.

To set aside my “Ideals” and just take the easy way out. I’m often left with the choice of eating what’s in front of me or surviving off of peanut butter. (Which is not a great meal alternative)

I’m really good at not ordering things that don’t agree with me off of the menu. I have crap self control when it comes to what people put in front of me.

I know the biscuit is going to make me feel bad and I’m going to regret eating it. I won’t order or ask for the biscuit. But if the biscuit is put in front of me, it’s obviously the universe telling me to eat it, right?

The Art of Feeding Yourself

Luckily, my husband goes large spurts of time not cooking, due to his demanding work schedule and it forces me to practice the art of feeding myself.

And it IS an art. Cooking is an act of creativity and skill. Learnable and teachable luckily. Coming naturally to some and like calculus to others.

While there are a hundred different “Correct ways to eat” out there, the most effective diet FOR YOU will only be found from your own research on your own body. No one can tell you what diet works best for you and losing weight isn’t a sufficient way to tell if the current diet you’re on is “The one”.

I highly recommend keeping a food journal when you’re first starting out. Keep notes on what you eat and how it makes you feel. Not only physically but mentally and spiritually too.

Here’s an article diving deeper into eating on a multi dimensional level.

Food is such a big thing in my life. I’m a Taurus (the description of which includes food) and my entire being is overly sensitive to such things. I say “Overly sensitive” But I may just be attuned to it all more than your average person who is also dealing with these things but unaware of their causes.

Anyway, Bread makes me feel heavy, often bloated and gives me chest pains. Animal products make me feel nauseas and guilty. Sugar and caffeine give me anxiety and blood sugar issues.

It’s a delicate dance that I am forced to participate in unwillingly but I’m trying to make the best of it.

How to Meal Plan

Something I’ve found invaluable is taking the time to plan out what I’m going to be cooking. I have a bullet journal where I’ve grided out Monday through Friday in a vertical column. On the opposite side, I have mini strips of post-its with meals written on them.

On Sundays, I’ll decide what I’m cooking on what days, placing the post-its on the days. Then I’ll write out a grocery list for what I need.

This is especially valuable because things are less likely to get wasted. Your good intentioned produce you bought without having a plan for isn’t going to sit in your fridge rotting while you find the time, drive and inspiration to figure out what to do with it.

You may want to repeat this process for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I only ever COOK something for one of these a day. Usually lunch or dinner. I always eat the same breakfast every morning to make things a little easier on me. Although, I did just get a new cookbook so things are changing. Watch Instagram for details on all of that.

Ideally, per Ayurveda, lunch should be your largest meal of the day. Eating when the sun is at it’s strongest and so are your digestive fires. And then dinner should be something light, easy to digest and at least 4 hours before bed. (We don’t digest food while we sleep so any food left in the stomach sits and sours)

Most families rotate between the same 12 or so meals, on average. When you’re first learning how to cook, it can seem intimidating but think of it as building something one brick at a time, with one brick placed per week. Slow and steady, and you only need like 12 bricks.

Tips and Tricks for an easy meal plan

Make a list of everything you already know how to cook. Can any of these recipes be improved to be healthier?

You’d be amazed at the simple upgrades you can add to make a common and simple meal better for you.

Spaghetti
- Add some garlic cloves, mushrooms and/or spinach
- Switch from regular noodles to lentil noodles (They taste nearly the same and provide more protein)
- Make your own spaghetti sauce (Usually takes a can of tomato sauce and a packet of seasoning)

Tacos
- Use beans or lentils in leu of meat
- Slice and saute (or eat raw) sweet peppers, tomatoes, onions, etc

Enchiladas or Quesadillas
- Add all of the veggies. All of them. They all work great here.
- Top with leafy greens

Get the veggies in however you can. Experiment with seasonings. Play and tweak things.

Timing

My favorite time to fiddle in the kitchen is during a void moon. Since I would rather be using my time for ANYTHING other than cooking (#Pitta), the void moon is great since you shouldn’t really be doing anything important during that time anyway.

I already don’t allow myself to work during this time, so I might as well be in the kitchen experimenting.

If you don’t enjoy cooking, finding time to do so can be extra irritating. Try to set up a certain time of day where you dedicate 30 minutes to an hour in the kitchen. If doing this every day still sounds terrible, shoot for certain days of the week.

Look for recipes with short prep and cook times, simple ingredient lists and instructions but high yields. This will allow you to optimize your time and energy and then you can eat leftovers of it for the next few days! I would waste away and die if it weren’t for leftovers.

Crock pots, instant cookers and one pot wonders are your best friends.

Keep Notes. Keep notes. Keep notes.

I can’t stress this enough. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve experimented with a certain dish and it came out great once, terrible the next time, better but not great the next time and then inedible after that. THE SAME DISH!

What did I do right? What did I do wrong? Who knows! Because I didn’t write anything down and lost the original recipe that I had found on Pinterest and was really only using it as guidelines anyway. Because I do that. Recipes are only guidelines for me. I’m such a rebel.

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