Healthy dinner plan to balance out the Halloween treats

For me it seems like Halloween is just the beginning of the huge junk eating marathon that goes on through the holidays. It makes me feel heavier just thinking about it.  This past week I was reading an article about SAT test prep and how you never get a good night sleep the night before the test. (Stay with me here- I really am getting to a point!) To combat this problem, the family in the article said they make sure they back log good sleep before the test. So for the week before the test, they go to bed early every night. That way when they don't sleep the night before the test, their bodies will have had enough rest to be able to handle a night that was a little short. I thought this would be an amazing idea to use the week before school starts, the week before Christmas, or a vacation.  Then I thought how great this would be if I used this in my eating as well. So I am making a plan of healthy food options to eat for the week before Halloween to gear up for a day of junk. I think this would be great for Thanksgiving and other holidays as well.  If I take the time to plan out healthy meals, I'm so much better at sticking with it.   This is how I menu plan:

(click on the menu to print)

I usually plan two weeks in advance. I also like to take a peek at the weekly grocery circulars to see what items might be on sale so I can cut down on costs. Once I've looked at what might be on sale, I start plugging things into my menu plan. I try to "roll over" my leftovers as much as possible to save on prep time and food waste. For example:

I look at my calendar and see I have a little extra time to do some grilling on Saturday. So I grill enough chicken on Saturday to use in our chicken pitas, but also enough to use for our stir fry on Sunday and chicken tortilla soup on Monday. If I've really hit a great chicken sale, I'll grill even more to pop into my freezer for other times (I grill it and slice it first).

Another example would be my beef or pork roast. Sunday I know I will be out of the house in the afternoon for church, so I put the roast in the crockpot for a quick dinner when I get home. My family isn't a huge fan of veggies and roast mixed together to cook in the pot (SAD! Because I love it!), so I will do baked potatoes and broccoli on the side. This actually works out great because I can set my oven to "time bake" on the potatoes and they are fine sitting in the cold oven until it turns on. Then I only need to steam the broccoli which is super quick. I can also use this to my advantage when I want to use leftover baked potatoes for potato cheese soup the next night (crock pot potatoes wouldn't be quite as tasty). I can also plan to use the extra beef for my tacos on the night after the soup.

Once you  have your menu plan filled out, then make your grocery list below. If you're going to different stores, you can arrange them by store as well (Costco on top, Sprouts on the bottom, etc.). I also give myself a break on Fridays. This is usually the night we plan to go out or order in because I am too exhausted to think about another meal. There are often times I switch the days around that we are eating certain things due to crazy schedules or food cravings. I'm not always great about keeping track of paper, so I usually take a picture of my grocery list with my phone when I'm finished.

Hopefully this will be a great trick for us to enjoy the treats on Halloween and not feel guilty about it because we will be filled up with nutritious food for a week before it hits. 

Here is a link to the Baked Rigatoni recipe- quick and easy crowd pleaser to follow up a busy day. I plan to use it the day after Halloween.