BE A REAL BEAUTY 30 Day Meal Planning Guide Renia Carsillo © 2014 by Renia Grows Companies, LLC All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwithout written permission from the author. The information in this book is true and complete to the best of my knowledge. All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author. The author disclaims any liabilities in connection with the use of this information. For additional information, please contact the author directly at [email protected].
Interactive Table of Contents Interactive Table of Contents Why Be A Real Beauty? What 10 years of dieting taught me Why cooking works How to use this guide Cheat Sheet Help Using The Weekly Planner & Grocery Sheet Have Fun! Week One: A Beautiful Kitchen Setting yourself up for success Week Two: Making Meal Plans Prep your worksheets Week Three: Smart Prep How to prepare for the week in about 2 hours Week Four: Beautiful Eats Recipes Breakfasts Lunch Love Snacks Dinner Delights Desserts About Renia
Why Be A Real Beauty? The journey to becoming a true beauty is a rough one. I’ve never met anyone who can do it alone. I’ll be honest, I’ve never met a man with any talent for healing broken ladies either. This healing of our minds and our bodies and our souls, it is woman’s work–beautiful to behold. At Development of Taste, we’re working on creating a community of women who help each other develop strategies for life, love and dinner too. What 10 years of dieting taught me Unless you’re a part of about 1% of the female population, your body probably wasn’t made to look good in a bikini. So why make “skinny” your goal in life? Skinny isn’t necessarily strong or healthy or happy. Some of the saddest women I know have starved themselves into a size two—tying their selfworth to a number on a scale. I am tired of feeling inadequate because science hasn’t perfected a live version of Photoshop. I want to create a community of beautiful women all over the world who are working together to help each other remember this simple truth of womanhood: body type has nothing to do with beauty.
Why cooking works All fad diets–whether it’s cabbage soup or Paleo–are missing the critical point, as Michael Pollan points out in Cooked, the best way to control your weight and be healthy is to cook for yourself. By cooking for yourself, you can control what goes in your foodchemicals, preservatives or otherwise. By cooking for yourself you’re more likely to eat whole foods. By cooking for yourself you take control of your own health in a real and beautiful way.
How to use this guide This guide is not a diet. This guide is not a complicated cookbook. This guide is a 30 day program to teach you how to create a weekly meal plan in the fastest and most effective way possible. Make no mistake, meal planning is a complicated kitchen skill that requires time to master. All of the recipes in this guide have been created with that in mind. Each is simple, requiring less than fifteen minutes of active cooking time, minimal skills and only three process changes to complete. This is not an accident. Right now, focus on learning the skill of meal planning. Once you’ve mastered that, it will be time to move on to more complicated cooking techniques. Cheat Sheet Help The full color cheat sheets are designed to be printable guides. Print them, hang them on your refrigerator and refer back to them when you’re working on your weekly tasks. Using The Weekly Planner & Grocery Sheet The weekly planners are designed to be printed on cardstock and laminated. That way you can use dryerase markers to reuse them every week!
Have Fun! Cooking should not be drudgery! It should be fun! With a little planning and practicing, it will be! Allow yourself to indulge in whole and colorful ingredients, you’ll be glad you did!
Week One: A Beautiful Kitchen A wellstocked kitchen is a happy kitchen. Nothing is more frustrating than being halfway through a recipe and realizing you’re out of a key ingredient. Use the following cheat sheets to build and maintain your stock of perishables and tools. Don’t go out and buy everything on the list all at once (it could blow your quarterly budget)! Instead, work a few items into your weekly food budget and add them as you can. It took me about 6months, on a shoestring budget, to purchase everything on these two lists that I didn’t have. Take your time and you’ll be there soon! Setting yourself up for success To do this week: 1. Clean out your cabinets and your pantry. 2. Evaluate what you already have and highlight the things on the two lists (on the next two pages) that you don’t have. 3. Put a magnetic notepad on your refrigerator and begin putting yourself in the habit of adding essential items to it every time you run out.
Week Two: Making Meal Plans Print an extra copy of the weekly plan (on the next page) and note what you’re eating naturally this week. Do you eat out a lot? Tend to use precooked meals? By noting your existing habits you’ll be able to make smarter choices on what habits will stick and which will be tough regarding sticking to a plan. Prep your worksheets To do this week: 1. Print a copy of the Weekly Plan Worksheet and note what you eat naturally this week. Don’t judge or try to change it, just observe. 2. Go through the recipes at the end of this guide and make note of the ones that look the most like what you’re already eating. You’ll start with those next week. 3. If you don’t already shop from a grocery list, try using the Cheat Sheets and Staples Lists to make one this week.
Week Three: Smart Prep Spend this week learning how to prepare your food for the week. Read about the 20 second rule and you’ll understand how critical this step is. By spending a few hours each Sunday (or whenever the “beginning” of your week is for you) on preparation, you’ll be much more likely to stick to your plan. How to prepare for the week in about 2 hours To do this week: 1. Use the Weekly Planning Worksheet to plan just your dinners this week. 2. Go through the Prep Party Cheat Sheet as soon as you come home from the grocery store or farmer’s market this week. 3. Make notes on what other types of preprep you could apply in the future.
Week Four: Beautiful Eats Now that we’ve taken time to build up our stock, understand what we’re already eating and learn how to prep, it’s time to get cooking! Use only the recipes in this guide this week, if you can. The goal is to be focused on executing the plan, not complicated recipes. By sticking with the simple ones here, you’ll be more likely to stick to the plan. Keep in mind, this can be flexible. If you get to Tuesday and don’t feel like eating Sweet Potato Nachos, choose one of the other dinners on the list and cook that instead. Then switch that recipe to its place. This makes it easier to deal with cravings, while working with your plan. Oh, and we’ll even try helping the kiddos get involved this week! Get cooking, love eating! To do this week: 1. Plan all your meals using the recipes from this guide and your cheat sheets. 2. Grocery shop and prep on the first day of your week. 3. Swap out dinners, as needed, to fit what you’re in the mood for that day.
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