FREE 14+ Printable Meal Planner Samples & Templates in PDF

Deciding what to cook and what to eat is sometimes becoming a difficult thing. It might be quite easy deciding for yourself, but when it comes to preparing meals for a family or for a number of people, it often becomes a hassle. It’s also the same difficulty and hassle that most food businesses experience when they plan for the menu for the day, for the week, or for the entire month. For sure customers wouldn’t want to get the same meals for the entire month. You can also like daily planner samples.

• Free Planner Samples
• Weekly Planner Samples

Printable meal planner samples will be a great help when it comes to meal planning. With the help of available meal plan samples, even those who are new to meal planning will be able to make a meal plan fast and easy. Together with the sample templates that we have included, it will be very convenient for anyone to create their very own meal plans.

21-Day Meal Planner Sample

Crossfit Meal Planner Sample

Weekly Meal Planner Template

Meal Planner Sample for Adult Males

Daily Diabetes Meal Planner

Sample Meal Plan for Gestational Diabetes

Recommended Meal Planner for Women

Counting Carbs and Meal Planning

Meal Planner for Weight Loss

What Is Meant by Meal Planning?

Meal planning is a process that involves a lot of decision-making, buying groceries, and preparing meals. There is no right or wrong way when planning meals. A meal plan is usually a list of things to be done and food to be prepared as part of the meal planning process. There are no rules or strict steps to be followed to have it done. One of the smart goals of meal planning is to be able to have a balanced and healthy meal, and at the same time have fun while doing the preparations.

If you are on a diet or plan to be on a diet, which could be a vegan diet or high protein diet, then you should learn to start planning for your meals. Meal planning not only includes a list of the food that you should prepare for a certain period of time, it is also good for keeping track of your calorie intake and the serving size for a particular food. You can also use it as a budget plan at the same time. You will be able to keep track of your expenses and savings all in one planner.

The Benefits of Meal Planning

All things happen for a reason and all things are done because they are beneficial, one way or the other. The benefit may not always be the same from one person to another. Still, the fact that they provide some sort of use cannot be denied. So if you ask why meal planning should be done, it is because they have benefits. Those benefits are listed below.

• Meal planning helps us save money. One of the many goals of meal planning is to help people save so that those who wish to get more and spend less would want to make a meal plan. How can a meal plan help you save? Planning before going to the grocery lets you identify what supplies you need to buy. Having a grocery list handy prevents you from buying unnecessary items or items that you don’t really need. Also, frequent visits to the grocery means spending more gas and buying stuff on a whim. And believe me, they will cost you a lot.
• Meal planning lets us save time. It’s true that planning takes time, but what is 30 minutes of planning compared to a couple of hours spent per week trying to figure out what to buy. Going to the grocery twice or three times a week, even if it is just a couple of hours, is still time that can be saved if you planned ahead. In addition, lesser trips to the grocery means saving your energy for more important things. You may also like meal calendar templates.
• Meal planning allows us to eat real food. We usually drop by fast-food chains or grab burgers on our way to school, work, or on our way home. It’s because it’s fast, convenient, and it saves us time. You won’t have to prepare anything and there are definitely no dishes to wash. If you come to think of it, burgers and fries aren’t real food. They are part of the junk food list. When you plan your meals, you won’t ever think of dropping by any fast-food chain because you know that a fresh and healthy meal is waiting for you at home. And these meals you have planned are all real and healthy food.
• Meal planning lessens the stress brought about preparing meals. Meals should be prepared on a daily basis to ensure that we eat them fresh. The only problem is it is very stressful to have meals prepared every day, especially if you don’t have a meal plan. Preparing meals is made easy if you have a plan. You won’t have to stress yourself about what to prepare. You just simply take them out of your fridge, cook, and serve. Or you can precook them and reheat. You can use a daily planner to help you.
• Meal planning minimizes or avoids wasting food. The best way to prevent having a lot of food waste is to plan for your meals. If you don’t need such items in your menu, then don’t buy it. If you buy food or ingredients that you don’t need, you might just end up throwing them away and that is such a waste. Having a menu planner will be handy.
• Meal planning makes having a variety or a selection of meals possible. Eating the same meals over and over again makes us lose our appetites, and most of the time it is not becoming healthy. Imagine having pizza and fried food all month long. Won’t you get tired of that? Being able to eat different varieties of food every day is good and healthy at the same time. By planning your meals, you will be able to tell which food is good for the health and what nutrients they can provide you with. You can also like weekly meal plans.
• Meal planning helps us learn new and useful stuff while enjoying the meal planning process. There are a lot of things that you can learn if you start planning your meals. You can learn about what nutrients each fruit or vegetable provides, what food is good for people who are diabetic, what foods are good for losing weight, and many more.
• Meal planning can be a hobby. Once you get the hang of it, you will come to like planning for your meals. Everything will just be easy for you and you will enjoy every moment of your meal planning journey. Housewives or at-home moms who do all the work at home will surely find meal planning a hobby instead of a house chore.

Looking for different planner samples? Check out our website to see more. We have appointment planner samples, project planner samples, monthly bill planner samples, and other useful samples available for free download.

Meal Planner Sample for the Family

Alkaline Meal Plan Sample

Meal Planner Sample for Toddlers

Meal Planner with Shopping List

Meal Planner for Low Carb Diet

Gestational Meal Plan Sample

Why Do You Need to Use Meal Planning Samples and Templates?

We love to make things easy and convenient for us to use. This is the reason why there are a lot of new inventions being created and patented. These inventions or creations aim to make our lives better. Washing machines are created to make washing clothes easier, and other stuff like microwave ovens, dishwashers, television sets—all of them make our everyday living easy.

Meal planning samples and templates also do the same thing. With the use of meal planning samples, you will be able to easily make meal plans of your own. You can use them as reference for the meal plan that you are creating. You can also use these meal plan samples as your own as long as they are exactly what you need. You can also learn a lot of things just by using a sample meal plan. There are different types of meal plans and some are made specifically for a specific diet. Examples are diet charts and blood type diet charts.

If you want to make your own meal plan and personalize everything, you can use printable meal planner templates to make your task easier and convenient. The template already includes the basic information that you need about meal planning as well as instructions on how you can use the meal planner. If used together with other meal planning samples, you will surely become a pro at meal planning, and that won’t even cost you a penny.