Meal Planning for 2: Discover Healthy Meals You’ll Both Love

Struggling to find ideas that please your partner’s taste buds? Meal planning for two can be difficult, but with the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge, it doesn’t have to be hard.

With the tools to help you plan healthy meals in advance means, you can enjoy meals for weight loss with your partner.

Check out these healthy meals that appeal to all palates:

• The best way to lose weight is to involve the one closest to you: Your partner
• Tips on how to plan for your healthy meals
• Finally, enjoy your time together

The best way to lose weight is to involve the one closest to you: Your partner

Mealtime can be a great moment for you to get closer to your partner. A place where you can converse with each other over healthy meals.

Talking about the food you’re eating, and having each other as a support system is a great way to keep each other accountable, spend more time together and grow together. This is how you can get your partner on board with your healthy meal plans.

It sounds simple, but it can be quite tricky

Everyone is different, everyone has different taste buds, preferences and mindsets. Accepting each other’s differences when being on a weight loss journey together is how you can avoid problems.

Working together and having a balance of healthy meals means you can both get what you want. Check out this Mexican Lasagne that we guarantee you’ll both love.

You may not have the same palate or preferences

What happens if you want to have salmon for dinner two nights a week but your partner despises the smell, look and taste of it? This is something to work out ahead of time.

Find a compromise, maybe you will have your Smoked Salmon Pizza and your partner can make their own healthy meal that night. Or make your salmon night their night off cooking and they can get one of their favourite meals out of your meal prep freezer stash.

Different food preferences

Find what healthy meals you BOTH like. Work on these, try and make them as creative as you can, and share the load so you aren’t left cooking every night. Get them interested and maybe they will start to get a bit more adventurous and their food preferences may change.

You’re trying to lose weight, he is trying to maintain

When you have different goals it can be daunting to try and find and prepare healthy meals for weight loss but it shouldn’t be. Communicate what your goals are clearly and ask for support so your partner knows your boundaries and expectations, and they can prepare healthy meals for themselves also.

So, what do you do?

You can still lose weight while your partner is maintaining theirs!

Simply make your healthy meals as usual and then you may want to add more of something to your partner’s plate or if you have the time, meal prep a few different recipes together and your partner can have those while you have something else.

Tips on how to plan for your healthy meals

Meal prepping is a great way to plan ahead your healthy meals for weight loss. Bulk cooking means you can have access to all meals on the days you don’t have time to cook, can’t be bothered and can’t think of what to cook.

Meal prepping can be the difference between reaching for the takeaway menu and reaching for a healthy meal prepared from your last meal prep.

This mum says the key to her weight loss is all in the planning and preparation of meals and snacks!

Define expectations

When eating with your partner, you’re eating together but you still have a goal: eat healthily and lose weight.

This can be achieved by defining your expectations as we touched on above. Communicating clearly what it is you are trying to do and WHY, which will more likely make your partner want to support you.

Talk about food preferences

Make a list of favourite dishes you both like to eat and go from there. Divide the week into yours and your partners and set days where they can choose the meal and then swap.

This will ensure you’re prepared for the week and there won’t be nights where you’re stumped for ideas of healthy meals.

Find ways to customise your favourite dishes

If your favourite healthy meal is a Mexican burrito bowl and your partners is Meatballs, find ways to customise the two and add ingredients from one to the other to incorporate some of their favourite ingredients into your favourite dish.

Food allergies

Food allergies are more of a tricky one to get around. If you have an allergy, let’s say to nuts but your partner would love a Pad Thai with peanuts, maybe you could give them the recipe to try their hand at making it.

Or, find an alternative to nuts for a crunch factor, this way you can enjoy the same healthy meal together. Think toasted pumpkin seeds, crispy chickpeas, or some crisp bean sprouts. 

Determine how much food you need to make

Planning out your weekly menu makes working out how much food you need a lot easier and trips to the shops cost a lot less.

You can plan by using a meal planner found in the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge app. This way you can choose the meals you’re going to make and what ingredients you don’t already have plus the app has an inbuilt shopping list as well.

Eating too much is not healthy

Too much of anything is not great, especially if you’re trying to lose weight. Even when it comes to healthy food, overeating will not help you with your weight loss journey.

Portion control is a big factor to avoid overeating and making sure you’re eating consistently in order to not binge eat and feel like you are missing out.

Try not to waste food

Millions of tonnes of food go to waste each year. 

What can you do to not waste food? You could start by making a compost bin in your home and throw any food waste that can be decomposed into that instead of your general rubbish bin.

Coordinate with your schedules

Try to work out a schedule that will work for BOTH you and your family. Maybe one night you all eat together and maybe another night, due to work commitments or other life demands, you may eat a little earlier. Make eating together more of a priority as this also allows time to bond as a family.

You may have different schedules, so take that into consideration

Everyone is busy and we all know that mums and dads are run off their feet a lot of the time. Doing your best to stick to a schedule that works for everyone can help and making it fun will make it feel less like a chore!

Be open to try new things

If your partner likes something but you despise it, why not give it another try. Be open to try new healthy meals and then your partner may try some new things too. It’s all about working together as a team because it’s more fun and you’re more likely to succeed in your weight loss goals if you’re supporting each other.

Finally, enjoy your time together

Having quality time together is important in any relationship, especially when kids come into the mix. Life is short, and enjoying it together with your partner and with healthy meals should be enjoyable, so do whatever you need to do to make that happen for you.

Maybe one night you make your dinner a fun theme that is personal to you two, or another night you make like you’re at a restaurant on a date. Get creative!

If you need some inspiration for your next healthy meals for weight loss there are thousands of healthy recipes from all over the world that still allow you to reach your weight loss goals. Available as part of the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge.