Experiment: Same 7 Meals for 7 Weeks!

Ok, so why… Like several of the experiments I’m considering, this aims to cut a little time, stress, and money out of the equation. I’ve crafted 7 of my favorite meals that are also healthy and can be prepped in less than 30 minutes. By limiting the number of ingredients, cooking tools, and recipes I’m using, every meal will require a little less thought and effort. That means more time for other priorities, like wine tasting and posting adorable Instagram stories of our beautiful and weird dog Zara.

Uh oh… I tend to sample everything interesting on a restaurant’s menu before repeating. As a lover of discovering new flavors and foods, I am really hoping I don’t get bored by restricting my options. Also, even simple recipes require some planning so that you have all of ingredients you need—and they haven’t gone bad—when you’re ready to make a meal. Will sticking to set ingredients cause more work than my current “kitchen sink stir fry” approach?

About that… I will continue to eat a couple meals out with friends each week, so the 7 below will account for ~90% of my meals. Also, I’m a grazer—I eat smaller meals with snacks interspersed—so I’ll have a set list of snacks below for midday munchies.

I betcha… Since these foods represent a large subset of my current diet, this should be an easy way to simplify things, not to mention cut out nearly all dairy, grains, and processed foods at the same time. If it doesn’t make me crazy, I may want to continue this going forward.

 

The Meals:

1)      Eggs with coconut oil, onions, mushrooms, refried pinto beans, avocado, Herbs de Provence

2)      Jumbo shrimp stir-fried in ghee (or coconut oil), with broccoli, peas, black beans, curry powder

3)      Baked Salmon marinated in EVOO, Dijon, lemon & cayenne with sweet potato & roasted garlic

4)      Tempeh in coconut oil with green beans, red bell pepper, refried black beans & smoked paprika

5)      Spinach salad with EVOO, red wine vinegar, avocado, nutritional yeast and Turkey Meatballs (click for quick, easy recipe)

6)      Eggs in grapeseed oil, black olives, tomatoes, spinach, black beans, avocado, Ancho/Ghost chili pepper

7)      TJs Veggie medley and cauliflower in grapeseed oil, with green olives, nutritional yeast, basil, garlic powder

Add sea salt and black pepper to all. Optional adds: nutritional yeast and cayenne (where not indicated).

 

Curated Snack Selections:

1)      1st thing each morning: 1 scoop protein powder + creatine + almond milk

2)      Sliced Apple with nut butter OR Half banana with handful of nuts

3)      Persian Cucumbers with eggplant hummus

4)      Red bell pepper slices with Tahini

5)      Sweet potato (medium)

6)      Kombucha or pressed green juice

7)      Olive oil-popped popcorn with nutritional yeast and Chili Lime seasoning

8)      1 square dark chocolate (70%+ cacao), washed down with unsweetened vanilla almond milk (Do yourself a favor and try Whole Foods’ 365 version of this almond milk if you haven’t!)

 

Week 1-3 Notes:

• Grocery shopping became simpler and faster. Walk in like a boss with the list ready to go and little room for deviation from the plan and you’ll be done in no time. This is especially helpful for me, since I work in consumer goods and have always been fascinated by product assortment, innovation, and seeing how many thimble cups of free coffee I can squeeze into one Trader Joe’s trip. Plus, half the staff at my TJs knows me by name, and vice versa.
• Batching food prep—making 3-4 servings of each meal to be spread throughout the week—also keeps things easy like Sunday morning. In fact, that’s a great time to do a bulk of the prep.
• At mealtime, I just have to pick from 1 of 7 options—fewer really since during most of the week I’ll already have prepared some of the meals—vs. a spiraling vortex of options. This means less mental RAM required at mealtime. Hooray! Prioritizing any dish that has an ingredient that might go bad sooner, e.g. ground turkey, can help expedite the decision-making too.

 

Week 4-7 Notes:

• My compliance ain’t perfect but it ain’t bad either. I may szush up—I’ll be using this phrase until Jonathan from Queer Eye trademarks it, thank you—my food with some Sriracha here or there, but a few minor exceptions like this are expected. (Sriracha also helps when food becomes dry from reheating.)
• I’m experiencing the benefits of time and mental savings as I can go into auto-pilot at meal time, referring to my super handy saved email to myself with all the meal options or just reheating one of my premade dishes.
• A chink in my armor: free food. Few things are more grating than blatant food waste and few more gratifying than free food, especially when it’s healthful food that I enjoy. Social meals can spill over into leftovers. As long as these don’t take me too far off course though, my practical and socially conscious principles of avoiding food waste transcend the boundaries of the experiment.
• I’m no doctor but I’m pretty sure dry, overcooked fish leads to depression. Here’s how I overcame this blunder to make the most moist mustard-marinated salmon I could muster: Be generous with the oil! Also, cook at a higher temperature for less time to prevent it from drying out, e.g. ~12mins at 450° in my oven. Fish internal temp should reach but not greatly exceed 145° at the thickest part.

 

Whoomp, there it is…

• This has been great. In addition to simplifying things in the kitchen, I’ve felt a bit healthier, with a little more energy and better sleep. I bet the foods I picked—mostly veggies, proteins, and healthy fats and minimal processed food had a direct contribution to this and I’m sold.
  • In full disclosure, I’ve also started taking a couple supplements recently—magnesium for general health and to prevent muscle cramping and lithium for cognitive function and mood boosting. Ugh, the challenges of being a self-development tinkerer. It’s tough to create completely controlled experiments. While these supplements may have had an impact too though, I attribute the benefits primarily to the 7 magic meals.
• That said, I plan to continue this regimen for the foreseeable future, with a few tweaks to the ingredients every 4-6 weeks to keep things interesting. I’ve been at it for over 7 weeks now, with one menu shakeup so far.
• Feel free to use this for an experiment of your own. You can copy the recipes above, making some swaps, e.g. snap peas or shredded Brussels sprouts for broccoli, to “do you.” I highly recommend emailing yourself the list of recipes or keeping them in an app like Google Note for easy reference.

 

Drop me a line with any feedback. Thanks for reading!