You give so much of your energy to helping your students. The point of meal planning for teachers is to make sure you’re taking care of yourself as well—especially if you want to have more energy during the day.
Let’s chat about what meal planning for teachers is and how it helps.
First, what is meal planning for teachers?
At its most basic, a meal plan is a tool to make it easy for you to choose the best foods and get the right nutrition for your needs, so you can boost your energy levels and strengthen your health.
Think of a meal plan as a structured eating plan for the week. Typically, it includes breakfast, lunch and dinner options, as well as snacks, desserts, and drinks. It often includes recipes—it depends on how much flexibility you want.
A meal plan for teachers, though, goes a step further. As a teacher, you have a very structured day. You can’t just pop out for a coffee break or an hour-long lunch whenever the moment strikes you!
Your meal plan considers the timing of your meals and snacks—whether you’re working around recess or fifth period lunch. You’ll have snacks and meals that are easy to eat quickly (if you need to do so) and sustain your energy. The best meal plans for teachers are purposeful, balanced and work for your whole day.
Why should teachers create a meal plan?
Teaching 15 to 30+ kids per class every day is mentally and physically demanding! It’s easy for teacher exhaustion symptoms to creep into your life if you aren’t eating as well as you could be. With a good meal plan, you’ll boost your energy level all day, so you can be the teacher you want to be.
Just as important, you’ll feel like a human being at the end of the day!
You’ll be able to decompress when the final school bell rings and have more energy to have a life outside of school—without needing to turn to stimulants like coffee or soda, or sugary snacks like cookies.
How do you know if meal planning is right for you?
Meal planning can be a big help for teachers who:
- Tend to have low energy during the day
- Have a demanding job from a stress and energy perspective
- Typically figure out their meals and snacks on the fly
- Find themselves standing in front of their fridge at dinnertime, wondering what to do
- Have a busy or regimented schedule
- Have been told they aren’t eating healthy enough—or simply want to take charge of their well-being
- Would like to improve their lives in some way, such as having more energy during the day
How does a meal plan help teachers?
So many ways!
For example, it can help you stop:
- Wasting time visiting the grocery store on your way home from work every day.
- Wasting all the mental energy thinking through the next meal.
- Skipping meals because you’re short on time.
- Eating unhealthy foods.
- Defaulting to carryout meals from restaurants (which can get expensive too) or frozen dinners.
And you can start:
- Having more energy for the entire school day and evening.
- Preparing meals faster, particularly on weeknights.
- Opening up your time to do other things.
- Using food strategically to improve your health and well-being!
Does meal planning for teachers allow for flexibility?
The point of a meal plan is to make your life easier. It offers basic structure, so you don’t resort to old eating habits. And yes, you can make it flexible. Because let’s face it, life happens.
If you have chicken in your meal plan for Monday but you find yourself dreaming of the salmon dinner scheduled for later in the week, no worries! You can switch it around.
If a friend calls and it’s Sarah’s birthday on Thursday, no big deal. You can go!
Once you get into the habit of using your meal plan’s structure, you can switch around your meals or recipes if you choose.
How much time does meal planning take each week?
A lot of teachers wonder if meal planning will add more time to their already limited schedules. Maybe you’ve wondered this too!
It depends on a few things.
First, are you going to do your own meal planning or are you going to team up with a meal planning nutritionist to get started? The latter can help you make great use of time. For example, your nutrition coach can take the lead helping you figure out your nutritional needs, providing recipes and a weekly plan based on your goals, sharing expert knowledge (so you don’t have to spend hours online sorting through info), and helping you refine your plan, so you get results sooner.
Second, as with any skill, there’s an initial learning curve. The more you do it, the faster you’ll get.
Most importantly, though, it may be best to think of meal planning as using your time differently—and wiser. With meal planning, you may spend some upfront planning time on the weekend… but it you can save you multiple hours during the week. Plus, you’ll reduce all the brain energy you’re expending thinking about food every day.
You have enough mental demands as a teacher. Let’s remove planning meals, cooking meals and going out to buy food as daily energy drains and sources of stress on your school days!
