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Today I’m sharing how to customize a meal plan and make it work for your family. You may have a meal plan in front of you, and want to know how you can easily change it to feed your family the way you want to. Here are 4 strategies that will help you customize it for your fam!

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how to customize a meal plan

Customize a meal plan by moving the meals around

Often a meal plan will come with meals listed in a specific order, maybe Monday-Friday, or meals 1-4. One easy way to customize the plan is to move the meals around.

If the Monday meal makes more sense for you on a Thursday, then switch it around. Nobody says that you have to follow it exactly how it’s planned out. That may not work for your family, so move it around and make that work a little better within your schedule.

Customize it by changing out the protein

The second way is to change the protein in a recipe. As an example, take meatballs that are ground beef based. Anytime you use a ground meat in a recipe, know that you can change that. You could use ground chicken, ground pork, ground turkey, ground lamb or ground bison.

Mix it up and make it work for your family. This is really useful to know when you have an abundance of a ground meat on hand.

The same goes for steak fajitas. Instead of using beef, maybe you choose to use chicken. I highly recommend changing up the protein if you find an amazing deal on protein and buy in bulk. Heck yes to saving money!

Customize a meal plan by changing up the veggie

The third way to change up a meal is to change the vegetable. Veggies are so versatile. If you think about a recipe that uses roasted broccoli for example, you could easily use roasted cauliflower. Or roasted green beans. Or roasted kale.

Whatever veggie you have in abundance or that is simply a preference within your family, use that. Get creative with the vegetables that you use.

Customize it by changing the carbohydrate

The fourth way to customize up a meal plan is to change the carbohydrate. If you are looking at a recipe that uses brown rice, you can change that! You could swap and use jasmine rice, or lower the carbohydrates and use cauliflower rice. You could change it completely and use rice noodles (of course, this is recipe dependent).

Just because a recipe is written a certain way, does not mean you can’t change it. I develop recipe for a living, and I am here to tell that it is okay to change recipes based on what you have on hand, or personal preferences. Get creative with it!

Free meal plan for YOU!

Now that you are armed with strategies to customize a meal plan, I want to send you a free meal plan! This meal plan comes from my Fit Mama Meal Plans Membership. When you receive the meal plan, I also include a video on how to customize that specific meal plan. An added bonus for ya!

Within the meal plan I use the strategy of repurposing protein to simplify cooking and prep time. This gets dinner on the table faster, which is always a win!

Looking for more resources to help you save time in the kitchen, meal plan and feed your family? Check out these posts:

Prefer to watch + listen? Head to YouTube to watch the how to customize a meal plan video.

Do you follow meal plans? Create your own?

Leave a comment below! Any more questions? I’m here to answer them!

XO

Heather

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Heather

Hi! I’m Heather, the creator of Fit Mama Real Food, Everyday Muffin Party author, nutrition coach, group fitness instructor, wife, and mom of four. I’m so glad you are here!

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