How Meal Planning Stopped Binge Eating & Inspired Cooking Healthy Meals

Being someone energetic, and active, I suddenly found myself stranded at home at the beginning of the summer with annoying injuries. First, I injured my piriformis muscle (a flat narrow muscle that runs from your lower spine through your butt – which I never knew I had!). This made it hard to sit and walk.

Then, a few weeks later, I blew out my hamstring. Ugh! I found myself stuck at home lounging on a couch like a beached whale, waiting for a chance to escape.

Looking for ways to soothe my soul, I did what many of us do. I started to eat. First, I ate all the chocolate in the kitchen. Then I started devouring bags of trail nuts with chocolate. No, I wasn’t going on any trails.

And finally, I started baking (and eating it!)

Yikes! I found every excuse I could to put food in my mouth, and to be honest, found it hard to stop.

Thankfully, with the help of a patient physiotherapist, I started rehab, exercising, moving more, and slowly turned the ship around.

On a positive note, I also started to cook more meals at home. Using a meal planner to make a schedule. I spent time sourcing interesting recipes to cook for myself and my family. I concentrated on cooking vegetarian meals, filled with fresh whole foods.

I tried lots of delicious recipes, but the black bean smash burgers were my favourite, and a recipe I’m sharing with you today.

As for baking, blueberries were abundant in our area this summer, which inspired me to make some delicious blueberry sour cream muffins and a scrumptious lemon blueberry pound cake. I hope you give them both a try.

Looking back on my summer, I found it easy to get into the habit of eating too much out of boredom and frustration with my injuries. But surprisingly, meal planning really helped me get back on track, and look at food in a more positive way – especially when it came to eating too much chocolate! I suggest you give it a go.

If you haven’t taken the FREE meal planning course, you can sign up here, and if you’d like to take the FREE 21-day meal planning challenge you can sign up here.

Finally, meal planner notepads can be purchased in the Recipes to the Rescue Shop here.