School is back, and even if you don’t have school-aged children, you almost certainly will have noticed the difference in traffic conditions. Once you work out the patterns, planning ahead makes it easy to avoid the worst times or routes.

The same goes for meal planning: you know the days and times where family or work commitments make it difficult to eat well, so plan ahead and make life – and healthy eating – a little easier to manage.

Sometimes planning ahead is as simple as having some guidelines to follow, but it usually works best if you have your meals planned – and some meals prepared – so that you don’t need to think too much.

Meals that are quick and easy obviously work best on weeknights, but many find that spending a few hours on the weekend preparing food can save a lot of time during the busy week. Preparing the right foods also provides some lunches, so thinking about the foods you enjoy and which refrigerate well is worth the effort.

Here’s our Top 10 Sunday afternoon cook-up items:

1. Frittata
2. Roasts
3. Pulled beef or pork
4. Casserole
5. Soup
6. Protein bread or muffins
7. Meatloaf
8. Bolognaise sauce
9. Salads – just don’t add any dressing!
10. Protein ‘power’ balls

Of course, this is not a comprehensive list. You may have other ideas, but the key is to choose a few items each week that are easy to cook in bulk, easy to refrigerate or freeze, and easy to reheat (if needed) in a hurry.

So just as you avoid the worst of the traffic, now you can avoid the busy-ness of weeknights and still stick to your healthy eating goals.

Why not get started this week?