This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.
S’cuse my “overwhelmed face”…haha.
Do you feel like you’re in the kitchen all the time? Do you feel like you don’t understand the Trim Healthy Mama plan so you’re afraid to even start? Here are some tips that might be helpful:
Give yourself a break and don’t sweat the details – sure, you don’t want to eat something off-plan, but remember that every step forward is a step in the right direction. Give yourself grace as you start out, and don’t wait to start until you understand everything because trust me, that might be awhile. But don’t lose heart! One morning you’ll wake up and without even thinking, you’ll know what fuel type your breakfast was.
Read the book and take a break from the Facebook pages (and maybe even your favorite blogs!) – the awesome Trim Healthy Mama Facebook groups can be a wonderful support, but they can also be overwhelming and confusing, especially if you’re just starting out. Even if you’re a discerning reader and you know what’s on plan and what’s not, seeing all those tempting goodies that all the other mamas have been making can be discouraging if you just don’t have the time to do the same thing. Take a break from social media! Not only will this be a great refresher for your mind, but it’ll also give you some extra time for more important pursuits (try reading the Bible instead!). If you feel like you still don’t understand the Trim Healthy Mama plan and the groups are more overwhelming than helpful, read the plan book instead of the Facebook groups.
Do one shopping day every two weeks and buy in bulk – not only is this easier on the budget, but having plenty of staple groceries on hand takes a lot of the stress out of, “WHAT are we going to eat for dinner tonight?” Breakfast for dinner is always an easy answer to that question…
Do a prep day – instead of getting all your dishes and equipment out several times a week to do some baking, do it all in one day and freeze things for later. This can work for baked goods, breakfasts, and even dinners! Making a bunch of things at the same time is more time- and energy-efficient, plus it will give you some peace of mind for the rest of the week.
Eat leftovers – if I had to choose, I’d say that this is the most helpful point on this list. Do you feel like you’re ALWAYS in the kitchen? Purposely make more food than your family will eat for dinner, then eat the leftovers the next night (or later in the week). Half the cooking – same amount of yumminess.
Eat the same thing over and over – found an easy dinner that your family likes? Make it once a week. Familiar dishes are so much quicker and easier to make than trying something new every night! This same principle can go for breakfasts, snacks, desserts – everything! Stick with simple and familiar and you’ll save time and headache.
You don’t have to keep up with the Joneses – do not pass go, do not feel like you have to make every amazing-looking recipe you see on Pinterest! You don’t have to make an amazing-looking dessert. You don’t have to serve a beautifully-presented entrée. You don’t have to make everything the other Trim Healthy Mamas are making. Everyone’s at a different stage of life! Some of us have more time to spend in the kitchen than others. For me, it’s literally my full-time job so I can afford to churn out ice cream recipes all week long (ice cream is actually one of the easiest desserts to make, by the way!). If you can’t, that’s just fine! Accept the fact and just stick with what you’re capable of doing right now.
You don’t have to make all the sippers – don’t shoot me for saying this, but this Trim Healthy Mama Single doesn’t like the Shrinker or Good Girl Moonshine, and she’s never even tried the Singing Canary or Winter Wonderland Sip! I feel like I do enough cooking as it is, so I just don’t bother. I drink plain ol’ hot Oolong tea for its metabolism-boosting properties, but that’s as far as it goes, folks. I know the sippers are easy, and if you love ‘em, go for it, but that’s just one thing I cut out so I have less to do in the kitchen.
Eat easy snacks – snacks don’t have to be another meal. They can be as easy as a scoop of cottage cheese, deli meat and cheese, Wasa cracker/deli meat/dill pickle, celery and peanut butter, or a scoop of collagen stirred into hot tea. You can even settle for a few bites of leftovers cold from the fridge! If you made some dessert bars or snack balls (or these awesome No Bake Snack Bars) on your prep day, there ya go!
Don’t make two different dinners – it’s easier than you think to make meals that are eatable by the whole family. Make your old favorites, just tweak them to be Trim Healthy Mama friendly. Obviously some things are easier to tweak than others (but even pasta dishes can be tweaked with Dreamfield’s pasta or zoodles!). Here are some of our family favorites. The easiest way to create a kid-friendly dinner is to focus on a meat without sugary stuff or floury coating on it, then add veggies as side dishes. Kids can have corn and whole wheat bread for fillers, but you’ll stay away from that stuff. Turn an S meal into a crossover for the kids by providing them with fruit or applesauce as sides. There are so many family-friendly THM meals out there, either in the THM Cookbook or on blogs/Pinterest, so ten minutes of searching here and there and you’ll probably come up with enough ideas to last you for two weeks.
You don’t need umpteen million side dishes – keep it simple! A meat and a veggie is sufficient if that’s all you have time for. Keep fruit on hand for the kids to eat if they want more than what you’ve cooked. I know I usually eat too much anyway if we have too many dishes on the table.
Cook with few dishes – put the cooking kettles right on the table (well, on hotpads) and skip the extra step of transferring everything to serving dishes. Learn to eyeball measurements so you can use one measuring cup for everything (just remember to measure the dry ingredients before the wet ingredients)! If you’re making multiple things one right after the other, just rinse out your mixing bowl and blender in between recipes and use them as many times as necessary! If you just used a measuring cup for dry ingredients, there’s a good chance that you can just put it back in the cupboard without washing it.
Do you have any other tips? Share them in the comments below!
Helpful links:
- Starting THM
- THM Success Series
- All my recipes in one pictorial index by category
- THM Sample Menu for the Working Mom (easy recipes)
- Sample Menu: College Kid Edition (easy recipes)
- THM Sample Menu (Walmart Edition) (easy recipes)
- Dos and Don’ts From a THM Veteran
One prep thing I have done was made the sauce for the enchilada wonder casserole and then while the blender was dirty I made a second recipe worth of the sauce. Also browned 2x the ground meat. Combined one sauce and half the meat for that night’s dinner and the second sauce and other half the meat into a baggie for another week’s dinner. Turns out my hubby will be able to make that while I’m gone this weekend! 😊
Thank you so much for posting this way back when. God knew I needed this today. Congratulations on your marriage too.
Brianna,
I quite agree with what you have stated. I’m going to try again to start THM and not become overwhelmed this time. As a nurse, I work so many hours that I’m too tired to do much of anything when I get home from work. Let alone make an entire meal to eat. I finally have my own (girl cave) pantry filled with THM supplies so that I am armed with the right equipment from the start. My failure areas tend to do with substitutions because I can’t eat almonds or walnuts but can eat cashews and pecans. There just aren’t very many recipes with those in it. Almond flour yes, cashew flour no. Hence then overwhelminess (did I just make that up?) of my past THM life.
Hi Elizabeth! Your challenges definitely make your journey a little more difficult than the average. I actually rarely use almond flour in my recipes (just on occasion for crusts), so maybe you’ll want to take a look around my recipe index and/or my cookbook? I usually use my baking mix as the flour in my recipes, and it’s nut free! You can get the recipe for it here: https://www.briana-thomas.com/brianas-baking-mix/
Here’s my recipe index: https://www.briana-thomas.com/indexes/complete-pictorial-recipe-index/
And my cookbook: https://www.briana-thomas.com/necessaryfood/
Perfect!! Thank you for taking the ‘burden’ out of THM!!
Thanks for these tips. I started THM a year ago and got discouraged because there was so much cooking involved ?. I took a break for several months while recovering from surgery. During this time I thought a lot about how I could make this plan work for me. I re-read some of the book. Familiarized myself with the food groups and now I started over again. Now I am keeping it as simple as possible. I hardly ever bake any of the desserts. I make big pots of food at a time. I don’t spend a lot of time reading blogs and fb pages. (Even yours?) Most times if I have a question I look it up in the book. This has made it so much easier for me. I know there are times when I probably eat xo or eat something off plan but it’s ok, I’m learning and I always tell myself, I’m trying, and trying counts too. Thanks for the tips. I really do love your blog and read it when I have the time.
Those sound spot-on, Elsie! Thanks for sharing!
I find myself coming back to this post over and over – probably one that has been the most beneficial in my 1.5 yrs on plan! As a busy mama with a 1, 3, and 5 yr old and working full time, one of my favorite sanity savers is stream in the bag veggies. I often won’t even put them in a bowl, just add a tablespoon of butter and a sprinkle of salt and pepper in the bag after they’re steamed, stir and serve from the bag 🙂
I’m so glad it’s been helpful! Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do!
Great tips, Brianna!
Briana, you are just a complete gem! I so enjoy your contributions to the THM community.
I am diabetic and my husband had a blockage if a coronary artery. I use only S and FP recipes to keep my a1c in check and to keep his inflammation down.
I am curious about your recommendation of Dreamfields pasta. Are you aware that there was a lawsuit for millions that they lost for false claims?
You are one of the first bloggers I recommend to people. Thanks!
Hi Inez! I’m aware of the whole hoopla, so I advise that people do their own research. 🙂 The pasta is still allowed on the THM plan as a personal choice item. I personally have only eaten it a time or two. I felt fine when I did – not like I normally would if I would eat pasta. From the way my body reacts to it I’d say it’s a healthier option than regular pasta, but it’s still definitely something that people should evaluate on a case-by-case basis. Thanks for your kind words of encouragement!
Thanks. I needed that. ?
I agree on staying away from social media sometimes!! So many helpful posts in the THM group but also MANY posts about cheating, woe is me posts and plain old discouraging posts. I realize when you get 100K women together on the Internet, it’s going to get crazy sometimes…lol. It’s a good idea to take a break or you can get too involved in the madness.
Thank you Briana! I’m the type that tries to get info. from everywhere at the same time before I understand the basics and gets confused! 🙁 Love your help though!! 🙂
Your comment on snacks include deli meats. Where is your separation of the processed deli meats and the pure meats? Are there deli meats that are non-processed?
Hi Ruby! I’m not the one that does the shopping in our house so I don’t usually make the calls on what we get and therefore I haven’t thought too much about it. I’m probably the wrong person to ask.
Absolutely awesome tips! Thank you Briana!
Thanks so much for all the helpful advice. It was very overwhelming at first. If my daughter wouldn’t have helped me back in November, I probably wouldn’t have started. I still don’t understand everything, but I have been staying true to the plan for the most part. One of the things I love the most is the ggms! I make it with the rooibos tea, one of the True Lemon brand of flavors, and sometimes more of one of the extracts plus the other ingredients, especially the sparkling water! I think the water makes it taste like a special drink of some kind. Some of the other members of my family have also started drinking it. On the other hand, I don’t care for the shrinker!! Keep up the great work and God bless you.
This is an awesome and helpful post!
Thank you, Brianna! I needed to hear all this as I have been really overwhelmed lately and since I’m still in the learning stages (assuming that I will, indeed, learn all this!), I’ll take all the helpful advice I can get!!
Love your blog and awesome recipes – keep up the great work!!
You made my day. I love your recipe ideas. I have the books. I even have the old, old books. I agree with you, make it simple. I’ve only tried a few of the recipes. But some days, it’s all I can do to get ANYthing on the table! Keep up the good work. We love you!
I love all your ideas and recipes! But can you help with a daughter that is too thin and wants to do this with me? I know the food is nourishing but she just won’t do crossovers and she needs to put on weight. She is 12 and underweight for her height. I am getting frustrated because I feel like we are battling too much and this isn’t fun any more!
Thank you for any help.
I’m only 20 years old and have no children of my own, but the two things I would focus on are 1) your relationship with your daughter, and 2) making food fun. If she’s not willing to listen to your authority when it comes to food, there are relationship issues that need to be dealt with prayerfully. For the second point, get her involved in the kitchen and help her make yummy crossover foods (don’t even mention to her that they are crossovers)! Encourage the use of honey, fruit, maple syrup, and other higher-carb foods to meet her metabolic needs. However, don’t make a big deal about her eating certain foods to gain weight because that can be a real turn-off if she already has her defenses up. Guide her choices in a very low-key manner, focusing on “healthy” and “yummy” instead of “crossover” and “weight”. Don’t point out differences between what you are eating and what she is eating. That doesn’t mean that you should eat what she eats (although it wouldn’t hurt once in awhile to prove your camaraderie), but my best advice would be to keep everything as low-key as possible. Be encouraged that she wants to join you in eating healthily, and don’t worry – as she gets into her teenage years, chances are she’ll put on more weight. I know I went through many chubby and skinny stages in my growing up years just because of the way my body was lengthening out in spurts. 🙂
Yummy crossovers are what I give my kids- whole egg pancakes fried in butter and maple syrup. I add butter to their rice, they like them better then without the fat/carb.
I needed to hear this. I get so overwhelmed working full time and wanting to cook healthy for my hubs and I (empty nesters). I get so caught up on what everyone else is doing on the FB posts and cry that I don’t have time for all this creative artistry of food. Thank you so much Briana.
Thank you! I was overwhelmed and still going strong…but wondering how to streamline myself. I also do not like GGM, but I found putting some orange extract into it made it drinkable. I will try to follow some of your suggestions that I am not already doing. I had to find a way to simplify the plan. The book itself is quite overwhelming, but when you boil it down, it made things simpler. Keeping to just a few dishes a week really helped.
Diane,
I just realized about the orange extract as well in the GGMS. I have tried different teas, etc. But this is the answer for me. I appreciated this comment.
Briana, this is a right-on-time post.
Yes, overwhelmed is exactly what I’m feeling. I didn’t realize how much looking at all that fab stuff all the ladies are cooking (and some hubbies) was contributing to my situation, but it really is. I’m in an accelerated college program and am taking care of a 12 yr. old, 2 parrots, 4 cats, 5 frogs, and there never seems to be enough time. I just got a shipment of MCT oil and cocoa butter (food grade) and I forgot what to do with it. I’m waiting for my 1st THM shipment with protein powder, baking blend, sunflower lecithin and collagen. Hope I can find economical ways to use it.
I have the new book, and the old book and can’t seem to find time to read it (keep starting, stopping, losing momentum)
Thank you!
Thank you! All very good advice, and I am sure, to be very helpful to many!
Also,
I just ordered 2 different items using your affiliate links. I don’t know that I have done that before, I hope you get credit for them!
Thanks so much for thinking of me, Jennifer!
Great encouragement!!! Thanks so much!!
Great points – thanks for the reminders. We have been eating THM style for over 2.5 years and do these suggestions. I actually do make the all day sippers – but I prep them in large batches, store in canning jars in the fridge to then use all week:-)
Briana, Thank you for this perfectly timed, soothing yet encouraging advise. I gave up on my THM plan just before Thanksgiving because I was overwhelmed trying to stay on a plan that I really didn’t ‘get’, AND prepare a traditional holiday meal. I will take the time now to read the book again and take it slow and steady until I truly ‘get it’. Spending so much time on various THM fb pages and Pinterest sites has been fun but has added to my overwhelm and underachievement. Your site is a goldmine of real life THM wisdom.
Oh, Brianna you are a breath of fresh air! Just what I’ve been needing for quite sometime. God bless you for your words, commitment and encouragement.
So this evening I made easy Cowboy Grub and a brownie in a mug. Thanks to you!
Way to go!
Good points! Love it! I make big main meal a day, the others are sooo drive thru sue! 😉 Im trying to keep it simple and do S & E meals…did a cross over once although I didnt know it til I asked, oh well. I think reading the book is the bestadvice…and re-reading it (which I am going to do) I also have my lovely daughter and neice, who are on THM and I bug when I have questions. Taking one day at a time…3hrs at a time. 😉