Getting organised

Welcome back to week 7 of our 12 Week Weight Management Programme. We're pleased you've decided to continue with your weight management journey.

Weekly check-in

How did you get on last week? Did you try any new ways to keep active?

Planning

Making behavioural changes while living a busy life can be difficult. You need time to think about your changes and put them into action. That is why this week we want to talk about planning. Many people who have made changes and managed their weight told us that thinking ahead and planning were key.

When managing your weight, there are some things it is good to think about when planning ahead.

Meal planning

At the beginning of the week decide what your own and the family meals are going to be. This helps you avoid grabbing meals and snacks that aren't part of your new healthier eating. We’ve included a useful meal planner with an example to get you started. Alternatively you could try Parent Club's meal planner, remember to check the calories in the suggested meals before using them.

They also have information on how to plan meals for the week ahead. You don’t need to be a parent to benefit from their advice.

Try and include some meals that you cook with fresh ingredients. Many tinned and packet foods, often called convenience foods, are higher in energy than freshly made meals. Lets Get Cooking and Parent Club have lots of recipes to try.  Be sure to look at the calorie content of the meals and snacks.

Shopping list

This follows on nicely from planning your meals. Prepare a shopping list that will help you with all your meals you’ve planned for the next week and remember to read labels when you're shopping.

Go back to week 5 and read about high, medium and low for fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt.

Consider your lunches

What will this be and where will you be buying it. Is it possible to make your own packed lunch the night before or in the morning? You can then be assured of how healthy it is and the calorie content.

Planning activities

Plan at the beginning of the week the times in your diary when you are sure you will be able to do your physical activities.

Getting into the habit of planning ahead is a new behaviour for most of us and takes a bit of practise. Start giving it a go with only one or two of our suggestions above. Good luck with your planning this week.

Recording your lifestyle

Recording your lifestyle using our diary or journal, app or taking photos is important. Look at week 1 if you want to remind yourself why and how to do this.

Setting your goals

It's time to set new goals for next week. When setting your weekly goals you should:

• decide which day next week you will be coming back to this programme, this will be the day you can review your goals
• consider the areas for change we have discussed this week
• look at your lifestyle diary/journal/app/photos and choose areas where you feel you could make a small change over the next week
• ask yourself what you can do more of, what you can do less of and what would help you me make these changes
• add 1 or 2 new goals - we recommend 3 to 4 weekly changes goals are the most you should ever set yourself

If you don’t meet your goals every day, that’s ok. It’s important to keep returning to what you've written down. We’ll review them next week.

Your can use our goal-setting tool to record your goals for the week, or print out our blank weekly journal (PDF, 42KB) to fill in yourself.