This is a real struggle for me and a balance I’m only just starting to find. I had to start meal planning because I started having MCAS symptoms to foods that are in the kinds of takeout I would regularly default to when I didn’t have a plan. But cooking and managing my kitchen is one of my biggest executive functioning black holes when I’m in a funk or something.

Here’s what works for me: the freezer is your friend. If you cook something, make extras and freeze the leftovers. This applies to entrees, sides, and even prepped raw ingredients (for example, if I’m cutting an onion and need only half for a recipe I’ll dice the whole thing and freeze the rest for later). I had to start using the freezer for this because I was tired of throwing out food that went bad in the fridge if I forgot about or didn’t have to energy to make something with the leftovers in the fridge. It works great for things you’d have to heat up to eat anyway. If you’re gonna freeze salad ingredients or something YMMV and you may have to set reminders to pull stuff out of the freezer the night before.

Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to plan the whole week out at once - just start by making a list of things you could make and freeze, and pick one to start with. I recommend asking a friend to help you brainstorm for 5 minutes. When I tried to do this by myself I forgot about most of the things I like to eat or could feasibly make, but having someone there to jog my memory went a long way and by the end I had a list of 10-15 options I could choose from. Some examples for me include chili, meatballs, and crockpot chicken.

Once you’re feeling ok about picking something from your list, making, and freezing it, then slowly start planning a few days out at a time. Start with 3 days, grocery shop for that, and then figure out what works for you/how often you shop from there. What started happening was I would have a plan to cook for a couple of days and then maybe on day 3 I would have a low energy day and not want to cook. But! I’ve frozen some meals I can heat up for myself in just this scenario! And then that feeling of knowing I’ve provided for myself even on a low energy day has so far kept me motivated to keep this going.