Are you usually not in the habit of planning ahead when it comes to nutrition goals? Well, just so you know; this may be a recipe for disaster because I remember how this used to happen to me when I started my fitness journey. So in today’s blog, I am going to be sharing with you on-the-go tips and what really worked for me to help me keep my nutrition in balance.
We’ve all been there; coming back home from a long trip or busy workday and opening the refrigerator only to find a bunch of ingredients waiting to be chopped, roasted, or sautéed. With zero energy left to handle any of that, you end up ordering takeout or just chewing on some unsatisfying snack.
Meal prep helps you create a better relationship with food. When you meal prep, you learn more about nutrition and how to treat food for what it is: energy and nutrition. You learn to eat only when you’re hungry instead of making unhealthy eating decisions in a rush.
On average, meals prepared at home contain more vegetables, less carbohydrates, and less fat than fast food meals. Research has also shown that those who eat homemade food do not patronize fast food chains often.
Benefits of Meal/Food Prep
Meal Prep saves you time.
If you’re someone who often skips making home cooked meals during the week because you don’t have a lot of time due to work and other responsibilities, meal prepping will just be perfect for you. Meal prep means you get to choose one evening or weekend day when you have some extra time, and prepare or cook most of the meals for the week. That way, you get to do the major work in putting all your meals for the week together at once and some minor heating up or cooking through the rest of the days of the week.Meal prep Saves you money.
One of the main reasons to meal prep is that you get to save money. Meal prep enables you to buy more foods in bulk, like purchasing meat and veggies in bulk, instead of just buying small portions that you need for one or two meals. You can then prep your meals, and gain all of the other benefits as well. Meal prep also saves you money by not making as many different meals and by avoiding eating out.Meal prep is an act of self care.
What better way to show yourself you are worthy of living a healthy life than by investing in yourself? Properly preparing and pampering yourself with delicious, nourishing, whole foods is one of the best ways of telling yourself, “I love you, and you are worth it!”
Meal prepping ensures that you will eat healthier meals since every single meal is very carefully planned out. You’ll be making multiple healthy meals at one time, often using fresh or frozen produce, lean protein, and other natural ingredients.
Making out time to cook and prepare your own meals from scratch is a huge accomplishment and should be treated as such! Not having to rely on take outs, or ready-to-cook meal delivery services has a way of empowering you.Meal or food prep reduces stress.
These days, it’s hard to keep up with and balance everything that is happening around a person. work, relationships, family all while still having to eat healthy. Meal prep helps take out a big question that crops up 3x daily: “What am I going to eat right now?” When you meal prep, that decision is already made, saving you tons of unnecessary stress.Helps you fight temptations.
Ever felt really hungry without having anything on hand to eat? Yeah, that probably happens a lot and perhaps you’ve found a way around it by quickly rushing to that nearby fast food joint or bouncing on the leftover birthday cake your co-worker brought into the office. Meal prepping ensures you always have options that fit your dietary needs whenever you’re hungry simply because you’ve planned in advance. This makes sticking to your diet a lot easier.Helps you manage hunger.
Meal prepping helps you manage hunger because you are able to eat as soon as you feel hungry instead of you having to wait long minutes to get to decide what to eat after which you then begin preparing the meal or getting take-outs. This also helps you not to overeat when you finally sit down for a meal because you won’t be insanely famished.
“There is no one-size-fits-all approach or a ‘right’ way to meal prep,” In the words of Fundaro. “Meal prepping is a learning process, and it’s meant to help simplify your routine and lifestyle. It’s a success if you’ve made your diet more nutritious while saving time and money.”
Tips for Easy Meal Prep
Meal prepping happens to be one of those phrases that send shivers of fear and anxiety through our spine whenever we hear it, just like the phrase “Heeere’s Johnny!” from The Shining. But is preparing meals in advance really that scary? Perhaps the thought of you slaving away your entire Sunday in the kitchen is what terrifies you. Or maybe it’s the fact that you’re going to have to eat from the same large batch of turkey chili all week; No? Well, could it simply be a fear of failure, knowing that planning ahead isn’t your strong suit?
The truth is, you won’t have to worry about any of these concerns if you’re meal prepping properly. Of course, as the saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail so if you’re ever serious about losing weight, packing on muscles or simply adding more veggies to your diet, then meal prepping is the way to go.
Luckily, my years of prepping have helped me a lot, so I can share some of my tips with you. Below is a list of some of my tried-and-true tips and tricks to help set you up for meal prepping success:
Start Small
You can achieve your meal prep goals in bits. You don’t have to prep for all your meals in a week when you first start out. Identify your weak spots first and deal with them. For instance, do you eat out mostly at night? Then start with dinner; meal prep for dinner for the entire week and then take it from there.First, keep it simple
Variety they say is the spice of life, but you shouldn’t launch into variety as soon as you’re starting out, try to build it gradually else you’ll just wear yourself out with lots of cooking before you get used to it. Pick only a few proteins, starch and veggies to cook. You pack some items raw if you don’t want to cook everything. Take baby steps so you’re not overwhelmed with the entire process. Buy pre-chopped vegetables, frozen and canned produce, and bagged salads in order to minimize prep time. However, if you’re someone who is already into cooking, then adding some culinary flair to your meal prep will probably make it more interesting for you. If that’s you, then don’t hesitate to add some more advanced recipes to your meal-prepping.Prepare your list and double check it.
This is probably the most useful tip you’ll ever need. Make sure you have your grocery list prepared ahead of time. Check it twice to ensure you included items like spices, marinades and any other prep utensils you’ll be needing, like tinfoil, baking sheets etc. At first, making this trip may sound like a big deal, but once you’ve gotten into a routine, it wouldn’t take you as much time and effort. You may need to get some of the fresh items like fruits and veggies midweek, however you can still get to save plenty of time by stocking up ahead.Proper knife skills can make a lot of difference.
Chop ingredients in advance and uniformly so they’ll cook evenly. Remember that you may need to cook them separately. Although softer veggies like zucchini or yellow squash cook faster than sturdy vegetables like broccoli, and carrots, at the same temperature. So you probably shouldn’t cook them all together on the same pan, else you may end up with an unsavory blend of burned and undercooked veggies.Order your cooking, it matters a lot.
Multitask with your cooking and save more time. You can start with baking or roasting, then move to stove-top cooking and microwaving. Roast your sturdy, starchy vegetables while you stir-fry some chicken breast. You can find bags of steam able veggies at your local grocery, remember also that potatoes bake quickly in the microwave. You can do two or more of these simultaneously and save yourself a lot of time.Frozen is good, use it.
Freezing your fruits and vegetables until you need them are okay, at least you still get the same level of nutrition as the fresh versions. In fact, freezing fresh fruits and veggies right after they’re taken off the vine, safeguard the nutrients even better than the fresh ones which may spend days or weeks in transit before arriving at the grocery store.
Also, frozen ones last longer. Fruits and vegetables with a low water content freeze well, so you can create something similar to what you find in the stores. Chop and create your own blends and add a mixture of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots into a freezer bag, press out all the air and put it in the freezer. You’ll already be half way through your next meal prep
Inspire others into action.
Isn’t it true that when you see someone else doing something you admire, it can spur you into action as well? Inspire others by leading the way with a healthy meal prepping lifestyle; you’ll be happy for the little positive changes you can create in other people’s lives; that’s empowering.
Meal prepping might need some getting used to, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Who knows, it could end up becoming your favorite new habit. Want to try it out? You can check out this tool to help you get started.
Have any other meal prep ideas? why not share them with us. You can also tell us about some of the meals you like to make while you’re at it, right here in the comments section below.
“Don’t Forget Plan, Prep, Eat and Repeat”
“If you keep good food in your fridge, you will eat good food”
“The More you manage to stick to your food prep of real food, the better you’ll feel and the easier you will find it to lose weight, save time, save money, feel less stressed and hungry.”
Much Love.
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