Whether or not you enjoy doing “meal prep,” preparing healthy food for the week ahead can have a big impact on your food choices. Therefore, it can make or break your weightloss/wellness goals. Here are a few reasons we highly recommend doing some form of big batch cooking:
Having healthy food available prevents the likelihood of reaching for unhealthy options.
Premade healthy meals make you more efficient at work because it eliminates you having to make food decisions during a busy day.
It is very cost effective. Cooking healthy food at home will always be cheaper than buying a healthy lunch out.
It allows you to be proactive with your nutrition instead of reactive to the food choices available to you (let’s face it, we’re often surrounded by junk).
A lot of us thrive on routine and rituals. Having a weekly meal prep routine helps you maintain a level of consistency with a healthy diet.
It gives you control over the quality of the food you’re eating. If you are someone who values organic, grass-fed meat or wild fish for example, you can not really expect to get that high kind of high quality food from most restaurants/eateries.
Just like with anything else, the more you practice meal prepping, the better,more efficient, and quicker you will get at it. It also can become as habit and routine as brushing your teeth. Mike and I have both been doing some sort of meal preparation consistently for the last 10 or so years. The preparation may have changed slightly depending on how demanding our goals have been throughout the years (preparing for a Bodybuilding competition, tightening up for a photo shoot or cutting weight for a powerlifting meet). Regardless, we are going into almost every single week of the year with healthy food in the fridge that is ready to be eaten.
Here is what you need to know to make your life easier when it comes to meal prep:
Put pen to paper. Have a general idea of the amount of food you will need for the week. Obviously, the first step of meal prep is hitting up the grocery store. The best way to save time is to get it right the first time you go. Having to go back because you forgot something is actually the worst. Actually write down what your meals will look like. Some people can get really specific with quantities, if you are counting calories or macros, you might know to the ounce what you need. However, if you’re just making a general plan it can sound something like this…”For lunch I’m going to get chicken and ground turkey...I will probably need about 2lbs of each to last me the week.” Create a shopping list for yourself with general food amounts that you predict you will need. After a few weeks, you will know exactly how much of what to put in your shopping cart. Depending on how many people you are shopping for, you should be able to get enough food on Saturday or Sunday to last the rest of the week to prevent having to stop at the store again during the week.
Have your go to meals/ recipes. Nothing builds efficiency like repetition. We recommend having a handful of recipes that you can get really good at making. Have them on weekly rotations, so that you’re not getting super bored with your meals but you’re also not using so much time and brain power to reinvent the wheel every single week. Your recipes should involve different types of protein and vegetables so that you are also benefiting from the nutritional value the comes from variety. For example, if one recipe this week includes broccoli, next week can include spinach. More recently, we have worked in more plant-based meals into the meal prep recipe rotation. Adding recipes that include lentils or other beans as a protein source can even widen the range of the nutritional value of your meals.
Keep it simple. Meal prep can be time consuming especially if you are trying to follow new recipes. When choosing recipes look for ones that are more straight-forward and contain fewer ingredients. This will help you save time. Also, try to pair more time consuming recipes with other food items that are quicker/easier to make. Consider trying one new recipe a week, instead of 4. On super busy weeks, you can keep it even simpler and not try anything new --stick to roasting, baking, crockpotting.
Have Your Appliances Work For You. Did we mention that meal prep can be time consuming. There are many kitchen appliances that operate on a “set it and forget it” mechanism. This includes, rice cookers, crock pots and instant pots. This allows you to get things cooking while you can go about and complete other tasks. Multi-tasking at its finest. If you plan on making this part of your lifestyle, consider investing in these items that will make your life easier. Even something as simple as sharper knives and good baking sheets can also go a long way.
Split the week, Cook Twice. It might be unrealistic to think you are going to cook an entirely enough food for yourself (and maybe your family) for an entire 5 or 7 days. It is more realistic to consider breaking it up into two days. A strategy that has worked well for us is to do a bigger batch of cooking on Sunday and then to do a smaller batch of cooking on Wednesday or Thursday to get you through the rest of the week. This just keeps your food more fresh and helps prevent the boredom that might occur from the same flavors and foods all week. We still recommend doing one shopping trip to get everything but splitting the week into two cooking sessions.
Meal prepping can feel daunting, however, spending 1 to 3 hours a week laying out healthy meals for yourself will save you time and money each day. It will also give you the satisfaction of knowing that you’re taking your nutrition into your own hands. This practice can be game changing for your goals.