Meal prepping has been a crucial part of my health and fitness journey. Therefore, I want to give you some insights into what helps me be successful.
In this lesson, you learn
- five reasons why meal prepping is important
- five ways to meal prep
- five meal prepping tips
Five reasons why meal prepping is important
There are many reasons why meal prepping is essential. However, a few of the most significant factors of meal prep are that it helps me save money and time.
Controlling expenses
Even though buying healthy food can be expensive, I have found it cost me less to stick to a healthy food budget versus if I were to wing it each day and go out to find the nearest healthy restaurant. I found meal prepping helps me control my expenses.
Understanding time cost
Meal prepping also allows me to know exactly how much time I will spend preparing my food each week. If I were to wing it each day, wondering what I would get, searching for new options, and having to get it alone would take more time than knowing how much of what you need and when.
Keeping on track with my meal plan allows me to get the proper nutrition I am supposed to get each day. This is equally important to me as the expense of money and time it cost.
Precision in portion size for adequate nutrients
I find that meal prepping benefits me by keeping my portion size precise, which means I know exactly what I am putting in my body. I need to know that getting the adequate macro and micronutrients that I should be each day.
Avoid making random food decisions.
When I don’t meal prep, I tend to make random choices that are either unhealthy food choices high in calories or spend a lot of money to eat healthily. Eating unhealthy foods makes me feel slugging, sleepy, or ill, which is not the reason I eat food.
My goal when I eat is to enjoy delicious food that is good for my health, gives me energy, and makes me feel good at the same time.
Five Ways to Meal Prep
There are many ways to prepare your meals for your health and wellness journey. What works for me is that I use a combination of different styles of meal-prepping food so that I can stick to my nutrition plan. If I am not on a nutrition plan, meal prepping has numerous benefits to help me stick to my healthy lifestyle pattern.
The five I have found that help me be most successful is to
1) cook individually portioned meals that are cooked in batches every 3 or 4 days
2) pre-cook sides to go along with the food I will be cooking daily
3) pre-slice ingredients to go along with the food I will be cooking daily
4) incorporate healthy food that is quick and easy to eat
5) plan my meals
Batch cooking individual portioned meal
Usually, I cook pre-portioned individual meals on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings. Typically I am not too fond of leftovers, so this is extremely hard for me to get excited about, but I stick to it. Therefore, I only make meals for those times in my schedule when I do not have time to cook or when I know my energy levels are depleted, but I know I need to eat.
An example of this is I pre-cook my lunch of chicken and rice and the fourth meal of the day hamburger and rice to eat right when I get off work. This method of meal prepping is known as batch cooking individually portioned meals.
Pre-cooking sides
All of the proteins I eat in a day have sides included. I find it extremely helpful to have pre-cooked sides to add to the meat beneficial to my success. These sides I do not mind warming up or some eating cold.
An example of this would be the freshly cooked chicken with warmed-up, seasoned green beans and a cold sweet potato. Another example is the broccoli I eat with my chicken and rice pre-portioned out when batched cooked. However, I have found I am not too fond of broccoli after a few days. Therefore, I still need to portion it out to go with the meat, so it isn’t included in the batch cooking individually portioned meals.
Pre-sliced ingredients
As I mentioned, I am not too fond of leftovers, so I cook for myself often. My typical breakfast includes eggs, an avocado, a bit of salsa, and two pieces of wheat toast. In my eggs, I like peppers, onions, and a bit of garlic. I purchased a vegetable slicer to have 3 or 4 days worth of vegetables pre-sliced and ready to cook in less than 10 minutes. Having pre-sliced ingredients is a considerable time-saving method when it comes to meal prepping. You have to find which ones keep fresh and their flavor when pre-slicing them.
Healthy food that is easy to cook fast
Another key to my meal prepping success is finding healthy food that is easy to cook fast. I find that it is a must that I can cook something fast that remains on my diet that is quick and easy that is the main ingredient of my dish or as a side dish.
An example of this is cooking eggs in the morning to go with my pre-slice vegetables. Eggs take no more than 7 minutes to cook. Another example of this is cooking asparagus to go with my hamburger and rice for my fourth meal. Asparagus takes less than 10 minutes to cook.
Meal planning
Meal planning is probably the most important of the five because both of the other four falls underneath this section. Planning my meals ahead of time allows me
- to organize my schedule to when it is convenient to batch cook these individually portioned meals
- pre-slice ingredients and pre-cook sides according to when they will be eaten
- know what I am going to cook and when
I have found meal planning allows me to know what I am going to do for snacks. So having food prepared for your snacks or something quick and easy in your nutrition plan will help you keep on track. Otherwise, in those times of weakness, it is very easy to slip.
Five meal prepping tips
We have discussed different ways to meal prep and the importance of it. My next focus is to give you tips I’ve found for meal prepping.
Making a grocery list
Making a grocery list is the second step to your success after you plan your meals. One of the things I found to be most beneficial is to know how much food to buy at a time.
I have three things in mind when I buy food
-
- get enough to fulfill my meal plan for the next few days
- keep all the food I will eat at its peak freshness
- do not have any food waste
An example of this is that I know that to buy enough chicken that will last from Monday-Wednesday and Thursday-Saturday. On Sundays, I make food for myself as I prepare the Monday-Wednesday meals. I also don’t want to buy chicken and hold on to it for more than three days. Therefore, I know I have to stop by the store sometime Wednesday to meal prep for Thursday-Saturday.
Another thing I found to be helpful is to know the number of meals that come within each purchase. It is beneficial to know which packages to buy that will fulfill the requirements of the meal plan.
Again, going back to the chicken example, it is helpful to know which container to purchase that will satisfy three days’ worth of meals simultaneously, but feed me that day as I prepare it as well.
I have found that having tools in the kitchen is crucial to my success in my meal prep. There are a ton of kitchen gadgets, but the ones I found most helpful are the ones that are easiest to use.
In my kitchen, I have
- a good set of knives, pots, pans, and cutting boards
- an air fryer
- measuring spoons, dry measuring cups, and liquid measuring cups
- vegetable slicer
- zucchini noodler
Having basic cooking skills
Many people are unsuccessful in their health and wellness journey simply because they do not know how to cook. Because individuals do not know how to cook, it is easier for them to grab something convenient or have someone else do it.
Do whatever you need to learn how to cook your meal plan for yourself.
There are thousands of video blogs, YouTube videos, and online courses on how to cook your meals in various ways. Watch as many as you need to become confident in your cooking abilities if you are not already.
Start slow and ask people to teach you if need be. Do not let not preparing food to prevent you from being successful in your health and wellness journey.
Seasoning
One of my best tips is to find flavor profiles you enjoy. I have a cabinet full of spices to change up the flavor of what I eat often. I find this is important because I find it hard to stick to if I do not.
Being able to portion out your meals
Once you cook your food, you need to portion it out. You’ll need to be able to measure it out somehow and then separate it. Therefore, you’ll need
- food storage containers to weigh the food out on the scale
- measuring spoons and cups to measure out food and the ingredients with
- a kitchen scale to portion your food out
You’ll also want storage bags to portion out snacks after you weigh them.
This lesson was to help you understand the numerous ways I complete my nutrition plan for my health and wellness journey. I hope you have learned how easy it can be to follow your nutrition plan if you apply this lesson to your life. A little education, planning, and organization can go a long way to your weight loss success.