SUNDAYS are my planning and self-care days. On Sundays I do my first workout of the week and I also…you guessed it…MEAL PREP!
In the morning I will plan my menus for the week and go grocery shopping for any items I need. My breakfast is the same everyday during weekdays (2 fried eggs in olive oil) so I only meal prep lunch and dinner. Before we get into the how to I would like to list the reasons I love meal prepping. You know, just to get you motivated and started.
- SAVE TIME:
When I meal prep I save time during the week that I can use for other things such as exercising, studying, tidying up, reading and creating content for you guys instead of cooking!!!
This makes me more efficient and I can eat as soon as I feel hungry. Just pop a glass container in the microwave and that’s it! After heating I still serve the food on plates because I love the aesthetic of milky white plates *guilty pleasure*. You can still save even more time by just eating from container (less dish washing time).
2. SAVE MONEY:
When I meal prep I save money since I cook everything at once. That means that I waste less energy (power) cooking throughout the week and less water dish washing throughout the week. Also, I can plan my grocery list to make sure no food goes to waste.
I also save money from eating out. Often, if I feel really hungry and don’t feel like cooking at the end of the day or if I am running between back to back and have no time for lunch prep, I will eat out. This means I will spend more money. Meal prep solves this little problem. Once again, pop the container in the microwave and VOILA!
3. PLAN FOR SUCCESS:
Meal planning and meal prepping is a sure way to succeed on my healthy eating habits during the week. The menu is planned and ready to eat as soon as I feel a grumbling in my tummy. It also takes zero time to heat food and eat on the go.
A lot of times, like I mentioned above, I won’t have time to cook between meetings or I won’t have the energy to cook at the end of the day. This increases the probability that I will eat out and eat more calories than needed or have decision fatigue and choose the most tempting foods (unhealthy). With meal prep the decision is already made for me and I just have to stick to the plan.
I believe in the saying: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Meal planning and meal prepping limit my decision making so that I can focus on other things that matter more.
Now. The HOW TO:
- Focus on planning lunch, dinner and snacks.
- Write down the menu for the week:
- For each lunch food I will include: a meat (protein), a complex carb like brown rice, quinoa and vegetables/leafy greens.
- I often choose 2 or 3 meats for variety: I will do chicken drumsticks, salmon and shrimp for example.
- For dinner food the carb will be substituted by chickpea pasta, zucchini pasta or cauliflower rice.
- For vegetables I will usually choose frozen Normandy veggies, frozen Stir fry from Costco or make the salad on the moment (usually for dinner).
- For snacks I will choose nuts, protein shakes or yogurt with berries.
- Setup your grocery list based on the menu.
- Buy groceries.
- When I get home I will get out my handy food scale and portion control everything as I cook.
- Example: I will cook a large batch of brown Basmati rice and divide the rice into glass containers by servings sizes of 1/2 cup of rice.
- I will do the same for the rest. I will even portion out the snacks like nuts, etc based on the serving size on nutrition labels.
- My favorite glass food storage containers are found in this affiliate link in Amazon:
- My handy food scale can be found in this affiliate link in Amazon:
After cooking all the food and dividing into containers, often with a glass of WINE in one hand and MUSIC, I will then place all containers in the freezer.
Clean the pots and dishes, wipe down the counters AND, all the cooking is done for the week!!!
HAPPY MEAL PLANNING AND MEAL PREPPING!!!
If you have any questions please feel free to comment below or message my Insta: @theselfmanager