I’ve always loved the quote “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. I think this directly relates to my nutrition during the week. If I meal prep on the weekend, then I have so many different healthy foods to eat and will make better choices during the week. If I don’t meal prep, I’m scrambling for food all day and will regret eventually eating something not nutritious so I don’t get hangry.
I started meal prepping about 4.5 years ago when I worked at my first office internship. I would always pack my food for the day because I would go to the gym after work. I had to make sure I had enough food and that it would properly nourish me. If i packed all junk food, then I’d have a bad workout and I didn’t want that to happen. In college I always cut up my fruits and veggies, and made sure I had cooked chicken for the week. It’s so much easier to cook everything at once than to prepare the meal from scratch each day.
Nowadays, Jon and I always meal prep on the weekend. Jon is the master of crockpot chicken! It’s so convenient because we can put the chicken on our pizzas, in pasta, or in my Dig Inn bowl. The options are endless and also easy and healthy. I also like meal prepping because then I don’t have to do so much prep during the week so it saves a lot of time!
Meal Prep Tips:
- Plan out what you want to make – having a plan allows you to be able to multitask and prep in the most efficient way. Planning will also help with time management so you aren’t in the kitchen all day long.
- Keep it simple – meal preps don’t have to be some crazy Pinterest recipe. The goal is to have a healthy lunch and this can be done hassle free.
- The crock pot is your best friend! We use the crockpot to make our chicken and all we have to do is season it, and then later in the day it’s all cooked. It’s so simple!
- Multitask – this helps make meal prepping not seem like a chore. When my sweet potatoes are in the oven, I can make my protein pancakes, portion out my rice, or start cleaning up. That way I can be more efficient and not spend all day cooking
- Buy precut/packaged things – there’s no shame in this. Sometimes I buy pre-portioned trail mix instead of measuring it out myself. Another example is buying precut veggies, at the end of the day you’re still getting the same nutrients so it doesn’t matter if you cut them yourself or not 🙂
I hope these tips help! I’d love to hear any ideas that you all have too!
Lots of great tips Lyssy and I love how you prepare everything ahead of time. Just check out this article about pre-cut fruits and veggies. I no longer buy pre cut carrots as they are soaked in chlorine. Risk of salmonella is much higher with pre-cut products and the plastic they are packed in usually ends up in oceans. Just trying to keep you safe, I drank diet pop for years before I learned what was in it…YUCK .https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/05/15/pre-cut-fruit-warning.aspx