How to Meal Prep?
Exercising, working (or studying), doing household chores, keeping up a social life, getting enough sleep and then still finding time to prepare a healthy meal every day. If only we could put more hours in a day! Fortunately, we can be more efficient with the time we do have. Namely by meal prepping! Meal prepping is going to make your life a whole lot easier.
What is meal prepping?
Simply put, meal prepping is preparing one or more meals for several days ahead of time. Meal prepping isn’t just for athletes and other people that strictly track their macros, it’s also a very good tactic for anyone keen to free up some extra time. And don’t be fooled by the idea that meal prepping has to be boring! There is more to life than the notoriously bland variation of chicken and brown rice that bodybuilders seem to adore. You can find a lot of different kinds of meals and tasty recipes that are very suitable for meal prepping.Advantages of meal prepping
As we already mentioned: meal prepping is going to make your life easier. First of all, it will free up a lot of your time. Especially if you’re someone that keeps an eye on your macros. Because you’re cooking for multiple days at a time, you only need to go get groceries and cook dinner once or twice per week. No need to go straight into the kitchen after every long, busy day! That will also lead you to eat healthier in general, which is the second advantage. Because you already have a healthy meal prepped and ready to go when you get home, you’ll have less temptation to get some unhealthy take-out or just have snacks for dinner.Plus, because you’re doing groceries less often, you won’t need to fight off the temptation to pick up snacks on a daily basis either. That’ll not only benefit your waistline, it’ll also benefit your wallet. Which leads us to the third advantage of meal prepping: you’ll save money. For meal prepping you’re likely going to purchase ingredients in bulk, which is often cheaper. And you’ll find it easier to resist making impromptu purchases because you’re meals are planned out ahead of time.
Getting started
Liking what you’re hearing so far? Good, then let’s get this show on the road! Before you run off to the store and start buying ingredients though, we need to make a plan. The first thing you should do is calculate how many calories you need to eat to reach your goals. That’ll give you an idea of the portion sizes you need to prepare, and will also give you an indication of what kind of ingredients you should use. The internet is full of handy tools that can help you with this. For example, you can use the Harris-Benedict equation. When you’ve established your total calorie intake, you then need to find out the macronutrient division works best for you. A quick search for macro calculator should help you with this.Now you know how much you need to eat, you can start fitting the meals you’re going to prep into your diet. How many meals per day do you want to prep for? And for how many days are you going to prep ahead? Think of what you want to eat, but keep it simple and use a recipe you’re familiar with. If you can’t imagine eating the same meal every day, then try to work in some variation in the ingredients you use. For example, switch up the vegetables or use different kinds of marinades.
Feeling a bit uninspired? These foods always do well in a good meal prep:
- Vegetables: broccoli, green beans, leek, spinach, asparagus, cauliflower, peas, mushrooms.
- Carbs: rice, sweet potato, pasta, tortilla wraps, noodles, quinoa, beans.
- Fats: coconut oil, nut butters, olive oil, linseed(oil).
- Protein: chicken, beef burgers, canned tuna, tofu, beans, white fish, liquid egg whites.
Doing groceries
You’ve written down your meal plan and know how much you’re going to prep. Good, that’ll make it easy to write up your shopping list. If you really want to save money, it’s important you stick to it! Quick tip: if there are staples with a long shelf-life that you plan to eat often, you can consider buying these in bulk. Think of things like rice, grains, dry beans, or even frozen items if you have room in your freezer. Buying food in bulk is usually cheaper than if you buy portion-sized packaging so this can save you a lot of money in the long run. Plus you won’t need to pick them up at the story every time you’re going to prep.
Time to cook
After you’ve grabbed everything from the store that you needed to, it’s time to move to the kitchen. If you want to be successful at meal prepping, make it a routine and set a fixed day and time on which you’re going to do this.First off, prep your kitchen. Create the room you need and lay out all the utensils, pots and pans you plan to use. Then make a plan of action and start working in the right order. For example, if your making a one-pot meal, it can be an idea to chop up all your ingredients first so they’re ready to go. To save time, see if you can combine different tasks. For example, put your meat in its marinade before you start cutting your vegetables and don’t forget to put on your rice while you’re whipping up your protein source. The first time you meal prep will probably take you quite a bit of time. Don’t worry though. You’ll be able to move a lot faster once you get the hang of it and figure things out!
Store all your meals
When you’ve whipped up your delicious meals for the week, you’re going to need to store them in a way that keeps them tasty. Invest in some high quality, microwavable storage containers that have a tight seal. A lot of fancy meal prep spreads you come across on social media have already portioned out all meals in separate containers. This is a very time efficient method, but not the only way to go about it. If you don’t want to buy a lot of small containers, you can also store your meals in large ones and portion it out as you go along.If you’re prepping food for more than 3 days, it might be a good idea to stick some of your meals in the freezer. Portioning the meals out in plastic freezer bags instead of containers will save you a lot of space.
Did you know you can also prep smoothies? Stick portions of cut fruit and other ingredients in a freezer bag to create a smoothie kit. Next time you want a smoothie, just take out a bag, add some liquid, blend and enjoy!