I’ve been on a hiatus as I have been swamped at work, but have been keeping steady with my lifestyle change. I haven’t written anything for me in a while, and I’m happy to have a free weekend to work on a post. I have been maintaining during my busy schedule, and I’m so thrilled about it because my workouts have been few and far between because I don’t have the energy these days. But eating is something I will always want and need to prioritize, therefore we’re going to talk about meal prep today. This post is in honor of my friend Candice who sought my help when she was attemmpting to meal prep for the first time.
Meal prep is easy for me as a single person, since most recipes are typically made for multiple people, meal prep can easily be leftovers for me depending on what I make. But when I was cooking for two or three, it required a little more planning because there were rarely leftovers, and if there were, it was not guaranteed that I would get to them before my roommates. There are multiple ways to meal prep, but I’m going to talk about my personal preference.
First, it’s important to make sure you have a way to store your food. I utilize bento boxes I’ve gotten when ordering takeout and other containers of various sizes with lids, mason jars, and sealable sandwich bags (with a strong desire to purchase the reusable kind). Having the right type of storage containers for your meals helps you divide up the food you will prepare and help you to portion out your food.
Next, I consider what I want to make. I start by looking in my fridge and on my counters for food that I need to use up and check my cupboard and freezer to see if any meal ideas are sparked and sound appealing. I create a shopping list around the meals that sound good with the items I have on hand so I don’t over purchase food. This week I had leftover bibb lettuce, leftover quinoa, a bit of cheese, an avacado, and some green pepper I wanted to use up and so I bought taco meat and greek yogurt to make taco lettuce cups. I also had some sesame oil, liquid aminos (soy sauce), green onions, ginger, garlic, and turkey sausage, so I got two bags of cole slaw mix so I can make egg roll in a bowl. I also had tons of spinach, strawberries, pecans, and vinegarette, so I was able to make tasty salads. I also wanted to try a new recipe for “unicorn bark” which requires strawberries, blueberries, mango, greek yogurt and honey- which I already had strawberries and honey for, and knew I would need greek yogurt for the tacos, so I really only needed blueberries and a mango for. If you are a snacker, like me, think about which snacks you have and/or need to purchase as well. I also like to plan for a few quick to put together meals in case I’m not feeling what I have prepped. I typically keep protein pizza crusts, mozzerella, and a tomato based sauce on hand to make a personal pizza as a backup plan.
I shop one day and cook another day. Shopping can be exhausting depending on how many stores you have to go to or how busy the store is. I live in a pretty rural place, so I have to drive a bit of a ways out of town to get the food and not one of the stores I shop at carries all of the items I typically buy, so it becomes a day long adventure.
To prep, I typically prepare 2-3 meals at the same time. I can put the taco items in the crockpot while I cook the eggroll in a bowl on the stovetop and prep salads while both of those are going, or bake something at the same time. I traditionally begin by preparing my produce and fresh herbs before I begin the actual cooking component. This is because sometimes the cooking process happens quickly and you have to add certain things in at different times which doesn’t give you a lot of time to chop things up in between. For my crockpot tacos, I added the meat, quinoa, seasoning, and green pepper to the pot and put that on high for a few hours. After I put all my crockpot items in, I began frying up my sausage. While the sausage cooked, I had three bento boxes spread out and placed 2cups of spinach to them. Back to the frying pan I went to break up and stir the sausage. Then I added 2tablespoons of pecans to each of the bento boxes and my prepped sliced strawberries. I placed the lids on and put them in the fridge. I then went back to the stove and added my garlic, ginger, aminos, and slaw mix, and mixed it together. Then, I checked on the tacos and stirred that up, breaking apart the meat. I did not portion out the balsamic vinigrette this time, but I do have litte jello shot containers that I have portioned my dressing out into before. Dressing is easy enough for me to measure out 1 tablespoon of while I’m getting ready to eat it because I have the luxury of being able to go home for lunch currently. Once the stovetop meal is finished, I remove it from the heat and let it cool down before portioning it out (the same is true for any hot meal regardless of cooking method). I divide the meal into the number of suggested servings into my containers. I freeze a few meals and place a few in the fridge. I typically keep enough food for three days in the fridge and freeze the rest. On day three I move more food down to the fridge. I do this so my food doesn’t go bad and make me sick. This is my prep for lunches and dinners.
For breakfast, I typically do a protein shake or eggs and veggies. I don’t really prep for this, aside from steaming the veggies in advance or cleaning them, but I have in the past. To prep my shakes, I have poured my powders into a baggie along with items I want to add to it like chia seeds, flaxseed, p2b, sugarfree jello, nuts, or other dry ingredients. Right now I just make sure I have ice made the night before. I have also hard boiled eggs in advance, but that is my least favorite way to consume eggs.
Meal prepping snacks for me is basically chopping up produce and putting it into containers and weighing or measuring out my non-produce snacks. Sometimes these snacks go into baggies.
Meal prep has helped me to maintain my weight loss while I’ve not been able to be as active. Once I am able to consistently be active again, I know that I’ll be able to make more progress. Meal prep is truly a blessing though. And if you are prepping for a larger number of people, the process is still fairly simple, it is more about making larger portions. So baked and crock potted meals might be easiest. Or even doing meal prep in the sense of putting singular meals together and freezing them so they are ready be defrosted and cooked the day of as opposed to making meals to break up into individual servings. For instance you can get peppers, onions, and a meat (or plant based proteint) to prepare a freezer bag of fajitas. Just slice the peppers, onions, and meat, place in a bag, add seasoning or marinate, and freeze it until you are ready to cook it.
Intention Transform 