Hello my beloved health hunters!
I am so glad I found some time to post on this super busy period of my life and today's topic is one of the best allies to make it through it while still progressing. Meal Prep.
Meal prep stands from Meal Preparation which is the process of both scheduling and preparing your meals in advance on a daily or weekly basis. That might sound fancy as many people tend to perceive it as a trend but it is in fact, a powerful tool to get the best possible results while saving time AND MONEY. Yes, Money. Let's dive into this.
What happens when people do NOT meal prep? The groceries shopping becomes chaotic since they don't have a clear image of what they NEED to purchase in order to prepare their meals, they skip a lot of key-ingredients [which makes the cooking not so pleasant experience], they tend to buy a bunch of stuff which do not fit into their nutrition plan, mainly influenced by their current cravings or temptational offers. Furthermore, when someone does not meal prep he doesn't have consistency on his shopping cart, he can not estimate his usual nutrition expenses and thus he is not able to track and spot the best offers in order to supply smart and save up. Does it sound familiar? Well, it comes paired with the direct consequence of food waste. If there is no single clue of the meal flow across the day/week then, many products will stay on the back side of the fridge, unseen, forgotten, unconsumed, until they rot and eventually end up in the trash bin. Not alone. With all that wasted money.
People who do not think in advance of their meals, tend to forget supplying some crucial basic ingredients (ex. onions, vegetables, olive oil, etc). Thus, when the cooking time comes they realize that they need to get a second run to the store to make up for them. Chances are that those 1-2 products won't be the only ones which will make it to the second-round cart. Yes, you guessed right. More waste of money.
Now that you got what happens when one does NOT meal prep, let's examine what happens when someone DOES. Someone who meal prep(are)s, is aware of what comes into his mouth. That means that he knows and tracks his food, which comes pretty handy both to avoid cheating and being able to detect how his organism responds to certain foods. A meal prepper can also track his progress (aka the level of persistence around his nutrition plan) and as a consequence he can acknowledge and reward himself for that. Acknowledgement, self awareness and reward are pretty important factors of success as a person can use these tools to keep himself motivated, excited and persistent throughout the process. Now that you got an insight of how meal prep saves money and promotes an individual to a more productive and efficient state, it's time to delve into the ultimate excuse people usually present: TIME. Aye, that lad.
The most widespread hoax I come across the internet (and real life conversations) is that meal preparation is a time consuming process and people are too busy to spend hours in the kitchen every day. To begin with, one will either way spend time in the kitchen in order to prepare a meal and eat it right away. During meal prep, a person will spend exactly the same amount of time to cook the meals (in larger proportions) ONE TIME (instead of 6-7 in case of cooking each meal in a separate day) and save them. Having the meals already prepared means that one can take his lunch/dinner with him on the go/at work/wherever, saving up all that time he would spend to go home, cook, eat and go back to the rest of his daily responsibilities. That will also contribute to less crappy binge eating since healthy meals will be accessible at all occasions. Take a moment to imagine the amount of money spent on delivery/take away meals or snacks just because people do not have some food available. Additionally, weekly groceries shopping instead of every other day will save a good amount of time which could be used for any other purpose such us personal goals, relaxation, leisure activities, family/friends/spouse, exploration and so on. MYTH - BUSTED.
Extra BENEFIT: You don't have to clean cooking pots, pans etc on a daily basis.
😏
What a remarkable thing is that changing such an individual part of your daily routine can have such an impact across your whole life, isn't it?
Up to now everything sounds ideal and I am pretty sure that many people have perceived meal prep as a great idea at some point but most of them did not proceed to the actual execution of the plan just because they didn't know where to begin from. Let's try to shed some light on this.
Meal prep is flexible and can be adjusted to the individual's needs, that is basically the main reason of its efficiency. Meal scheduling can be weekly whereas the physical preparation of the meals can be daily (like cooking the night before), every 2-3 days, weekly or even monthly (if there is a close friendship with the freezer). Furthermore, one can invest time to meal prep only the main-large meals of the day such as lunch/post workout meals/ dinner/ which is impossible to cook everyday. Other people, prepare also their snacks both because it comes handy and also because it is more likely to consume them in order to avoid throwing them away (ex. you might not really turn to a fruit or veggie when you have mid-day cravings but it is way more possible to do it if there are pre-cut fruits, salads, etc available). All the patterns can potentially work because the power of meal prep relies on its adjustment to every person's unique needs.
For instance, I am a person that usually meal preps the most complex meals of the day (usually lunch/dinner and sometimes post workout meal) and in some occasions I also prepare snacks which I take with me on the go if I spend a lot of hours outdoors.
Preparing snacks doesn't mean always processing them, it can be just a Tupperware with a green apple and some nuts.
I usually prefer my breakfast or evening snacks to be made right before consumption due to texture, temperature and composition matters.
Some breakfast prep for the days I was sleeping over. Taken from my personal Instagram Account.
From planning to execution, it is a long road ahead. Once you have your meals scheduled regarding the frequency, quantity, proportions and consistency, you are ready to start the great the real thing.
MEAL PREP EXECUTION AND PACKING GUIDE
- Cut/Chop all the ingredients (ex, veggies) that you will use either for raw consumption or as a part of your cooking process either the same or the following day (ex. mushrooms, peppers etc).
- Wash your salads in advance
- Boil your veggies/eggs/whatever in large quantity
- Marinate your meat/fish/mushrooms/hummus in advance
- Cook all (or most) of the foods like grilled or baked stuff
- Use airtight containers to store your spare fresh cut ingredients for future cooking purposes
- Divide and combine your food accordingly to form containers with your meals
- If you are into packing some snacks, now it is a good time to proceed
- Be very careful with the hygiene and quality of your containers to maximize the food quality and preservation
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Smoothies preparation in advance can also be a practical option for your snacks but it is not super duper advisable since they will lose a lot of vitamin load until consumption
- Arrange your containers in the fridge in such a way to both see the content and have a clear image of which meals will be consumed first.
- For better preservation, avoid putting your containers too close to the back side of the refridgator, there is a lot of moisture going on there and especially fruits and veggies get frozen.
- ALWAYS have a bag/box/whatever works for you - to carry your containers PLACED READY on a kitchen table from the night before, to remember getting your food with you in the morning (or whenever you are about to leave the house)
- Remember your water and liquid intake. You might need to take coffee/tea/water with you if you are spending a good amount of time away from home.
Easy, don't you think? All you need is to be organized and invest around 1 hour of your time. Then, you are ready to benefit of the entire process and outcome as well.
During the process of meal prep, one will improve his cooking skills, he will learn to be more creative and even experiment to give a different taste to the same basic ingredients and he will get better at organizing his time and further aspects of his life.
In the long-term, meal prep will help with fitness goals and health improvement due to nutrition control, track and persistence, it will make a lot of time for other activities and personal-space and it will also provide a financial boost out of savings that would otherwise be unnecessarily wasted.
Last but not least, all these will contribute to the emotion of accomplishment which in turn will provide a lot of motivation, self confidence and positivity.
If you are reading this sentence then it means you made it through this entire long article for a reason. I hope that the information provided above have been useful and inspiring for you to try meal-prep yourself and seize the benefits.
If there is any question on the topic or anything you would like to ask/suggest/share don't be shy and contact me right away using the info below.
Have an exceptional day and till our next catch up, take care, work hard and smile!
Love,
Irina
Vero:
Irinä Aleksainen
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