Fail to Plan...Plan to Fail!
Meal Prep 101Meal planning is the most important aspect of your nutrition plan. Knowing what you are going to eat the next day and having it prepared is 90% of your success. If you plan correctly this will take less then 2 hours per week and will most likely save you a ton of money by not eating out.
HOW TO GET STARTED
it’s important to remember to not get overwhelmed when you are a beginner. Too often people get bogged down in details, when sticking to the basics will do more good. Do not try to incorporate too many new things at once. For example, don't try meal prepping with all new healthy recipes. Start prepping with recipes simple recipes. When you feel comfortable, add more.
1. PICK A DAY
The first thing you should do is pick a day to prepare all your meals. For most, Sunday is the best day because it’s a day when you are off work, kids are home from school, and you can enlist the help of the entire family if you need it.
More experienced meal preppers seem to like Sunday and Wednesday as their chosen days to cook and prepare meals for the week. Using these two days allows them to split up the week’s prepping into two days.
In the beginning, you don’t want to prepare meals for the whole week. You want to start off with no more than three meals.
Most importantly...PUT IT ON YOUR CALENDAR AND SET A REMINDER!
2. PICK THE MEALS
You need to decide and write down which meals you are going to prepare first: Lunch, Snacks or Dinner. Ultimately, the choice is yours. You just want to think about it a little before you get started. After that, you want to decide on the recipes you are going to prepare.
*Refer to your meal plan and Meal Plan Builder Guide Below.
You might not want to cook the same recipe for breakfast and lunch if that is the plan you are on. When choosing the recipes, think about how you want to balance the meals.
For example, if you are trying to maintain specific macronutrient goals (proteins, fats, carbs) each day, that should factor into what recipes you choose. Knowing how each macronutrient converts into calories will also help provide more accurate information:
1g of Protein = 4 Calories
1g of Carbohydrates = 5 Calories
1g of Fat = 9 Calories
Using a kitchen scale can help you with things like this.
3. USE PROPER CONTAINERS
You must use the proper containers! I really can’t stress this enough. Good storage containers are really the foundation of your meal prepping.
How you choose to store your meals can make or break your meal prepping efforts. You don’t want to simply throw everything into Tupperware bowls. That defeats the whole point of preparing things. Throw it all in one big box and what you’ll have is a pile of goop — mmmm, tasty.
Here is a quick link for some great containers-www.amazon.com/dp/B074J6XBNX/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_QoltCbSE1BGTT
“What Makes a Good Container?”
For starters, you want to be able to divide each part of your meal. You don’t want foods cross contaminating each other. So what you need is a container that’s air tight, with divided sections that are also air tight. This feature alone makes for better, fresher, crispier tasting meals.
BPA Free. This is a big one. You need containers that are BPA free.
IN THE KITCHEN
Start off, like I said, with just a few meals. Don’t try to cook a whole week’s worth of meals in one sitting. You may want to do this later, as you get more comfortable, but for now, just try to find your meal-prepping-groove.
Focus on simple meals. Chicken is a favorite among many meal preppers because it can be cooked in a seemingly endless number of ways. It’s also easy to store and freeze. With just a bit of chicken and a few vegetables you can easily prepare three totally different meals.
Learn to Multitask: Remember that you can cook lots of different things at the same. Use your oven space to its fullest potential. There’s no need to place one thing in there at a time. Use multiple oven trays if it helps, or use aluminum foil to make dividers on one oven tray and multiply your efforts. Start with recipes that lend themselves to this type of cooking.
When planning your first shopping trip as a meal prepper, ask yourself if you have enough oven trays, aluminum foil and other utensils you might need.
Fruit: Fruit is a great way to dive in to meal prepping. You can cut up different types of fruit and store them just like any meals you could prepare.
The Crockpot: Okay, this one is obvious, yet so many new meal preppers overlook it. The Crockpot has been a favorite among moms for decades. Use it to make simple, great tasting meals then store them away.
Obviously I’m not going to tell you how to cook your meals (what am I, your mother-in-law?). You can find tons of recipes on our recipes page and online.
But hopefully this guide has given all you need to get started with meal prepping so you can make life a little easier.
After all, that’s what meal prepping is all about.
Meal Prep 101Meal planning is the most important aspect of your nutrition plan. Knowing what you are going to eat the next day and having it prepared is 90% of your success. If you plan correctly this will take less then 2 hours per week and will most likely save you a ton of money by not eating out.
HOW TO GET STARTED
it’s important to remember to not get overwhelmed when you are a beginner. Too often people get bogged down in details, when sticking to the basics will do more good. Do not try to incorporate too many new things at once. For example, don't try meal prepping with all new healthy recipes. Start prepping with recipes simple recipes. When you feel comfortable, add more.
1. PICK A DAY
The first thing you should do is pick a day to prepare all your meals. For most, Sunday is the best day because it’s a day when you are off work, kids are home from school, and you can enlist the help of the entire family if you need it.
More experienced meal preppers seem to like Sunday and Wednesday as their chosen days to cook and prepare meals for the week. Using these two days allows them to split up the week’s prepping into two days.
In the beginning, you don’t want to prepare meals for the whole week. You want to start off with no more than three meals.
Most importantly...PUT IT ON YOUR CALENDAR AND SET A REMINDER!
2. PICK THE MEALS
You need to decide and write down which meals you are going to prepare first: Lunch, Snacks or Dinner. Ultimately, the choice is yours. You just want to think about it a little before you get started. After that, you want to decide on the recipes you are going to prepare.
*Refer to your meal plan and Meal Plan Builder Guide Below.
You might not want to cook the same recipe for breakfast and lunch if that is the plan you are on. When choosing the recipes, think about how you want to balance the meals.
For example, if you are trying to maintain specific macronutrient goals (proteins, fats, carbs) each day, that should factor into what recipes you choose. Knowing how each macronutrient converts into calories will also help provide more accurate information:
1g of Protein = 4 Calories
1g of Carbohydrates = 5 Calories
1g of Fat = 9 Calories
Using a kitchen scale can help you with things like this.
3. USE PROPER CONTAINERS
You must use the proper containers! I really can’t stress this enough. Good storage containers are really the foundation of your meal prepping.
How you choose to store your meals can make or break your meal prepping efforts. You don’t want to simply throw everything into Tupperware bowls. That defeats the whole point of preparing things. Throw it all in one big box and what you’ll have is a pile of goop — mmmm, tasty.
Here is a quick link for some great containers-www.amazon.com/dp/B074J6XBNX/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_QoltCbSE1BGTT
“What Makes a Good Container?”
For starters, you want to be able to divide each part of your meal. You don’t want foods cross contaminating each other. So what you need is a container that’s air tight, with divided sections that are also air tight. This feature alone makes for better, fresher, crispier tasting meals.
BPA Free. This is a big one. You need containers that are BPA free.
IN THE KITCHEN
Start off, like I said, with just a few meals. Don’t try to cook a whole week’s worth of meals in one sitting. You may want to do this later, as you get more comfortable, but for now, just try to find your meal-prepping-groove.
Focus on simple meals. Chicken is a favorite among many meal preppers because it can be cooked in a seemingly endless number of ways. It’s also easy to store and freeze. With just a bit of chicken and a few vegetables you can easily prepare three totally different meals.
Learn to Multitask: Remember that you can cook lots of different things at the same. Use your oven space to its fullest potential. There’s no need to place one thing in there at a time. Use multiple oven trays if it helps, or use aluminum foil to make dividers on one oven tray and multiply your efforts. Start with recipes that lend themselves to this type of cooking.
When planning your first shopping trip as a meal prepper, ask yourself if you have enough oven trays, aluminum foil and other utensils you might need.
Fruit: Fruit is a great way to dive in to meal prepping. You can cut up different types of fruit and store them just like any meals you could prepare.
The Crockpot: Okay, this one is obvious, yet so many new meal preppers overlook it. The Crockpot has been a favorite among moms for decades. Use it to make simple, great tasting meals then store them away.
Obviously I’m not going to tell you how to cook your meals (what am I, your mother-in-law?). You can find tons of recipes on our recipes page and online.
But hopefully this guide has given all you need to get started with meal prepping so you can make life a little easier.
After all, that’s what meal prepping is all about.
