Meal Prepping: What is it and Why is it Important?

Introduction

In recent years, meal prepping has been on the come up, making your week easier in our busy lives. Personally, I believe that meal prepping takes convenience away from fast food and take out restaurants and moves it into our own homes where we are in complete control of the nutrients we are putting into our bodies. Meal prepping is great for those with goals surrounding their health, those on a budget, or just anyone in general looking for an easier way to access food in their own homes.

You can honestly meal prep for anything: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, ingredients! Whatever you deem is the route you feel benefits you most and will be the most sustainable long term… that’s the best way to do it. Today, I am going to talk about what meal prepping is, why meal prepping is important, how to get started with meal prepping, common mistakes and misconceptions surrounding meal prepping, and some meal prep ideas.

A look at my fridge and how I have it organized!

What is Meal Prepping?

Meal prepping is simply the practice of preparing either meals or ingredients in advance to make it easier on one’s self eat healthier, save time, and stay organized/on track throughout the week. Even though the name is ‘meal prepping’, there are many different levels and ways to interpret how you choose to prepare, benefitting your goals the most.

Some of the different ways to meal prep include: 

• Entire Meals: preparing an entire meal and splitting into portions per container to grab and go. When prepping entire meals, it is also possible to make meals that can be frozen so you can just pop it out and have a homemade freezer meal!

• Chopping Vegetables/Putting Fruit in Containers: as the title says, getting vegetables ready to just pop on the stove and cook. For fruit, cutting and portioning into containers makes it very easy to just add to a plate. 

• Cooking Protein in Bulk: cook a couple pounds of any protein, put into a container, and it’s ready to add to a plate and eat! 

• Snack Prep: portion out little bags of deli turkey, grapes, cheese, any healthy snack option of your choice and into the freezer or pantry to make it easy to just grab the snack you want and enjoy.

• Batch Cooking: making things like pasta sauce, peanut butter, bone broth, etc. and keeping some out for now and freezing the rest for later will increase efficiency and keep things readily available.

Why Is Meal Prepping Important?

As you will learn, I am a very big advocate of understanding WHY we are doing something to increase clarity and keep you more on track… so here’s some reasons WHY you should meal prep: 

• Saves Time 

  • By preparing meals/ingredients in advance, you will be able to spend less time cooking throughout the week, allowing you to obtain more free time or use your time for other tasks. 

  • If you’re an office worker or a person on the go, prepping your meals will give you less time in the morning that you’ll need before you head out. 

  • Hassle-free meal times during the week! Having meals or ingredients ready to go will let your meal times be quick and easy. 

• Improves Health and Nutrition

  • Prepping your own food will allow you to have complete control over the ingredients in the meals, leading to healthier meals (swapping out seed oils, refined sugars, food dyes, etc.). 

  • By having meals ready to go at home, this will reduce the temptation of going to get fast food or ordering take out. If you choose to prepare snacks, this will let you opt for a healthier snack. 

• Saving Money/Staying on a Budget

  • Buying ingredients in bulk and preparing at home cuts down the cost of eating out/ordering take out. 

  • Reduction of food waste by enjoying ingredients before they spoil. 

  • Buying large quantities of meats (at Sam’s Club or Costco) will decrease the cost per serving. 

• Promotion of Better Portion Control

  • Pre portioning out full meals will allow for the decrease in the risk of overeating. 

  • Supports weight management or specific health goals. Meal prepping can help with muscle gain, fat loss, weight maintenance, hormone balance, and specific dietary needs. 

• Reducing Stress

  • Meal prepping eliminated the daily decision of what to cook. Having ingredients prepped lets you just pull out what you want, put it on a plate, and enjoy.

  • Minimizing the rush to prepare meals last minute AND reducing the temptation of going to get fast food. 

• Elimination of Excuses

  • Having everything ready to go takes the excuses that you have no time to cook, that you’re missing ingredients, or have no motivation to cook out of the picture. 

  • As stated above, the temptation to eat out will go away, as you’ve got everything ready to eat at home… The longer you don’t eat out for, I promise, the worse the take out will taste over time. 

How to Get Started with Meal Prepping

Consider these points below when getting ready to meal prep and when you’re deciding what to prep: 

• Set Clear Goals

  • Whether your goal is to save time, eat healthier, gain muscle, lose fat, stick to a budget, or increase efficiency, defining your goals whether it’s for a week, a month, or a year, goal setting will help guide your meal prep. 

  • Some questions to ask yourself when setting goals could be: 

    • Am I looking to eat healthier? 

    • Am I looking to eat a specific diet? 

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• Choose Your Meals 

  • Pick simple and nutritious recipes that can be easily prepped in advance. 

    • To be honest, I am a big fan of ingredient prepping and when it comes to meal time, I just throw what sounds good into a bowl and enjoy. 

  • Plan for variety to avoid monotony.

    • Continuing on the point I made above, each meal, I will grab one of the proteins I have prepped, along with a healthy fat, and either a fruit or veggie. This leads to a bit of change and color in my diet!

  • Keep into consideration meals that can be easily reheated or eaten cold!

• Make a Shopping List.

• Based on the meals you’ve chosen, write down the ingredients and head to the store!

• My personal favorite way to shop is to write down each category of things I will be buying in the order they appear in the store to make it quick and easy. 

• Stick to your list so it makes it easier to avoid the fluff of the store. 

• Prepare Your Kitchen.

  • Organize your kitchen utensils, containers, appliances, carriers, etc. to keep your process organized and convenient. 

• Cook and Store.

  • Cook your meals or ingredients in batches and divide into containers and store. Glass containers are great because there are no hormone disruptors in them, they don’t dye and they will not absorb odor. 

  • Label any freezer meals being made with the date.

  • Organize your refrigerator to make it easy to grab and go, or plate and enjoy!

• Stay Consistent.

  • At the end of each week, look back at how your meal prepping throughout the week went. Did it go well? Would you change anything? Adjust your feedback and improve for the coming week. It’s all trial and error!

Common Meal Prep Mistakes to Avoid

• Overcomplicating Recipes: start simple! Eyeball or weigh each out into each container if splitting by the serving.

• Not Considering Variety: just because you’re meal prepping, doesn’t mean you have to eat the same things every day! Meal prepping allows you to be creative and stay on track!

• Forgetting About Storage: make sure you store your food in the proper containers to allow your food to stay fresh longer. 

• Making Too Much Food: just because we’re cooking in large batches, doesn’t mean it needs to stay the same. Depending on how many meals during the day you want to eat, prep 3-4 meals, or various proteins, fruits, and veggies to have ready to mix it up!

• Not Seasoning Food: season that chicken! Make it tasty and keep yourself wanting more!

Meal Prepping Tips

• Batch cook staples if you’re not sure what meals you want to cook yet! Just cook up some rice, potatoes, proteins, etc., and have it ready to go and create a meal out of!

• Prep snacks, not just meals! Having a little bag of grapes, or nuts, or yogurt containers ready to go will help you opt for a healthier option. 

• Stay Flexible. If your daily routine changes at the last minute or you don’t make it through your full week of meals, pop them in the freezer to save and reheat for later rather than letting them go to waste. 

• Keep the meals balanced. Make sure you’ve got a good variety of healthy fats, proteins, and carbs (fruits and veggies, potatoes, etc.) prepped to ensure you’re getting in the necessary nutrients. 

Meal Prep Ideas

Looking to prep an entire meal for the week? Try these:

• Orange chicken Bowl

• Beef Teriyaki Bowl

• Overnight Oats

• Egg bites

• Taco bowls

• Chilli

• Greek yogurt parfaits

• Oat balls/granola bars

• chicken/tuna salad

Looking to prep some meals to pop in the freezer? Try these:

• Pancakes

• Soup

• Breakfast (or any meal) burritos

• Smoothie packs

• Frozen pizza

• Lasagna

• Burgers

• Fried Rice

• Chicken Nuggets/strips

Looking to just get some ingredients together? Try these:

• Chicken breast

• Grass fed ground beef

• Turkey breast

• cut up fruits/veggies

Wrapping Things Up

If you can’t tell by now, I personally am a huge advocate for meal prepping, as I believe, if fast food was made for convenience, why can’t we create our own convenience that actually benefits our health. Looking at it all, start small, prep ingredients, cook some freezer meals, and have everything stored and ready to go! Just because it’s healthy, doesn’t mean it needs to be complicated! And a final note: a best tip of mine, don’t get discouraged if you have to change what you’re doing by the week. Adapt, find what you like, find what works for you, and get after it! Meal prepping is truly a more efficient, healthier, and cost-effective way to eat. No matter your goals, I believe meal prepping could benefit YOU!