You’ve heard it before, and you’ll hear it a million more times.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
This is true for just about anything in life, but it becomes the most evident when it comes to a person’s nutrition. Failing to meal prep puts you at risk for making unhealthy, and rushed decisions throughout the day. When the fridge is empty of prepped meals, picking up the phone to order a pizza or a quarter pounder from Mcdonald’s sounds way less troublesome than trying to get creative and come up with something nutritious and delicious to eat.
Here are some tips to help you get started on easy, functional, and sustainable meal prepping:
- Make a roster of your favorite recipes.
One sure and easy way of setting up your weekly meal plan is to list down your favorite meal options as your first step to mastering the art, and it makes grocery shopping easy, too!
Explore Jilisa’s Dinner Pinterest board for some inspiration → Pinterest recipes
- Plan your staples
Always stock up on staples that can easily be created into delicious and healthy meals. Things like oats, olive oil, brown rice, sprouted grain bread, wraps, potatoes, chicken, veggies, berries, eggs, yogurt, pre-bagged salads, and some fruit are the staples in our house
- Take inventory!
Out of sight, out of mind. If you have to have junk food around the house, store it in an area where it would be more of a task to reach for it. This is also a great practice to purge your pantry and fridge of spoiled and expired stuff! You’d be surprised how old that tomato sauce is that’s hidden at the back of your pantry.
- Grocery Shopping
Consider making grocery shopping your personal stress outlet- just don’t do it when you’re hungry! Find the joy in accomplishing this task as you know it is going to set you up for a week of success. Even better, pop in a podcast of your favorite tunes as you wander the isles. Or, if you need to, click and collect and save yourself the time – just be sure to have a plan!
- Meal Prep Proper
You have a plan, you have your ingredients, and now it’s time to start the main event. Note that mastery of this art takes some time to get used to… it might get messy, and take a little longer than you expect. But practice practice practice!
Try to be as efficient in multi-tasking as possible. Slow cook your meat right away while you pre-heat your oven before unpacking the rest of your groceries. Throw your proteins into the necessary cooking steps, and start chopping your veggies as the meat cooks. Pro tip – get yourself a rice cooker or instant pot – life changers! Multi-tasking three to four things at once can be your best approach to the meal prepping process especially when you consider thinking two to three steps ahead.
If that feels super overwhelming, just choose ONE thing to prep. Just ONE. Start there, then slowly add to your repertoire!
Our nutrition coaches are always available to help you build your routine to ensure success and sustainability. Book your FREE meeting today and start chatting about your nutrition!