The world will keep you busy and offer you costly but convenient garbage as sustenance. But you can stay healthy, strong, and lean if you learn how to meal prep effectively.
To some people, meal prep is a dirty word. To others it’s daunting.
To them it’s either a word that reflects rigidity, and a borderline eating disorder – or a complex task that’s so big that they don’t know how to get started.
It’s no wonder that many people resort to fast food or takeout.
I don’t know about you, but eating something that you know is bad for you because it’s convenient and normalized sounds like disordered eating to me.
But someone who’s actually concerned with their physical health, appearance, and well-being gets scoffs and side eyes for making the effort to actually nourish themselves.
The naysayers have sustenance derangement syndrome if you ask me.
Why Meal Prep Anyway?
There are plenty of benefits for meal prepping, whether you’re doing it to lose weight, reach physique/performance related goals, or to simply have healthy options on hand.
- It can save you time and money
- You can do this by planning your meals ahead of time and cooking in bulk. You won’t have to spend time each day deciding what to cook, running to the grocery store for last-minute ingredients, or swinging through the drive-through. Plus, buying in bulk can be more cost-effective than buying individual portions.
- Helps you stick to your nutrition goals
- When you have healthy meals and snacks on hand, you’re less likely to reach for unhealthy options. Meal prep can help you with adherence to your goals and avoiding the temptations of fast food or takeout.
- Reduces stress
- By eliminating the need to make decisions about what to eat each day, you can enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing you have healthy meals ready to go. Plus, a diet high in processed foods can mess with your satiety regulation, which could lead to irritability.
- Boosts creativity and skill building in the kitchen
- Over time you’ll learn how to prepare items better and improve on your kitchen workflow, as well as explore varieties of flavors and cooking methods. But just like any skill worth improving, you need to get those reps in.
How can you break out of the world of normalized malnourishment?
Step one is realizing that 99.9999999% of all convenient food choices available to you are trash.
Delicious trash, but trash nonetheless.
It’s not giving you the right ratio of macros to reach your goals, and most options aren’t giving you nearly the amount of fiber, vitamins, or minerals you need in order to thrive.
While some establishments provide nutritional information, it’s not entirely accurate, and the people cooking or preparing your food act as a major variable in the actual nutritional value of what you’re eating.
And let’s be real, the owners are trying to maximize profitability, and they’re going to do that a couple different ways: charging you as much as possible, and giving you the cheapest product they possibly can (generally speaking).
So naturally, making fast food, takeout, or dining a regular habit is a recipe for disaster for your wallet, health, fitness, and physique
The second step is accepting the notion that you should meal prep, in some form, to a certain degree.
With the right approach and mindset, it’s possible to eat healthy, delicious meals while still keeping up with a hectic lifestyle.
You don’t have to cook off Michelin star meals, but knowing how to cook helps.
And you don’t even have to meal prep for every single meal.
But by investing a little time, effort, or money each week, you can set yourself up for success in the kitchen and stay on track with your nutrition goals.
Let’s start this off by going from the easiest to the most intensive solution:
Meal Prep Strategy #1 – Prepared Meal Service
Perhaps the easiest solution with the lowest barrier to entry is to just hire a prepared meal service.
Think of it as like a healthier, buy-in-bulk Doordash.
You’ll pay a premium for having your food pre-cooked and delivered to you, but it usually comes in just over shopping for groceries but still under going out to eat.
You can keep that in mind to find a good balance between buying prepped meals, prepping meals yourself, and going out to eat.
There’s literally so many meal prep services out there, you may even have some local options to choose from!
You’re probably wondering exactly how this is really all that different from eating out all the time, and that’s a valid question. That comes down to exactly which one you pick.
There are a bunch of health and fitness meal prep brands specifically marketed towards people looking for options to help them make their hard work from the gym shine.
These businesses are going to operate under a procedure of heavy scrutiny for things like excess cooking oils that can add sneaky calories, and they’ll often provide nutritional info.
Other brands not specifically marketed towards fitness enthusiasts or athletes might not necessarily get loose with the cooking oils, but if you’re really trying to dial-in your nutrition they’ll likely offer foods that might not be the most helpful, and might not provide nutritional facts.
Do some research to find the right brand for you, your goals and your wallet, but Factor, Eat Clean To Go, HelloFresh, and Eat Fit Go are great places to start.
Meal Prep Strategy #2 – Food Prep
This strategy simplifies meal prep into individual foods that are stored separately and combined later for a meal.
This is my personally preferred strategy, as it allows you the freedom to mix and match different ingredients to diversify your meals.
It does require that you have time to cook (and know how to), but if you have various appliances at your disposal it’s honestly not all that time-consuming.
Select a day out of your week to spend a couple hours knocking out all of your cooking. Depending on how much you’re trying to prep, consider doing it over the course of two days to spend a little less time cooking each day.
You can be cooking one or two things on the stove top while baking/roasting a couple things off in the oven, have something going in the air fryer and other stuff in and out of the microwave.
I recommend cooking off 2-3 proteins, 2-3 carbs, and 1-2 non-starchy veggies (while being sure to leave room for fruits and some raw veggies).
Fats are mostly going to be used in the cooking process, but leaving room for foods like avocado, nuts, seeds, cheeses, and spreads is a good idea.
For a hack with non-starchy veggies, try the “steam-in-bag” veggies.
They’re already pre-steamed/cooked, so you can just let them thaw in the fridge and put them in meals as you make them. This reduces the need to buy, prepare, and cook off other raw veggies.
Another component of this strategy is buying healthy snacks to have on hand, whether they’re ready-to-go (ex: protein bar) or an individual component of a larger snack (ex: plain Greek yogurt, to be topped with fruit and honey).
This way, a better option is always available for you to snack on in service to your goals.
When you’re building your meals from these now precooked foods, it’s simply a matter of weighing, tracking (if you’re doing that), reheating, and eating.
Again, the major benefit to this meal prep strategy is being able to mix and match items to bring a little diversity to your meals without too much complexity.
It’s also a lot cheaper than eating out, and in a short amount of time you can easily prep 1-2 weeks worth of food.
I highly recommend getting a Food Saver for preserving any extra food that you’ll be freezing.
Meal Prep Strategy #3 – Full Meal Construction
This version of meal prep is definitely the most intensive, from a time, energy, and creativity perspective.
Sure you’ll have to shop and cook all the same.
But you might have to research recipes to help you get started and whenever you want to make something new, and do that for every meal.
In all fairness, that’s me looking at it through a narrow lens of a bunch of people I’ve talked to who have had ambivalence toward meal prepping.
These folks hate the idea of meal prep mostly because they can’t stand to have the same meals two days in a row. They won’t derive as much pleasure from their food if it doesn’t feel like a new experience.
They’re too entrenched in the culture of convenience and variation at their fingertips, and they struggle to break away even at the expense of their health.
But obviously it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to change meals at all as long as you like them, and they’re diverse enough to provide you with all the nutrients you need.
Now aside from any extra creative flare you might choose to exercise, the approach is very similar to food prepping above:
- Pick up whatever proteins, carbs, and fats you’ll need for your recipes
- Don’t forget to pick up healthy choices for snacks in between meals
- Pick a day or two to knock out the cooking
- Use multiple cooking appliances to speed things up if you can.
Then portion everything into individual meals to store and freeze, weighing and tracking along the way if you choose to do so.
A summary and some additional details on the last two meal prep strategies:
- Plan your meals
- Whether you’re following a recipe or just picking foods you like that will pair decently together, make a list and follow it.
- Grocery Shop
- You can select mostly minimally processed whole foods by shopping around the outskirts of the store, but feel free to implement some precooked and shelf stable options, especially if you’ve just started building this skill.
- Cook in bulk
- Save time and money by cooking in large quantities, and give yourself peace of mind that you have healthy and affordable options at your disposal.
- Use the right tools
- Utilize any cooking appliance at your disposal, and invest in new ones if possible (air fryer, toaster oven, crock pot, etc.).
- Invest in some high quality storage containers and maybe even a vacuum sealer for the excess food.
Wrap Up
In conclusion, meal prep can be a game-changer for those with busy lifestyles or who want to take control of their health.
And you don’t even necessarily have to do the cooking! Meal prep services are great for those with super busy lifestyles with no time to cook.
But by taking the time to plan your meals, grocery shop, cook in bulk, and use the right tools, you can grow your skill-set in the kitchen and stay on track with your nutrition goals.
And the benefits of meal prep go beyond nutrition – it can save you time and money, reduce stress, increase adherence for your goals, and boost your creativity in the kitchen.
I help people like you build meal prep skills that help them crush their goals.
I hope this article helps you and thousands of other people take action for their health and fitness in the kitchen.
But I know there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Some people have unique situations or don’t have all the information, and really struggle with how to make progress nutritionally.
It takes a coach that’s willing to listen and learn about those unique situations, and educate their clients to help them navigate a sustainable route towards achieving their goals.
If this is something you continue to struggle with, reach out to me on Instagram or TikTok where I post more helpful content for people like you, and shoot me a message.
Also check out my coaching page.
I take on clients who want to lose body fat, build muscle, dial-in their nutrition, and look and feel amazing.
If you feel like you’d be a good candidate, fill out my application. From there we can set up a call to see how I can help you become the best version of yourself.
