Have you ever wanted to know how to meal prep? If you follow me on Instagram you know that I throw it down for my meal preps. Alot of people ask me, “Sarah-Jane how do you do it? Do you spend hours in the kitchen slaving away?” The answer is no. If you follow these 3 steps I’ve laid out down below meal prepping will be a breeze for you. These steps will show you how to meal prep for success.
1. Have a Plan (Make a Menu!)
I always say that meal prepping starts before you even enter the kitchen. It actually start before you go to the grocery store. I always decide the dishes I’m going to meal prep before I go grocery shopping. I make a list of spices, meats, sides, and other things I’ll need to make the meals I have planned for the week. This way, when I go to the grocery store I’m razor focused. I buy what I need and maybe a few treats, and head home. It is very easy to go to the grocery store and buy lots of things that you don’t actually need. When you do this you only realize that you have nothing to actually meal prep with until you get home. That is the worst feeling ever. Save your money, and save yourself time from making multiple grocery trips, and make a menu before you go to the store.
2. Start Simple
Often times my friends come to me with meal prep questions but the most common one is: “I don’t know how to cook. What can I meal prep?” I always say that you can never go wrong with chicken and broccoli. I have an arsenal of recipes that rotate around those two things. There are so many things to choose from! Some of my favourite go to’s are: Spicy Pimento Chicken Asian Inspired Chicken and Jerk Chicken just to name a few. My best advice is to start simple. If you can only make a few dishes, and you like them, make those things. It’s not the time to do extravagant recipes, or start experimenting. You’ve got to remember that you’ll be eating this food for the upcoming week. If you use your groceries to experiment with a recipe you saw on Pinterest and it goes left… you’ll have to eat it for the rest of the week. Yuck. I say default to the few recipes you know how to make well, before doing any form of experimentation.
3. Make Food that you Like
In this text, tweet, Instagram world that we live in it’s hard not to be influenced by those who live lives of glamour. In the health and fitness community it’s even harder. It’s important to stay true to yourself during every step of the way during this journey. That includes being true to your preferences! Make food that you like and will enjoy.
If you don’t like chia seeds… don’t make chia pudding because that’s what your favourite fitness guru likes. In attempts to be super healthy you end up making your health and fitness journey miserable. Not only that but you end up wasting money and food, because you won’t actually eat the food you make — because you don’t even like it. You should always be excited to eat your meal preps. When you like the food that you’ve prepared for yourself it’s not hard to stay on track. It will be difficult for anyone to bamboozle you or get you to eat out or cheat when you know you have a good lunch waiting for you.
If you’re staring a health and fitness journey or want to start eating healthier you should definitely consider meal prepping. This way you can track your food, stay within your macros, and save money at the same time. It’s a life hack!
