011 - Meal Prepping Could Be the Key to Your Success
Friends! In today’s episode, we are talking about the benefits and methods of meal prepping!
Once again this is one of those topics where the “right way” to do something is the way that works best for you and that you will actually do! Last week we talked about how to plan our meals (if you haven’t already listened to that episode, I encourage you to check out Episode 10 first), but as much as the planning part can overwhelm people, the prepping part for sure stops a lot of people in their tracks.
There are so many ways to do this and it can be challenging to figure out which is best for your situation. I hear a lot of questions like “how do I know how much food to make ahead?”, “Which foods will still taste good prepped in advance and which are better to prepare right before you eat them?”, “How much time does it take?” and so many more - and, don’t hate me, but a lot of the answers to these questions are “it depends…”. The answers change based on how many people are in your household, how you personally tolerate left-overs, and how much time you have to do the prep.
Today I want to just do an overview of how beneficial meal prepping can be as well as give you a few tips to help make it simple and helpful for you!
Benefits of Meal Prepping
So, why would someone benefit from prepping some or all of their meals in advance?
Well, one of my favorite things about it is how much time it can save throughout the week. This is especially helpful for people who work long hours or crazy shifts and know that they won’t have the energy to cook when they get home from work. It’s also great if you and your spouse work differing shifts and maybe can’t eat your meals together every night. It’s been really helpful for me because as I mentioned in the last episode, the dinner-time hours also seem to be the neediest hours for my toddler, and it keeps me from having to spend as much time in the kitchen when she is needing more of my attention.
Another great benefit, and the one that I think is key for most people, is that prepping your meals ahead helps you stick to your healthy eating goals. This is so important, especially when you are trying to make changes to your health. Let’s be real, the temptation to grab take-out or swing through the drive-thru on your way home is high - especially after a long or stressful day; however, that temptation will be so much lower if you know that there is a delicious home-cooked meal that you love waiting for you at home and one that you’ve already put work and effort into. You’re not going to want to waste that effort!
This is one of the keys to success for my clients. Not only does it help them to fuel their bodies well, but it helps to also change their habits and gives them the confidence they need to cook more at home. So now they are both making healthier decisions and saving money by not eating out as much! Win-win!
Methods for Meal Prepping
As I mentioned before there are different methods for prepping your meals ahead. I personally have used two different methods that I go back and forth with depending on how much prep time I have.
The first method is what I call the “big prep”. I use this method when I have a little more time, maybe on Saturdays or during one of my daughter’s nap-times throughout the week. I got the idea from the book “Cook Once Eat All Week” by Cassy Joy Garcia and it usually takes around 1.5 hours, maybe 2 if I have more interruptions. But essentially, I will prep most all ingredients for 3-4 dinners, plus a few breakfast or lunch items if I have time. In the book, Cassy teaches you exactly how to do “prep day” - which items to prep first, in what order things should go into the oven, etc. in order to make the most of your time and your space. I highly suggest this book if you are new to the process of meal prepping or if you would like to learn a new method. She includes recipes for 26 weeks worth of healthy meals, and even if you don’t use her recipes, and use your meal plan instead, you can still apply her principles of meal prepping to save yourself time.
The second method is my “mini-prep”, which is what I default to a lot, especially if I haven’t had a chance to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen. Using this method, I just try to prep 1-2 extra things when I am cooking dinner on Sunday or Monday evening. Simple things like browning ground beef or pre-chopping veggies for other meals can save you so much time later in the week. I’m already in the kitchen and in cooking mode, so while I wait for the oven to preheat or for water to boil or something, I just prep an ingredient for another meal. Also, a lot of times you put what you’re having for dinner in the oven to cook for 20-30 min and instead of going and doing something else with that time, on those nights, I just prep for other meals. Another reason I like this method is I don’t know about you, but I start most weeks with pretty high motivations and good intentions, but by Wednesday or Thursday night, I’m tired and that motivation has usually decreased significantly.
Even just prepping your lunches for the week while you are cooking dinner one night will keep you from being tempted to eat out for lunch every day!
Simple Meal Prepping Tips
Here are a few tips that can help you with your meal prep, no matter which method you choose:
In order to have a game-plan for what to prep, you will need to have your meals planned out. It’s hard to prep meals ahead when you don’t even know what those meals are. You can grab my free meal planning guide here, or over on Instagram if you need some help with planning your meals.
I highly recommend that you do your grocery shopping and you’re meal prepping on different days. Now, I will say that this is dependent on your personality and the amount of time you have, so you can experiment with it and see how it goes. Personally, it stresses me out too much to try to do both on the same day. I do like to wash my produce and maybe do a little pre-chopping or something when I’m putting groceries away, but actually cooking a bunch of meals right after I come home from the store and having to put all the groceries away is just more time than I want to spend in the kitchen at one time
Along those same lines, I recommend that start your prep with a clean kitchen. It doesn’t have to be spotless, but at least have mostly cleared off counters and an empty sink. Believe me, it is not an enjoyable experience to try to chop, mix, and cook when you’re working with about 6 inches of clean counter space or if a pile of dirty dishes is staring at you from the sink (ask me how I know :)). You want the process of meal prepping to be as enjoyable and stress-free as possible, so do yourself a favor and clean your kitchen up a bit before you start your meal prep and turn on some fun music (or maybe your favorite podcast {wink, wink}) while you’re at it.
As far as storing the food you prep, you can store it in a few different ways. One way is to store in the fridge in the pot that you used to cook it in. This is really helpful for when you’ve made soup or something large that you will need to reheat before you have it as a meal. It couldn’t be more simple than that, just take it out of the fridge an hour or so before you’re going to need to heat it, and then just put it on the stove or in the oven to reheat! Then for smaller dishes or if I’m going to divide a certain ingredient up to use in multiple meals, I will use my glass food storage. When it comes to storing food or anything that is going to be going into your body, it’s better to use glass or stainless steel than plastic. Even BPA free plastic still has many other kinds of estrogen-like chemicals in them that can easily leach into the food, especially when the plastic is heated. So, if you don’t have glass containers, use what you’ve got but please don’t heat your food in the microwave in plastic containers - move over to a ceramic or glass bowl or plate before you eat it. These chemicals do a number of things in our bodies, including increasing the overall toxic load on our livers, but increased usage of them can lead to hormone imbalance, in both men and women.
The last tip is also going to be one of preference, but personally, I wouldn’t prep more than 3-4 days of food at a time unless it’s something that you’ve prepped before and you know will stay good for the entire week. Chopped raw veggies or hard-boiled eggs are great examples of things that should last the whole week, but some cooked veggies will become mushy and some meats will become dried out when left in the fridge over a few days. This may take a little trial and error to figure out, but as a general rule, I stick to about 4 days for cooked meals.
Friends, I hope you found a few tips helpful and were able to see that meal prepping can be done in many different ways and how it can be key to helping you stick to your healthy eating goals!
As always, if you have any questions about the episode, feel free to reach out! Have a wonderful rest of your week and I’ll see you back here next week!