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Feb 20, 2019
Nutrition Education: Tips for Successful Meal Prepping
1.) Create a Menu: Before your weekly grocery shop, plan your meals for the week. This helps in two ways.
First, you’ll know exactly what foods you need for the week and you can go grocery shopping armed with a list. When the urge to buy unhealthy foods strikes, you can keep yourself on track, and if you don’t have them in the house, you’re much less likely to give into temptation later on.
Second, a menu helps to tackle the impulsive element of overeating. When you’re hungry or stressed and you’re trying to make a decision about what to eat, it can be difficult to choose wisely. If you don’t have to choose at all because you already know exactly what you’re going to eat, you’re less likely to act on impulse.
2.) Have a Weekly Shopping Day
Having a menu makes it easier to do your grocery shopping. Avoid aisles, displays and sale signs at the grocery store. Whole foods tend to be on the perimeter of the store. Be cautious of items on the shelf placed at eye level as these are intended to get your attention. Shop alone to avoid influences from others and stick to your plan and list.
3.) Have a Weekly Prep Day
Include several bulk meals in your menu, and then set aside an afternoon to prepare large batches of healthy dishes for the week. Divide them up into portions, then refrigerate or freeze them. When you’re in a rush later in the week, or you simply don’t have the energy to cook, you can reach for a pre-prepared healthy dish, rather than an unhealthy snack or convenience food.
4.) Pre-Chop Your Veggies
Chopping vegetables is surprisingly time-consuming, and it’s probably the last thing you want to do after a long day. Pre-chop, dice or grate your veggies during your prep day and store them for later. When you’re cooking later in the week, you can simply grab what you need and go.
5.) Fall Back on Go-To Meals
Fancy meals are wonderful, but realistically, they’re not a regular feature of a busy schedule. If you demand too much of yourself, cooking healthy meals will start to become a chore. Keep a few recipes on hand for healthy dishes you can whip up without much effort, and save the more complicated meals for those days when you have more time. Regular staples like oatmeal, smoothies, salads, soups, wraps, and trail mix can be easily changed by simply swapping out a few ingredients.
6.) Plan for Tomorrow
During a busy day, it’s tempting to grab an unhealthy meal or a snack on the go. Avoid this by preparing and packing your lunch the night before. The next day, when you’re rushing out of the house or snatching a few minutes at work, you’ll have a healthy meal ready to go.
7.) Maximize Your Leftovers
Who doesn’t love leftovers?! Use them wisely and you can save time, effort, and money. Plan a meal you can make with leftover ingredients the next day, like throwing your leftover veggies into an omelet or soup. Alternatively, cook an extra-large lunch or dinner and save the leftovers for tomorrow.
*Use the Slow Cooker*️
Slow cookers are a gift as far as cooking on a busy schedule is concerned. There are plenty of delicious, healthy meals that require nothing more than throwing the ingredients together and getting on with your day. And the best part? Minimal clean-up afterwards!
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Steve has been crushing it ever since joining IPT in Dec 2023. He continues to stay consistent with his nutrition, cardio and exercise. He always pushes past his limits in every workout which has resulted in losing body fat mass every month! He lost a total of 35.7 lbs of BFM since joining! Steve Lepping has transformed his life for greatness!
Andrea has been at IPT since July of 2023 and has been the definition of consistency! She always makes adjustments to her nutrition and exercise when needed and pushes herself in workouts every single time. Each month she exceeds her goal of losing body fat mass, and has lost a total of 24lbs of BFM since joining! She's able to chest press 25 lb dumb bells and can do a full pushup without any assistance now. You can really see the difference in how Andrea carries herself and the confidence she has now compared to her first day at IPT. She completely transformed her life for the better!
Rey has been here since early June & has never missed a session! He's on-point with his tracking for nutrition and always does his cardio. He has hit every goal since he started and has lost 49.6 lbs of body fat mass and gained 3.8 lbs of skeletal muscle mass. Down from 48.9% BF to 36.6% BF. The health of his knees has improved drastically and he continues to have an exceptionally positive attitude!
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