When you get serious about your fitness goals, one first step is usually to get your nutrition in order. You want to get enough protein to support your muscles, fruits and vegetables for health, carbs for fuel, and a total amount of calories that supports your activity and your goals without undereating or overeating. Preparing your meals ahead of time ("meal prepping") really helps with that.
Meal prepping helps with a lot of health and fitness goals because it separates the task of deciding what to eat from the action of shoveling food into your mouth. If you want to get 30 grams of fiber each day, you can prepare meals that add up to that much, and as long as you eat those meals, you know you're hitting your goal. If you didn't prep your meals, it would be a lot easier to grab takeout or snack on whatever is in front of you rather than considering how each meal fits into that overall goal.
There are two main ways meal prepping can go wrong. One is that you prepare the meals just fine, but you don't actually eat them. This can happen if your food doesn't taste good, doesn't keep well, or if you prepped a bunch of the same thing and you get sick of it. The other is that you simply don't have it in you to prepare all those meals. If it takes you all day to cook a week's worth of food, you may decide after a few weeks that you'd rather spend your Sundays doing something, anything else. The steps below will help you avoid both of these pitfalls. Read this, and you'll prepare meals that you actually want to eat, without burning yourself out.
Start meal prepping with a go-to breakfast
So, your first step is to come up with a breakfast that fits your macros and that is easy to prepare. We’re taking baby steps here, so don’t worry too much about prepping this ahead of time. Just make sure that it will be ready when breakfast time arrives.
When you start packing up dinners and lunches, you’ll need something to put them in. While cute little bento-esque Tupperwares may look nice, you may decide you don’t actually want all those divided containers. Or the boxes you buy may turn out to be the wrong size once you start filling them. Save money and time by selecting one or two types of takeout container that you get plenty of, and save those whenever you get them. I like the flat rectangular ones and the round one-pint soup containers.
While you're gathering your supplies, make sure to grab a Sharpie and some masking tape. Label each meal, even if it's a simple reminder like "PASTA" or "CHICKEN," so that you can tell your lunches apart. If you're prepping for more than one person, you can add names as well.
Only commit to one meal at a time
I also recommend, at least at first, not planning for seven days at a time. Since I work a Monday-through-Friday job, I like to prep my weekday meals and then wing it on the weekends. (A weekend menu for me usually involves my regular breakfast, some kind of meal scrounged from leftovers, and perhaps a takeout meal or two.)
An important food safety tip: Meals prepped on Sunday aren’t going to be in the greatest shape come Saturday. I recommend choosing one of the following strategies:
On Sunday, make both your dishes so you can alternate. Pick three of the meals to pop into the freezer (one or two of each recipe). Then, on Tuesday or Wednesday, take them out of the freezer to begin to thaw. If a meal is still slightly frosty at mealtime, just microwave it a little longer.
That means that you can stay off the recipe websites for now. Choose an old favorite; you can get experimental later. And if you ever become tempted to make, say, a month’s worth of food on your meal prep day, definitely try that exact recipe out in a one-week batch first.
Be lazy when you meal prep
I’ve gotten better since then. Everyday meal prep is not the time to make complex recipes from scratch! My most successful meal preps are the ones that use simple recipes (two or three ingredients and only a few minutes of hands-on time), or that incorporate foods that are already somewhat prepared.
A rotisserie chicken is another handy time saver. One breast can top each of two salads, and then I chop the dark meat plus any remaining white meat scraps and use those in another 2-3 dishes.
For example, most items in the animal and vegetable kingdoms can be thrown onto a sheet pan and roasted. I’ll buy some frozen fish and fresh or frozen veggies (both very healthy options, sometimes more so than fresh) and then roast a tray of each with appropriate seasonings. (Olive oil and garlic salt are perfect for broccoli or, to be honest, any vegetable.) Chicken tenderloins marinated in mayo are another protein option that go with anything and can be prepared en masse. Thanks to the extra moisture, they reheat superbly well.
You get the idea: Make a lazy meal, make no more of it than you will actually eat, and pack it into the containers that you already have around. Don’t expect to get everything perfect at first; you’ll refine your workflow over time.
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