The Many Benefits Of Meal Prepping
The Many Benefits of Meal Prepping
Why it’s Worth the Time and Actually Necessary to Help You Reach Your Health Goals
By Sharon Anderson, RD
You’ve probably heard all about it and have wanted to do it, but just haven’t had the time, or motivation, to get started. Or maybe you aren’t quite sure where to start. I’m going to tell you why you not only should, but need to meal prep if you truly want to be successful in reaching your nutrition goals. Then I’ll cover how you can get started and the best options to fit your lifestyle.
Some of you might be asking, meal prep? Who has time for that? We get it, everyone is busy, and there just isn’t enough time to pre-prepare your food and eat healthy on a daily basis. Wait, seriously?! Don’t have time to eat healthy. Nobody should have that mindset. We really can’t afford to think that way. We all have to eat, and focusing on fueling your body with foods that provide nutrients that are healing and help you to live a healthier, longer life should be everyone’s desire. Besides, who wouldn’t want to avoid buying, washing, chopping and cooking food, and cleaning a messy kitchen every day? We should all be signing up for that!
Food really is medicine and can be healing to the body; giving us more energy, regulating hormone and cell function, proper digestion, slowing the aging process, managing weight, supporting muscle growth, amongst many other benefits. Obviously, there is going to be the occasional treat and eating out, but it should be the exception not the rule.
The three most important things I like to tell people about the benefits to meal prepping:
Saves time
Saves money
Saves calories (which ultimately saves you from unwanted weight gain).
As was already mentioned, it contributes to an overall more nutritionally balanced diet, and can reduce stress as you are able to avoid last minute decisions on what to eat. You get to prepare food that you know you like and pre-determined portions keep you from overindulging, you also avoid unnecessary food waste. Additionally, you have a much better chance of reaching your nutrition, athletic, weight loss/gain/maintenance goals if you plan ahead with your meals. It’s actually essential to reaching your goals if you are really serious about them.
Meal prepping is a learning process and gets easier as you go. Start simple and expand on it as you fine-tune your skills. You don’t need to have professional culinary skills or fancy plating, have fun with it and get everyone involved. It can look different for each person, here are a few examples:
Prepare meals for a week or just one day
Completely prepare and package each meal to have it ready-to-go
Prepare separate ingredients (i.e. cut vegetables and cook meats) to speed up the cooking process later
Some people find it easiest to just have lunch pre-prepared for their workdays. While others appreciate having the entire day prepped and ready-to-go, or at least having most of their dinner meal prepared and ready to portion and heat.
Here are some strategies for some successful meal prepping:
Make a plan, that’s the whole key to being successful with prepping, it obviously means you have to plan ahead. Find some recipes you know you will enjoy, keep your budget in mind. Find recipes that include foods from different food groups (protein, starches, vegetables) to ensure balance in your meals. It’s a good idea to have only one or two proteins that you use in any given week and maybe use them in different ways, this will help keep costs down. Then make a grocery list, plan your portions, and get cooking!
Things to try first:
Cook in large batches, especially grains/starches as they can take longer to cook, as well as veggies as they often take longer to prep and cook.
Examples; use a crockpot to large batch cook potatoes for the week, prepare a large sheet pan of broccoli florets by seasoning and baking. Store prepped foods in large containers in the fridge to add to meals for the week.
Freeze any extra that you can’t eat within the week.
Make sure you have plenty of single meal-sized containers for storage and large containers for large batch cooking.
Invest in your health now, before you’re forced to spend unnecessary time and money
on potential complications that may have been preventable. You won’t realize how
beneficial it is until you start. So, give it a try. Remember to start in a way that is
manageable for you and your lifestyle. Because, ultimately, what it comes down to is
what works best for you. Don’t forget to have a little fun with it!