What is food prep?
Food prep is preparing all or some of your food ahead of time.
One of the main things that I started incorporating in my weight-loss journey was food prepping. It took the guesswork out of what I was going to eat. It also caused me not to make poor choices when I was tired or stressed. I still food prep even after two years!
Once you get use to it, the process becomes easy:
The first step is I would decide on what meals I want to prepare.
Then I would look in my refrigerator, freezer and pantry and make a list of the ingredients that I needed.
Next was grocery shopping! I do mine on Fridays! I use to go on Saturdays but then I felt like I never really had a day off to fully just rest because Sunday was food prep then back to work on Monday! So my current routine is grocery shopping on Friday, food prep on Saturday and rest on Sunday! Of-course you can choose which day of the week or weekend that works best for you!
Some Food Prepping Tips That I Learnt.
I marinade any meats on Friday night! When I buy chicken that I grill for my salads and stewed chicken (a Trinidadian dish) I usually buy enough for two weeks, marinade all and freeze half. This way I only have to do it twice a month and not every week!
You do not have to cook all of your meals in one day! I have an omelette every morning for breakfast! For me my omelette still taste good after two days so I prep my them every two days!
I use to spend a lot of time cutting up fresh vegetables because I thought they were more nutritious that frozen vegetables. However when I was doing my Fitness and Nutrition course with ACE. I learnt that frozen vegetables and fruits are just as nutritious (if not better) is some cases. You can read the article by clicking on the link:
https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/blog/859/how-much-difference-is-there-in-nutritional-value-between-fresh-and-frozen-fruits-and-vegetables
It may be a little cheaper to buy fresh but for me it is worth it because it saves me a lot of time!
Another tip is to start cooking dishes that take a longer time first! For example, I put my sweet potato in the oven to bake at the start of my meal prep because it takes 1 hr and 10 minutes. Any vegetables that I am roasting goes in the oven as well and I start the rice cooker going too.
Make batches! I grill my chicken in big batches to use with different dishes throughout the week! Like I would use grill chicken with some frozen broccoli for a quick meal, or grill chicken salad. Make a batch of taco chicken which the kids love! You can quickly throw together chicken tacos, taco chicken bowl with some whit rice and black beans or taco chicken with broccoli and sweet potatoes. YUM!