Meal prep is a huge advantage to help you stay on track. If it isn’t easy and readily available, you are not going to stick to your plan and get to your goal. Let’s face it, we are all busy and run around all the time. If you take just a few hours to prep your week you will see how much easier your week goes, how you stick to the meal plan, how you are prepared for dinners, and how much less stressful eating healthy becomes. We start our week on Monday so we prep on Sundays.
The first time we did a meal prep it took us about twice as long as it does now. Once you get a system down it becomes easier. I put my two helpers to work and we get meal prep for the week done in about 2 hours.
Having just a few meals to prep for breakfast and lunches makes prep go by faster as well. Don’t try to get overly fancy and alternate 7 lunches a week. You will get worn out and not stick to it. We alternate between 2 days of meals thru the week (every other day we eat the same thing). This means you can make one batch of turkey chili for the week (6 servings, 3 lunches for each of us). Two packages of chicken thighs will feed us the other 2 days (4 servings of 4oz of chicken, 2 lunches for each of us). See what I am saying. You don’t waste food either by having leftovers sit in your fridge and go bad.
Portion Cups are the best thing ever!!! You can get 100 of the 2 oz. cups with lids for just $10.99 on Amazon -> HERE
These 2oz cups work perfectly for just about anything you only need a small amount of, or a single serving of. I use these for ranch dip, caramel dip, spinach dip, shredded cheese, sour cream, hummus, etc. You get the point. They are great to separate your foods into single serving sizes. Use portion cups with snack size baggies and you are set. We split out carrots, grapes, celery, and pretzel chips into portion sizes. This saves money because you are not buying single serve portions. You buy a normal bag and separate yourself. We use a small scale to measure the portions by grams or ounces.
We use these disposable containers for lunches. You can also wash them and reuse but if they get nasty just toss and buy new. These are $27 for a package of 50 on Amazon and are a great size for lunches. -> HERE
We have a pretty good system down. D portions out the snack items while I cook the breakfasts and lunches. This is what one day of breakfast, snack am, lunch, snack pm looks like. Since we both eat the same thing we make enough for each of us per day.
Meal prep for the week is done and ready to go.
We prep breakfast, lunch, and snacks for the week. All dinners are made fresh each day but having the menu and food ready for each meal takes all the hassle out of cooking dinner. Give it a try!