Meal prep and planning will save your bacon!
When I ask my clients for the first time if they meal prep, the answer I often get is “I just don’t have time to prepare my meals”…My response is a gentle but urgent…“You’re so busy that you don’t really have time to NOT plan and prep your meals”
When I can convince them to give meal planning a try for just one week, they are amazed at the relief it brings.
There are so many benefits that some from spending literally just a few minutes planning and an hour prepping your weekly meals.
Meal prep keeps calories in check.
One of my favorite sayings is...”Make the right things to eat, the easiest things to eat”…I even made a poster for it!
It’s really simple physics (ok, maybe not physics but it is really simple) When you make good, healthy whole foods easy to get at, you’ll eat them. You are not likely to come home after along day, stare into the fridge and think “Oh! I have been waiting all day to wash and chop all those ingredients for an awesome healthy salad” No, 9 times out of 10 you’ll shut the fridge, grab some pretzels or worse, a bag of microwave popcorn and call it good. It is much easier to keep your calorie intake on point when you have healthy snacks and meals ready to grab in a weak or tired moment
Meal prep gives your willpower a hug!
Willpower is just like a battery…it is exhaustive. Willpower will run out in time. You may start the day feeling revved and ready to take on the world as you stick to your clean eating plan right up to lunch. Then when coworkers ask you to go grab a bite and you realize that you didn’t bring a healthy lunch anyway…you go. At this point, you’re hungry and you’ve already handled most of the world’s problems. You are ready to give your brain a break from thinking too hard about anything…Including the menu. Maybe you slip up a bit at lunch and down some french fries. Maybe the day gets a little tougher and maybe a few unplanned events occur in your personal life. Willpower wanes as more and more demands are put on you. By the time you get home, your brain is done fighting back, willpower is pooped and its time for auto pilot…never trust the auto pilot! The auto pilot always wants popcorn for dinner:(
Having the right foods planned out and prepared to dump into a pan eliminate the need for you to make a choice in a weak moment. Having your meals all planned out will save your bacon in times of trouble.
Typically, when we go too long without eating we crave high calorie, sugary, salty, fatty foods. Having healthy snack prepared to munch on while you drive home from work, run the kids around or do errands will prevent you from reaching extreme hunger causing you to reach for unhealthy convenience foods out of desperation.
Meal prep will save you time
My rough calculations predict that the one hour a week it will take you to prepare your foods for quick cooking during busy week will save you:
30-45 min each day (often an hour) of cooking the meal ( chopping, dicing and messing up the kitchen as you go)
30 min each day of clean up – washing all those knives, cutting boards, kitchen tools, pans, wiping down the counters and sweeping the floor each night. This doesn’t count the time it will take you to wash the dinner dishes when the meal is over.
All of this can total anywhere from
6.25 hours per week (5 days a week) to
8.75 hours (7 days a week).
Now of course there is a little bit of kitchen time shaping all of those beautifully prepped foods into a meal but I typically spend 20 minutes getting dinner ready when my food is prepped as opposed to 45-60 min each night when I am cooking from scratch. I can think of ALOT of things to do with 6-8 hours of time each week
Meal planning save you money
When you plan your meals and hit the store one time each week you will cut down considerably on your impulse shopping expenses (multiply this savings by 5 if you don’t take kids or spouses along!) When you have a plan and you only go to the store once a week with a focus you will save time in your life as well. Think about that “quick trip to the store”. If we are honest with ourselves we very rarely come out with the “one thing” we went in for…and don’t even get me started on the samples at the bakery that will throw that calorie intake out the window… I am not even joking when I say that my kids and I believe our local sample lady to be the best in the nation when it comes to keeping the goodie trays stocked!
So, are you ready to try it? I promise you you will not be sorry. Now, it might take you some time to get a system that works perfectly for you but I invite you to give mine a try in this free Meal Prep Challenge! I will drop emails in your inbox showing your how it all goes down with videos, lists and templates to follow.
I have created a 4 “P” method to make it painless and dare I say pleasurable! – oh! there’s two more “P”s.
Give it a try today!
If you think you’ll need even more help check outMeal Prep for success e-book.
$14.95
Click here to buy the Prep it! book
In it I’ll teach you the methods I use, give you a sample meal plan and show you how I do it from start to finish. you’ll also learn how to fill your plate with the right foods, how to determine how many calories, carbs, fats and proteins you should consume and tips for eating healthy while dining out – even at buffet restaurants.
Get planning!