Meal Prep is for everyone
Whatever your preconceptions of “The Tup Life”, Meal Prep is not just for 12 weeks out bodybuilders and need never consist of plain old chicken, rice and over-cooked broccoli.
Whatever your goal, whether it’s fat loss, maintenance or mass gain, if you lead a busy life, then preparing at least some of your meals is advance is definitely for you.
The vast majority of us just don’t have the time or the patience to be spending hours slaving over a hot stove every night of the week. Some of us have an ever-hungry family that we HAVE to cook for and who don’t share our goals. The thought of cooking 2 different meals every evening is just not an option.
- You may have a partner who isn’t on the same fat-loss or mass-gain journey as you and you don’t want to compromise your goals.
- You may be someone who regularly resorts to eating out or reaches for the take-away menu at the end of a long working day.
- You may be someone who gets in from work, starts cooking and then inhales the contents of the fridge while dinner is on the go.
Whatever your situation, prepping even a few of your weekly meals will save you time, energy and in the long run, will help you reach your goals faster.
- Save Time – Prepare multiple meals in the same time it would take to prep 1.
- Never be caught out when you come home from work hungry and tempted to reach for the takeaway menu.
- Free up time to do other things instead of spending hours in the kitchen every night.
- Sit down to eat with your family even if they don’t have the same goals as you knowing you’re hitting your macros.
- Have more control when it comes to hitting your macros as you can log meals days in advance.
- Save recipes to MFP with meal names, save time not having to log long lists of ingredients.
- Portable – you can take your meals with you so that you don’t get caught out at work or in a situation where you have to resort to hunting for food in the supermarket or making poor choices in the staff canteen.
Planning your meal prep
It may sound like a cliché but “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” is pretty accurate if you are really serious about your fat loss goals. Having a plan that you can stick to is as important as the meal prep itself.
- Start Small – if you’ve never cooked more than 1 meal at a time then don’t try to prep a whole week’s meals in 1 go. You’ll be overwhelmed. The first week, prep your lunches for say, 4 days, then when you feel confident with that, go for 5 the next time, and so on. Eventually you’ll be able to make 7 meals in 1 go and then from there, if you have room in your fridge and freezer, you can become a veritable production line and prep 2 meals a day for week-days and then the whole week!
- Make your weekly meal prep a set-in-stone thing, put it in your diary and you’re much more likely to get it done. Choose a time of the week when you don’t have a lot on and give yourself a couple of hours tops. Within a few weeks you’ll have whittled this down to an hour.
- Block off the same time in your schedule every week for meal prep, whether it’s a Monday night or a Sunday afternoon.
- Multitask by using the time to listen to the latest episode of the Propane Podcast or that Audio book you’ve been meaning to listen to.
Before you can start cooking, you need to shop!
First rule of food shopping: never shop on an empty stomach. Go shopping hungry and you’ll come home with a month’s supply of Reece’s Cups and a 2kg tub of Skippy Peanut butter along with your chicken and veg.
Always make a list and don’t deviate. Pick a time of day when the shops aren’t busy and you’ll get it done faster. Most supermarkets are pretty deserted after 9pm at night and you’ll save hours on trying to get it done on a Saturday morning.
Hate shopping? Go to bed an hour early and shop on-line. This way you can save the list & do your meal prep shop in a matter of minutes the next time, leaving someone else to do most of the work for you.
Store cupboard basics
If you keep a good supply of the following in your cupboard then you only need to shop for fresh ingredients weekly.
- Oil Spray/oils for marinating
- Freeze dried herbs, dry spices, seasoning, these have negligible calories
- Sauces for marinating – be aware of sugar/salt content, don’t forget to scan the barcode and measure quantities.
- Baking parchment – for lining baking trays, much easier washing up.
- Olive oil for marinating – if you’re dieting hen weigh your oil or use oil spray to reduce the amount of oil used.
- Dry Starch sources – Rice, Cous Cous, Barley, Bulgar, Pasta, Quinoa – these keep for months in the cupboard.
- Freezer bags
- Tupperware food storage boxes
Let’s talk Tupperware
As you’re going to be preparing enough meals to last you a few days, you need to be able to store them safely in the fridge, so it pays to invest in some decent storage containers. These need to have a good seal, be microwave and dishwasher proof and “meal size”.
There are literally hundreds of options for your prepped meals to suit all budgets.
The Simple 3 ingredient Meal Template
Meat & Fish
Wet fish is expensive, makes your fridge smell and doesn’t stay fresh for long. Frozen is a much cheaper option, virtually no prep involved and it comes in handy meal size portions. Most of the chain supermarkets do deals on multiple purchases so you can vary your fish varieties to keep boredom at bay.
As mentioned above, you can get a head start with your meal planning if you buy your chicken in bulk, portion it up and put the marinade in the freezer bags with the chicken.
Simply defrost the night before your meal prep day and one ingredient is already ready to cook.
Vegetables & Fruit
Buy these as close as possible to the day you intend to meal prep so that they are as fresh as possible. Weigh out the total amount needed for your recipe and then just split between your food storage boxes once cooked. Don’t forget to season your veg.
Not even the bodybuilder you imagined eating plain chicken rice and broccoli actually likes plain broccoli – garlic salt, lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil (don’t forget to track the oil) makes all the difference. You want your meal to be as appetising as possible.
Meal Planning
- If you eat 3 roughly equal meals a day, work out how much protein/carbs/veg and fat you need to make up 1 meal.
- Work out how much you need to make the number of meals you intend to Prep. For example – if your macros are150p/120c/60f and you eat 3 meals a day, an ideal dinner would be 50p/40c/20f –this might be 225g steak mince or chicken thigh, and 150 grammes of cooked rice & veg for 1 meal, so 5 meals would require 1.125kg mince and 750 grammes of rice & vegetables.
- Set up your meal on MFP and save the recipe so that you can quick add it the next time you make it.
Cooking – it’s not as difficult as you think!
Cook for Taste
Meat and fish without seasoning is pretty bland. Adding flavour with a simple marinade, some freeze-dried herbs or a ready mixed spice rub will make all the difference. These should be a staple of your food prep and will help prevent the chicken boredom (and often complete aversion) that can soon set in during a cut. Simple combinations work the best – for example, soy, honey and ginger with salmon, lemon and parsley with white fish or garlic and herb with chicken. If you don’t feel confident with flavourings then the ready flavoured parchments from Maggi’s So Tender range are a good place to start for pimping up your chicken.
Your Oven is your best friend
If you have an oven, 2 baking trays and one saucepan with a lid you are good to go. Preheat your oven to 180C and that heat covers all the bases for meat, veg and potatoes.
Decide on what you’re going to eat the week before and shop specifically for your prep day. As already discussed, this will reduce the chance of impulse food buying.
Prep your meat or fish
Chicken is the easiest option and chicken breasts conveniently come in meal size portions. Cook on baking parchment at 180C, spray with oil spray so seasoning sticks or use the pre-marinated meat that you’ve defrosted from the freezer. Fed up with chicken breast? Boneless thighs, turkey breast steaks & Salmon fillet are as easy to cook as chicken breast and can be prepared in the same way, on greaseproof paper and simply season and bake.
Prep your Carbs
Potatoes/Sweet Potatoes can be cooked in the oven with the chicken, as can vegetables such as courgettes/peppers and onions – simply cut into bite size chunks, spray with oil, season and roast on a baking parchment lined tray until cooked. If you don’t want to roast then potatoes can be chopped and boiled until tender. You don’t even need to peal new potatoes – simply slice them up and boil in their skins. give them a shake in a knob of butter if your macros allow and a twist of black pepper and you may never eat rice again.
Rice
Many people really struggle with cooking their own rice and stick to the microwave bags, but rice is really easy to cook once you know how. Choose a decent quality basmati that you won’t have to wash. Tilda is my go to brand. 1 cup of rice to 1.75 cups of water, add seasoning. Bring to the boil. Put on the lid, simmer for 5 minutes on very low then turn off the heat. Leave the rice alone with the lid on until all the water is absorbed. Done!
Vegetables
Don’t forget to load up on the veg. The simplest option is frozen; no peeling, chopping or mess and minimal cooking. Low on calories and big on volume, exactly what you need when in a fat loss phase. If I’m short on time I just load up my Tupperware with weighed-out frozen veg and it steams in the microwave when I reheat my box meal, no need to pre-cook.
If you’re feeling more adventurous, good combinations that you can roast in the oven with your meat are peppers, courgettes & onions. Simply chop, season with freeze dried herbs of choice and roast with a drizzle of olive oil or oil spray. Most veg, even broccoli and cauliflower improve when roasted.
Whatever you do, don’t over cook your veggies – they are going to get another 4 minutes of re-heating so slightly “al dente” is what you should be aiming for.
Storing your food
Once you’ve boxed up your meals, allow to cool before refrigerating. Cooked rice should only be stored in the fridge for a maximum of 3 days.
The safest way of storing your meal prep is to put 3 in the fridge and freeze the remainder, taking one out the night before you intend to eat it and defrost in the fridge overnight.
Depending on your microwave power, reheat your boxed meal on full power for a minimum of 4 minutes to heat through thoroughly. Using this method, I’ve been meal prepping for 10 years and I’m still here :0)
It takes time to form a new habit
Remember that it takes about 3 weeks of consistent practice to form a new habit. Weekly food prep is no different from meditation or reading or flossing your teeth.
Don’t give up if the first time (or first few times) don’t turn out exactly the way you hoped. Keep trying, enjoy the process and your new found cooking skills. Start out small rather than trying to prep all your week’s meals at once. Even those of you who’ve never cooked before or think they can’t cook will get better at meal prep over time. At the end of the day, meal prep is about making your life easier. Sure, it does take a little time, effort and planning, but it is worth it. In the long run it will free up time for you to do other things and help you stay on track with your macros, especially if you are serious about reaching your fat loss goals.
So, step away from the take-away menu and give it a go! check out #mealprep on Instagram for inspiration.
Bonus Recipe
Here’s my own recipe for an easy & inexpensive 3 bean chilli that you can adapt using different ground meats, depending on your preference. It’s my go to when I’m pushed for time, as once it’s simmering in the pot you can literally leave it to its own devices. It’s also high in fibre and you can tone up or down the heat depending on whether you have an asbestos mouth like me or always go for the Mild option at Nandos
Wrap it up in a burrito with guacamole, jalepenos, cheese and salsa, load it onto a baked potato, or if you’re low on carbs, then serve with a mountain of green salad and a Greek yogurt dressing.
Easy 3 Bean Chilli
This makes 6 portions with macros of 43P 22C 16F depending on the fat content of your meat.
Ingredients
- 500g Lean Turkey Mince
- 500g Lean Steak Mince
- 2 packs Fajita seasoning
- 1 Tablespoon Paprika
- 1 Tablespoon cumin
- 1 Tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 Tin each of Kidney beans, pinto beans and chick peas, you can vary these depending on taste
- 1 large onion
- 1 each red and green pepper
- Optional – fresh deseeded, finely chopped chillies according to taste. Be careful what you touch after chopping chillies. If in doubt, wear rubber gloves.
- 1 bunch of coriander
Method
- Chop all the vegetables
- Brown the ground meat in a large saucepan or wok.
- Add the vegetables, tinned tomatoes and beans
- Add the fajita mix and the other dry spices
- Add half a can of water to the mix
- Simmer on a low heat for half an hour with the lid on.
- Once cooked stir in your bunch of finely chopped coriander leaves
- Allow to cool and box up with carbs or veg of choice depending on your macros.
Author Bio
Jo, the newest addition to PropaneFitness is a Mum of 3, GBPF M2 Powerlifter, EPA deadlift record holder and former UKBFF Bodyfitness competitor. She believes that you are never too old or too busy to reach your fitness goals.