Unlike complicated planning, you can still shed pounds with simple meal prep approach. Try following these 6 tips to know how.
Fix what you want
Outline meal prep what you will make roughly for your whole week before heading for groceries leaving aside sudden meal preps or leftovers. Perhaps you can only plan for couple of breakfasts, couple of lunches, and 3 dinners for most. May be you are thinking about overnight oats for breakfasts and lean chicken salad or veggie chili for lunch. Your dinner menus might be tuna with vegies, turkey burgers or whole grain pasta. Whatever you plan, allow yourself to shuffle and swap what veggies or proteins matches to your plan when you go to the grocery shop.
Go for alternatives
You don’t need to do all from scratches. First sort out which meal prep part intimidates you the most. Perhaps processing raw green veggies with all those washing, chopping and cleaning may seem too much time consuming for you. In that case, ready-to cook microgreens or salads, pre-washed bagged broccoli florets, canned pinto beans and all sorts like those can come in handy. As the hard part is done, all you will need is to take portions and cook. Whole grains like quinoa or rice in ready-to-heat and eat in sealed bags mean that you can just put them in boiling water or microwave for cooking even without a pot.
Cook one time, eat twice
Broil a few vegetables at a time and preserve to mix or match with your meal later. Depending on your mood or taste, go for the one or two that matches with your menu recipe you are about to have in a day. This way you will have options to choose other pre-cooked veggies on other days. Same goes for different proteins and whole grains as well which can simply be thrown together in bowls for recipes that suit your taste.
Prep one time, eat twice
It’s annoying to process veggies and fruits for a whole week. It’s similarly annoying to chop fruits or vegetables every day of a week. What you can do is to combine both these tasks like, when you take out your chopping board and knife to chop one veggie, chop at least one or two more. Like when you chop red cabbage, chop broccoli or red pepper as well for the next day. If you are boiling beans, double the amount so that you can use the leftovers in another meal.
Work when you have energy
Perhaps like many other people, you may have more time during weekends for meal prep but don’t worry if that doesn’t suit you. It’s always better to prep when you have time and energy both to make your prepping more sustainable to shed pounds instead of continuously spoiling your weekends.
Be more creative
It’s easy to get boring prepping same thing again and again which could lead to overeat. Enjoying freedom to make impromptu plans to try a new recipe replacing your usual pasta dinner could be a key to keep things exciting and free from boredom.
