The main benefit of meal preparation in advance is to make life easier during your busy week. Getting organised and doing your meal prep in the right order can save you hours.
When it comes to healthy eating, meal preparation in advance is an investment in yourself. You will have fast ‘grab and go’ containers with pre-packaged portions of healthy food, without all the preservatives and best of all these great meals will help you with your body composition and training goals.
Your Instagram news feed is probably filled with posts of neatly arranged Tupperware containers filled with brightly coloured food and inspiring recipes. But how can you make your meal prep faster to give you more time for training at the gym, seeing friends and having fun?
Meal preparation is nothing new, in fact I remember when I was younger my parents shopping BIG once a week, and every evening dinner was prepared along with lunches for school and work the next day. These days however, with our increasingly busy lifestyles, people seem to resort to convenience foods more often and meal prepping has become a bit of a lost art form. With these tips you will get faster and streamline your meal prep so you don’t have to be stuck in the kitchen for hours to experience the benefits of this age-old tradition.
I started competing in 2012 and this involved following a meal and training program. I enjoyed my training program, but I found finding time for meal preparation and learning to cook time effectively was a bit more of a challenge. I was working full time, coaching at a school in the mornings before work, and dancing two nights per week along with following my new training plan of 6 days per week.
There was no option to grab something on the go if I didn’t have time to prepare my meals for the day so I had to be organised. I decided to do all the preparation I could on a Sunday and probably spent the first two weeks doing everything the long way. 7 years and many competition seasons later, I have this process down to a fine art.
Here are 9 Meal Preparation Ideas to Free Up Your Time
1. Get your Tupperware organised
Before you dive into meal prepping you need to get organised. Having matching lids and the right sizes clean and ready to go, will ensure you are fast tracking the packing and portioning stage of meal prep. If you are buying containers, make sure they fit the purpose. The little tubs in the plastic aisle of your supermarket are great for transporting condiments like peanut butter, agave syrup, olive oil, soy sauce and protein powder.
2. Clean out your pantry
Throw out anything you don’t need anymore. This includes food items that you won’t be eating anymore, anything out of date. Being organised starts with this audit. Do it once and do it properly. There is nothing worse than digging through drawers and cupboards trying to find what you need. It is time consuming and you end up buying things you don’t need or already have because you don’t know what you have in your pantry.
3. The right equipment
Invest in a set of kitchen scales for weighing your portions, measuring jugs, cups and spoons. I like to use snap locks bags because they are great for storing portions of things like protein balls, homemade protein bars or veggie sticks and they will save you space in your freezer or meal carry bag.
I also keep cutlery and crockery at my desk at work so that I don’t need to hunt around for utensils to use. I recommend having plate and a large bowl at work for heating your food. Putting plastic containers in the microwave releases harmful chemicals. If you cannot keep items at work, opt for Tupperware that is made of glass, and keep a cutlery travel pack for your lunch bag.
4. Create a shopping list
Write a list before you go shopping. This is not negotiable. You may be following a meal plan that has been written for you. I recommend sitting down and writing a list of the things on your plan you can buy in the one shop. You may need to make a small trip to the shops during the week to top up on vegetables so that they are fresh, but this is better than having to shop daily or not having what you need at home.
If you are not following a meal plan, I suggest planning out your meals for the week, including breakfast, snacks, lunches and dinner, and writing a shopping list based on your macros.
5. Plan your meal prep days
Spending an entire day based around meal prepping is not practical for everyone. You may prefer to prepare your meals on a Sunday morning, and if you haven’t done your grocery shopping you are going to find it a little hard to get started.
Know which stores you will be getting your items from and when they are open. This way you can make sure you have everything you need for when you have allocated time for your meal prep.
You may want to shop on a Saturday ready to meal prep on Sunday. Or if you work shift work or have children, these days might be different. Work out which days of the week suit you best for shopping and meal prepping and make this a weekly routine. After all consistency in your nutrition intake is where progress is made and creating a healthy habit will ensure your new way of eating remains a lifestyle for the long term.
6. Clean and organise as you go
After getting your workspace and shopping organised you are ready to start meal prepping. I have also included some tips to speed up the process for you and make sure it runs smoothly as well as a step by step guide on the order I prepare my meals.
7. Review your meals
First of all, review the meal plan you are following or have written for yourself and work out what you can make in bulk, freeze or portion, what needs to be baked and what needs to be made fresh. If you have purchased 2kg of chicken and don’t need all of it straight away, divide up and freeze the portion that you will not be using.
8. Doubling up.
I recommend doubling up your mixture where possible for things like baking, or protein pancakes. Rather than preparing a mixture every time you need something, make it in bulk. Instead of making one lot of protein pancakes, you might want to just triple the ingredients and make 3 lots at once rather than going through the whole process several times a week.
You can then put the extras in a zip lock bag, put them in the freezer and take them out to thaw the night before you need them. The same applies for preparing protein breads or home made protein bars. Double the mixture and bake or set two at a time, portion them and store them in the freezer or cupboard.
9. Break it into steps
Doing your meal prep in the right order can be the difference between a 1 hour process or a 3 hour process. Some things will need to be made fresh but many of your meals can be prepared in advance.
- I recommend starting with any baking first as you will need to heat up your oven, wait for it to bake and then cool. This will be foods such as baked protein bars/breads/muffins and baked potatoes. I even bake my chicken breasts but cut up, as you can set the timer and not have to look at it for about 25 minutes rather than baby sitting it in a pan or on a grill. Once you have your baking in the oven you can leave this on its own for a while.
- Next prepare any items that are made raw, such as fruit, protein balls, vegetable sticks and portion them out in your zip lock bags. **Check your baking.
- Prepare your protein and vegetables for the next few days. This might be grilling or pan frying chicken or steak, putting water on to boil for steaming and cutting up vegetables. You may choose to prepare your protein for the week then portion and freeze it. Whilst you are waiting for this to cook, take out any baking that is finished and set aside to cool. Make sure you have a board or tea-towels laid out on the bench so you have somewhere to put your hot baking trays as your stove top is now in use!
- Set up some containers and start to portion out serves of protein powder, nuts, berries, oats, condiments and supplements. You should be able to prepare most of these in advance for the whole week so that all you have to do is pack and go each day.
- Once the meat and vegetables have finished, set them aside to cool and go back to portion and pack your baking.
- Once this is done portion and pack your protein and vegetables.
If you don’t want to prepare your protein and vegetables in advance, I recommend making then next day’s meal with your dinner the night before. If you are making salad for dinner, make enough for the next day’s lunch as well. You could even get a giant airtight container and make enough for the week, just don’t put any dressing or oils on it to keep it cripsy. In my home we cook our meat in bulk as we are both eating chicken / fish or steak daily. Its gets kept in an air tight container in the fridge and we take it out and portion what we need.
I have listed the order I prepare my meals in because it works for me. This should get you started and give you a good base to work from. Of course you can modify this to suit you. The more you practice and fine tune it, the easier it will become.
Benefits of Meal Prep
Meal prepping will save you time, money, and help you avoid making unhealthy food choices.
Buying several take away meals a day can really add up, especially if your whole family is having to do this. This might be a salad, a coffee and protein ball a few times a week for a year. This could add up to over $1,000 and this could instead be used for a gym membership, a competition bikini or a relaxing holiday!
Being organised will also reduce the amount of money wasted on food you have thrown away because it has gone bad, or you bought too much. It will also save you from buying things you don’t need, as we all know that each time we go to the supermarket there is temptation to buy little extra’s we don’t need. Here I am talking about impulse purchases such as beauty products, bottled water or other items that can impact your budget.
The main benefit of preparing your meals in advance is your health. Processed foods are usually laden with sugar, salt and unhealthy fats. You also have no control over your portion sizes.
And, most importantly meal prepping in advance will also prevent you from running around on your lunch break trying to choose something to eat with limited options for healthy food. Imagine a stress free week where you can go for a walk on your lunch break instead of lining up at the local salad bar or worse, having to skip a meal because you couldn’t get out of the office.
Take home message
If you are used to grabbing food on the go, preparing meals can take a little getting used to but eventually you will find what works for you.
If you do slip up during the week, don’t beat yourself up over it. Get back on track from your next meal. The more you practice this, the easier it will become and you will fine tune your system so that it works best for you. One bad meal choice is not going to railroad your efforts, but consistent poor choices will. Just the same as one healthy meal is not going to get you results, but consistently making good choices will.
HAPPY PREPPING!
Elle xx
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