Meal Prepping Tips & Tricks

Why should you start meal prepping?

On any given weeknight in my household, there is a flurry of activity. Lunchboxes are being unpacked, papers from teachers are being signed, guitar, tennis or dance practice is happening, the kids, especially my hungry teenage son, are asking when dinner's ready.

All the while, I am dodging and weaving between my family members, trying to get dinner on the table before my son has eaten all the snacks in the cupboard!

It's far from relaxing... Can anyone else relate?

Meal prepping saves you time and money, and by ensuring you have healthy meals to eat on a daily basis, it helps you stick to your Weight Loss Meal Plan.

Overcoming desicion fatigue

It helps with “decision fatigue” too. Many of you experience action-packed days like I do, and these series of decision-making sessions can leave you exhausted and delete your willpower. Decision fatigue can make you more likely to lounge on the couch and order takeout after work than hit the gym and cook a wholesome meal.

By deciding on all your meals in advance, meal prepping reduces decision fatigue and frees up some of your willpower, helping you stay on track with your diet and your other health-related goals.

I believe sustainable meal planning all comes down to effective meal prepping. I like to do my meal prep on a Sunday as it takes that level of stress from code red down to a more tolerable green.

The basic premise is: make the grocery list, shop for the week’s groceries (we go to the local farmer's market), and do some meal planning and preparing (put my meal planner up on the fridge and chop veggies, make a batch of quinoa, activate seeds and nuts).

If you can schedule this in on Sunday before the week begins, and when you have a chunk of time, it will help ease the weeknight chaos.

Meal-prepping will help you stay on course with the healthy eating habits.

And while meal prepping does take some commitment, the time you spend up front prepping is less than what you'd collectively spend prepping meals before or after busy workdays.

But please don't fret if your Sundays are busy, and you find it a difficult day to do meal-prepping for the week. You can do it one evening during the week, or make bigger batches of the recipes you enjoy to go in the freezer, and to eat on a day that doesn’t allow time for cooking dinner or lunch.

I encourage you to try this healthy meal-prep challenge to receive all the benefits the weight loss program has to offer.