Nutrition is important. I think we can all agree with that for obvious reasons like your physical and mental health, energy levels, and life expectancy. I used to have no idea how much eating junk food and slacking off on my protein goals had impacted my body until a little while ago. While I have never eaten extremely unhealthy food, I decided to cut out all junk food for a month and see how it would change my body and mind. What I discovered surprised me.
I continued going to the gym like usual and doing my normal amount of cardio but when I changed my nutrition and focused on protein, I found that I quickly became less bloated, leaner, more energetic, and had much more mental clarity. Since then, I have tried my best to eat much less fast food and easy unhealthy snacks. Something that has helped me with this significantly is meal prepping.
Meal prepping can be beneficial for many different reasons.
- No unnecessary grocery money. When you have a list of the exact ingredients you need, you don’t spend as much money on food you are never going to eat which saves you money and prevents food waste.
- Instead of making easy and unhealthy meals after a long day, you already have your planned healthy meals. This also saves time throughout the day as you spend less time making meals.
- Meal prepping manages your eating, ensuring you are getting all the right nutrients and macros.
That being said, here are my go-to meal prep ideas that are quick and easy to make.
- Sushi Bake
This is one of my favorites. If you are a tuna lover like me you and going to love this. Prep your imitation crab by rolling it in your hands to separate it. Drain your tuna and combine your 5 oz canned tuna, 4 oz imitation crab, and ¼ cup cream cheese. Prep your rice and put it into an oven-safe bowl and on the top add your crab and tuna with a drizzle of mayonnaise on the top. Put in the oven for 6-8 minutes at 425 until it turns a light golden on top. Pull out of the oven and add your sliced avocado, salt, and pepper on top, or any other spices you would like. This creates a few meals worth and is easy to store for longer periods of time.
Ingredients list: rice, imitation crab, canned tuna, mayonnaise, cream cheese, avocado.
2. Egg and beef breakfast burrito
Cook some ground beef with optional marinara sauce, adding some onion and your preferred spices on the stove. Make some simple scrambled eggs, maybe adding some cheese in there as well. Then add them together in a tortilla, grilling if you would like. These are nice if you have rushed mornings and are looking for a high-protein breakfast.
Ingredients list: eggs, ground beef, marinara sauce, onion, cheese, tortilla.
3. As simple as it can get: chicken and rice
Chicken and rice is probably the easiest meal prepping you can get. The best part is, that you can change up the flavoring very easily. Make your chicken how you like, adding different seasonings and sauces to each prep with different kinds of rice on the side. One week you could do lemon pepper chicken with white rice on the side and the next BBQ chicken with Spanish rice, there’s a very wide array of options you could make for this idea. My advice would be that you’ll want to change it up to stay consistent and interested in what you’re eating, I promise you.
4. Chicken or beef tacos
While this one isn’t exactly a meal prep, I’m still going to include it as it takes only a few minutes to make (if all ingredients are prepared beforehand) and is another one of my favorites. I usually make simple chicken or steak strips and put them on corn tortillas, adding cheese, sour cream, and avocado on top. I have this almost every day and I never get tired of it, but that might just be a me thing.
Ingredient list: chicken or steak strips, corn tortillas, cheese, sour cream, and avocado.
Lastly, here are just a few of my tips and tricks for meal prepping to keep you consistent.
- Don’t prep food because it’s healthy but you don’t think you’ll like it. Find meals that you will like but are also healthy. Basically don’t force yourself to eat stuff because you think you need to, do it because its a recipe you think you’ll like. This will allow you to genuinely enjoy the process and have a fun time eating healthy food.
- Make sure you are eating enough in these meals, otherwise, it could lead to overeating later or unhealthy late-night snacks. Make sure you are getting enough calories in and not limiting yourself.
- If something isn’t working, change it. Maybe you need to change how much you’re eating, what day you are prepping your food, etc., but make sure it’s a plan that works for you and that you can stay consistent with.
- Realize if meal prepping simply isn’t your thing, remember this is to help you, not make you more stressed. Not every plan is going to work for everyone and that is ok.
Thank you for reading,
Izzy