One major nutritional strategy we use with our clients at Transformation Fitness and Wellness is meal prepping and planning. We try to keep this strategy simple for clients to perform and when you think about healthy foods you should not have to sacrifice taste!
I have had the opportunity to work with thousands of clients and organizations to teach them proper simple nutritional strategies that get true results. One of the major factors I talk about during a nutritional seminar is the concepts of planning. If you do not have a plan in place your success rate at anything you do in life is not going to be very high! A phrase you may be familiar with is 
“Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail”.
When you look at areas of your life you have experienced success, my bet is you have put some time and effort in planning for that success to happen. You cannot just show up to life and expect success to fall into your lap. Also, you have to be very specific in planning your life for success and put some time and effort into that planning to see the proper outcome.
Nutrition is no different.
A few years ago Tony and I started to meal prep, plan, and cook all our meal for the week on Sundays. We decided to do this to take some stress off of us worrying about getting a healthy meal in during a busy day of work. When you run your own business, it can be very challenging to carve out time to even think about eating let alone making a nutritional dense meal at the end of a long day!
Also add a child into the mix and it gets even more interesting, right?!
We all have the same amount of time in one day, but we must be very specific in using that time. To get the health and wellness result you want you must put some time in planning the nutritional component of your plan. You see, once we started meal prepping and planning we were able to consistently see our body fat drop, our recovery and energy levels was great while still putting in long hours running Transformation Fitness and Wellness.
I have heard it is “expensive to eat healthy.”
Remember we tend to spend most of our time and finances on things that are important to us personally.
If you’re spending time and money in the areas that are not moving you closer to your goals then it may be time to reflect and understand were your spending time and money. Also consider is your goal important to you right now.
The other day we were putting together a challenge for our private Facebook group about limiting the amount of TV they watch. Our goal was to get them more productive in the evening and not get stuck in front of a TV for hours wasting crucial time that they could be productive and active. When I was putting this challenge together I found some research stating that the average American watches 5 hours of TV a day. WOW! This is a lot of time unproductive and wasted that could be used in more productive areas. I am not saying completely remove TV, but you might want to minimize this activity if your struggling hitting your personal goals.
Now, I know we are all busy, and we all have priorities pulling us in multiple directions and we may not have the luxury to simple rearrange our leisure time set up planning and prepping our food for the week. But, if you can carve about 2-3 hours per week it will allow you the time to plan, prep and prepare your food for the week.
Trust me you can grocery shop and prep your food in 2-3 hours!
Here are some simple tips and tricks I use when prepping and planning our meals for the week:
- Schedule a time to review recipes and plan the types of meals you want for the week.
- Keep the recipes simple and always think lean and green when you’re building the meal. You should have a lean portion of protein and a green fibrous carbohydrate. Also a potato never hurt anyone so depending on your goals you can add these in too!
- Decide which grocery store or stores you want to buy from and try to go at a less busy time. If your budget allows try and have your groceries delivered to your home, this can save some time and some headache.
- Try different spices on your food to help with flavor, you do not have to eat bland food for it to be healthy!
- Make sure you have Tupperware that will allow for appropriate portion size for your meals. We purchased our Tupperware form Costco for a minimal investment and we have been using them over 4 years now. Amazon has some great options as well.
- Cook all your food at the same time if feasible, or cook the food in stages. Once you start the process try to finish cooking all the meals so kitchen clean-up will be a bit simpler.
- This time of year, is great for eating lean and green, get the grill out and cook everything at the same time.
- Bagged Microwavable Veggies are huge time savors.
- Hit the local farmers markets and eat what is in season!
I understand many of these tips and tricks seem simple, remember to set aside this time weekly.
It can be easy to do and easy not to do, so putting this on your schedule and holding yourself accountable to the process will save you stress and headaches when you get into your busy week.
Once you start this process you will wonder why you did not implement it earlier in your life.
There are a lot of benefits to meal planning, not only will you be less stressed, healthier, you will also save money from not dining out.
Try to start the meal planning process next weekend and let me know how it goes.
If you are struggling putting this all together, shoot me a message. I would love to help!
Get organized this weekend and Sunday get those meals cooked! Even if it is only your lunches for the week, you will thank me later! Start small and continue to build to your personal preference.
I never thought this many years later we would still prep for the whole week, but it just works for us. Even with our son now eating 3 meals a day I plan his food too, which is pretty much what we eat!
Again, if you need help just reply to this message.
Have a wonderful day,
Arin
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