Meal prepping is essential to meeting your nutrition goals. I wrote what I wrote. Seriously. Here are three reasons why.
- If you plan ahead you ensure that you always have a healthy meal on hand and you are less likely to eat out or fail to eat at all.
- Planning ahead can save money on groceries.
- You’re more likely to eat nutritious, whole foods rather than processed foods, which are easy to grab but not the healthiest.
Now, before you roll your eyes and think, “ain’t nobody got time for that,” consider how I have integrated meal prep into my busy life.
It all starts on Thursday evenings or Friday morning before work when I do my online grocery shopping and it takes me about 30 minutes. I take inventory of what I have in the pantry, freezer, etc. and keep those ingredients in mind as I consider what to have for dinner. I check the white board in the kitchen where the family lists anything we ran out of during the week or things they want me to buy.
Then I look at the family calendar to see what nights I will easily be able to cook dinner after work and when I’ll need to consider the crockpot or incorporating leftovers. After that, I search through my Pinterest boards or use ChatGPT to come up with ideas. As I select each dinner, I copy and paste the ingredients into a Word doc or my notes app. I then add the recipe link to the family calendar.
After dinners are set, I decide what to meal prep for lunch and breakfast. Those are the two meals I prep ahead of time. Again, I copy and paste the ingredients into that Word doc. Once the list is set, I go through and delete all the things I already have in the house, leaving behind what I need to shop for.
I open my WalMart app (or go online to the website) and start a delivery order. Once all the ingredients are in the cart, I go to the reorder my items tab and grab all the other items we need for the week. That’s usually when I make sure I have stuff the kids like for breakfast and lunch, as well as snacks, beverages, staples, and household items.
I usually have the groceries delivered after work on Friday. On Sunday when I wake up, I prep the breakfast meals for the week, eating some for breakfast on Sunday. Then I do my lunch prep or save it until when I make dinner. I like to multitask as much as I can so lots of times, I make Sunday dinner and prep my lunch at the same time. That’s it!
Meal prep doesn’t mean you have to prep every single thing your whole family is going to eat all week. You can do a hybrid like I do, which is more like meal planning and prepping now that I consider it! Anyway, if I can do it with a full-time job, side hustle, and three kids with activities, you can do it, too. Happy meal prepping!