How To Stay Healthy by Meal Prepping

When you are leading a busy life, your good intentions of eating healthy throughout the week can easily get brushed aside in favor of ordering a pizza or hitting the drive-thru. One of the best ways to avoid this temptation is to prep healthy meals ahead of time, so that when you are feeling tired and stressed, you can just grab and go.

Benefits of Meal Prepping

Meal prepping is a shorthand way of referring to the practice of preparing meals, snacks or ingredients ahead of time, so that you have easy, healthy options on days when you are too busy to cook. Eating healthy regularly, instead of grabbing take-out or eating processed convenience foods, is one of the best ways to stay physically and mentally strong.

Preparing your meals ahead of time lowers the temptation to make unhealthy food choices throughout the week. It also helps you increase the variety in your diet because it requires you to plan your meals, rather than always grabbing those same easy foods.

Storing Your Food

Before you get started with meal prepping, you need to figure out how and where you are going to store your food. You can purchase microwavable and dishwasher safe containers specifically designed for meal prepping online and from most major retailers. High-quality meal prep containers should last you a long time before they need to be replaced. Alternatively, you can use any type of food storage container you prefer. Make sure you have a variety of sizes to choose from so that you can store items such as sauces and dressings separately to avoid your food becoming soggy.

Your Plan

Choose a specific day of the week to do your meal prepping and stick with it. This will help you establish a routine. Many people choose Sunday so that they can have their meals ready for the workweek, but you can choose whatever day you like. The important thing is to pick a day that you regularly have several hours available for meal prepping.

Recipes

Before you head to the store, choose what you want to make and create a list of everything you need to make it. Choose recipes that include a mix of whole grains, vegetables and lean proteins. Avoid recipes that have high amounts of fat, sugar and salt or find ways to make healthier substitutions. Don't get over-ambitious when choosing your recipes, particularly in the beginning. Save long, complicated recipes with lots of ingredients for occasional treats. Pick recipes that incorporate foods with a variety of colors and textures. This will make your food tastier and help you get a variety of micronutrients.

Build your menu around ingredients that can be used in more than one recipe. This will make your meal-prep easier and reduce the amount of food waste you produce. If time is an issue, choose recipes that can be made in a pressure cooker or slow cooker, while you are doing other things. Don't make the same things every week. Your diet will be healthier if it has more variety in it and you will be less likely to get tired of eating the same things and order take-out instead.

Meal Prepping

Once you have done all your planning and bought all your ingredients, you are ready to get started cooking. Make it fun by listening to music or an audiobook or watching your favorite movies and TV shows while you cook. Your food can be stored in the fridge for three or four days. Freeze anything you won't eat in that amount of time. Be sure to label the containers so you can identify everything later and put a date on it so you know how old it is.

Meal prepping can be a great way to incorporate eating healthy into your busy lifestyle. There is no one right way to do it, so find the method that works the best for you.