Photo by Cedric Heinrich from Pexels
I’ve written previously about the benefits of working with a health coach. While I always feel energized after each meeting, I haven’t yet seen results. I try not to be too hard on myself; I’ve recently been stymied by a recent health scare and by the indulgences of vacation.
Those two events have really turned my sleep hygiene project for a loop. As I searched for a way to take my mind off of abnormal screening exams and struggled to get over jet lag, peaceful evening sleep lost the battle to endless TikTok scrolling.
While I’ll definitely work to get back into a more relaxing sleep routine, I had another goal that I had crafted with my health coach: spend a few hours on the weekend prepping meals for the week. This goal seemed right up my alley. I love the organization involved with prepping meals. But there was one big drawback—I really didn’t like the monotony of having the same meals, as delicious as they may be, over the course of so many days during the week.
So, what I decided to do instead was to prep general components for multiple meals. For example, rather than cooking a stir-fry chicken dish with enough rice to have a chicken and rice dish meal for several days, I would only make the chicken portion of the meal. That way, during the week, I could have the chicken on its own, I could have it over rice, I could have it with fried noodles, or I could have it with pasta. Being able to vary up the starch made me far less bored at the prospect of eating the same exact meal day after day.
I also spent time after I shopped on the weekend to clean and chop up romaine lettuce, slice up bell peppers, wash up grapes, wash all my vegetables, and clean and bag up some baby spinach.
Having these cleaned and prepped veggies meant that I could also make up a quick salad or add veggies to a quick pasta dish during the week without having to spend extra time prepping.
Prepping this ahead of time has allowed me to vary up my daily meals, and it has encouraged me to have more fruits and veggies throughout my days and my week.
So, even though I’m feeling exhausted because I didn’t really have a great night’s sleep last night, I was able to throw together some Mongolian ground beef that I had made over the weekend with spinach and throw that together with some quickly boiled udon noodles. It was a fast and easy dish that was satisfying.
Meal prep doesn’t have to be a day-long thing. Just a bit of effort to pre-prep the components of a variety of meals on the weekend will have you whipping up quick dinners throughout the week, without being tempted to order takeout when you’re feeling too tired to cook.
What are your tips for meal prepping? Share them in the comments below.
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