Fitness Friday | How I prepare my meals

 

This week my diet has not been good.. at all! And I know exactly why… because I did not prepare my meals for the week. Instead I have skipped breakfast a couple of days, ate too many sandwiches for my lunches and made poor decisions for my dinner; as I result I feel pretty rubbish this week. It’s amazing that filling yourself with rubbish food actually makes you feel rubbish!

I have written a post previously about the importance of preparing your meals to aid in weight-loss and health gain, so I won’t lecture you as I already have. However this post’s purpose is to share with you how I prepare my meals. It’s kind of a step by step guide to show you how easy it is to find healthy recipes and use them in your everyday diet.

1. Find healthy recipes! I assume that a lot of you are bloggers, or like to read blogs… so read some food blogs! Use Google, trawl through some sites and favourite those that you enjoy. I use Google and tumblr to find healthy recipes and food blogs. When I find a recipe I enjoy I take a picture of it on my phone, or bookmark it, so when I am later making my meal plan I know what I need to buy. Some of my favourite food blogs are-
•  A life Of Geekery,                        The Gracious Pantry
• The Londoner,                              I Wash…You Dry,
• Nics Nutrition,                             SuperFood Babe
• An Edible Mosaic,                      The Skinny Confidential,
• Eat Yourself Skinny
2. Make a Meal Plan! Now you should have a wide range of recipes to fill your week with, so organise which one’s you want to have this week. I don’t actually say which day I’m going to have which recipe as sometimes I really don’t feel like eating a certain dish. But I make sure I have 6 recipes for dinner, a couple of healthy breakfast options, a couple of lunch dishes, and some healthy snacks.
3. Buy your food! Your meal plan will have given you a list of ingredients you need for that week, so now go to the supermarket and buy ONLY what is on your shopping list! The majority of your food with be from the fruit and vegetable aisle, followed by the meat aisle. Stay away from the confectionary aisles… these things should not be on your list so there is no need to go anywhere near that aisle. Why test your will power, make it easy for yourself!
4. Find a spare few hours in your schedule! I’m a very busy person, as I imagine most of you are. I work full time, blog part time, workout daily and spend time with my boyfriend, among all that I still manage to find a coupe of spare hours so I can prepare my food. Be it a Sunday afternoon, Saturday morning or weekday evening… dedicate a few hours a week to cooking!
5. Figure out what will keep for the week! Pull out your meal plan and recipes and figure out what you can prepare now that will keep for the week (I say week, my food usually lasts about 4-5 days, depending on what it is). I don’t prepare salads as like mine fresh, but am happy to prepare carrots, peppers, eggs, tuna, quinoa to go in the salad. At the moment I have soup for lunch, so always make a huge batch of soup for the week and keep it in the fridge. The same with smoothies or juices… I prepare a batch of them so I don’t have to make them first thing in the morning, I can grab and go! Things like mince can be cooked and kept in the fridge for a couple of days, chicken dishes not so much.. but they are pretty quick to make. I precook my two ingredient pancakes and muffins for quick breakfast. For snacks I chop carrot for vegetable crudité and keep them in a Tupperware, I hard boil eggs for grab and go protein and bake bars or healthy cookies, for sweet treats; all of which keep very well in Tupperware.
6. Cook! Now you know what you can prepare in advance on your meal plan, get cooking! It will only take a couple of hours to prepare your meals for the week! Just think of the time you will save in the morning, the money will you save from taking a packed lunch to work, and the easy dinners you can heat up in the evening!
7. Store in the fridge! Invest in plenty of Tupperware so you have plenty to put your food into. My fridge is always stacked high with various sized Tupperware.. but it mean that I save so much time when I have meals later in the week!

Do you prepare your meals in advance? How much preparation do you do? Do you have any tips on storage to maximise shelf life?

Go check out Kim’s lovely blog full of beauty, fashion and lifestyle – PeachyPowderPuff.co.uk I love her frequent and great mix of posts.