Episode 185: Prep, Save, Thrive: Unlock the Power of Meal Planning for Weight Loss and Wellness

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss, where I help you get on track and stay on track with your weight loss journey. I'm your host, Dr. Alicia Shelly. So let's get started.

[00:00:27] Hello, and welcome to the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Alicia Shelly. Now, as we end January, and I hope you've enjoyed at least some of our podcast episodes this last month, where we talked about building healthy habits, making sure we have accountability. And today we're going to be talking about our meal prepping.

[00:00:54] Now, meal prepping is so important. But the funny thing is that only 44% of Americans say that they meal prep regularly. And what I and you may be asking, what do you mean by meal prepping? So meal prepping is when you prepare your food ahead of time, you have it in like different containers ready to go, so that when it's time to eat, you don't have to think about it. There's no brain fatigue. You just grab and go and you eat.

[00:01:19] And so meal prepping is important, especially to healthy weight loss, because it allows you to, number one, take away the stress when it comes to eating. You're not worried about eating out. You at least have your food ready, healthy food that you can eat.

[00:01:33] And you don't have to worry about going to fast food or going to a restaurant because you are already prepared. Now, meal prepping can help you with not only saving time, but money. You can save a lot of money meal prepping than you would if you were buying, going to the fast food, McDonald's, Wendy's, all these other places.

[00:01:52] You would save some money if you actually bought your food and meal prepped it. The other thing is, when you cook something from home, even if you cook the same hamburger, it's probably going to be more healthier than if you were to just buy it from over the counter. I mean, not over the counter, but at the fast food. So it is important to know that no one do you save time, money, but you're eating healthy.

[00:02:13] Also, meal prepping can reduce stress and decision fatigue during the week. Like how many of us are like, man, I had a rough day at work, I have so much to do, and now I have to fix food for my family. It can be overwhelming. And so it's good to know that with meal prepping, it can reduce that stress and brain fatigue. And of course, it can encourage you to eat healthier foods and having more healthy habits and better portion control.

[00:02:38] So if you've never done meal prepping before, here are some tools that you can use. Number one, start small. Don't try to meal prep every single meal, especially if you're just starting. Start with either two meals to prep. Like, for example, I have a breakfast and just meal prep your lunch and you come home and you eat dinner. Or you can just meal prep your lunches or snacks. So you choose which meal you want to start with. That may make it a lot easier.

[00:03:07] And also, number two, look at your schedule. Are there days when you're more busier than other days? If you're quite busy on certain days, then you don't want to necessarily meal prep on those days. You want to kind of have your meals ready, so you just grab and go. And so the other thing is, is that when you meal prep, you choose a day that works better for you in your schedule and you meal prep.

[00:03:30] And meal prepping just includes kind of writing an outline of what you want to eat, making your grocery list, going to the grocery store, getting that food, and then coming home and cooking it and preparing it and putting it aside so that you can grab it later. Also, make sure that you specify which day and time works best for you with your meal prep.

[00:03:51] The other thing is, it's important to stock your kitchen with the essentials, making sure you have a cutting board or sharp knives or storage containers that make it a little bit easier over time, especially as you're trying to meal prep. Also, make sure you have staples like rice, quinoa, canned beans, spices, oils, so that you can be able to utilize that in your food. And you don't have to go to the store to buy, oh, I forgot my canned beans. Let me go buy that canned beans.

[00:04:19] The second thing is when you're planning your meals, make sure you choose simple meals. Maybe that may have five or seven ingredients and minimal prep time. Sometimes what I like to do is that, especially I hate cutting onions because it just makes me cry and one of those people. And so I sometimes will go to the store where they already have chopped up onions or chopped up garlic, and I'll use that in my meal without having to spend more time to cut them for that meal.

[00:04:47] And sometimes I'll use for different meals, I may use pot of onions to kind of start the boil or to start the cooking. So you can utilize, even though you're cutting up all these different onions, garlic, all these different bell peppers for your stock, you can use them in multiple different meals. Second, make sure that you balance your meals, that your meals have a protein, have a healthy fat, and then a fiber-rich carbohydrate in each meal.

[00:05:14] And a good example of this is it makes you have your grilled salmon, maybe quinoa, and sautéed spinach. So you're kind of having a good balance of your meal. Now there is a difference between batch cooking and portioning individual meals. Batch cooking is when you are preparing large quantities of meals. Let's say you have a big pot of stew or soup or rice that you're going to prepare and use later. And the pre-portioned meals is where you create ready-to-go containers for the week,

[00:05:42] where you're putting like your salmon in one spot or your quinoa in the other spot and then the spinach. So a good example would be something like this, where you have the salmon would go here, you have your quinoa here, that's one cup, then you may have like your spinach here. So you have, they're all in a different category. And then they're good to go. You put it in the refrigerator. When you're ready, you just grab it and you warm it up at work or when you're at lunch. So it makes it so much easier.

[00:06:10] And it's important to make sure when you are stocking your kitchen that you do have different containers that you can use. Now here is a couple of things that I like to use. So I do like to use this one. Also, some other ones that I like to use is sometimes if I just have two types of food, I may have like one big meal here, like my protein here, then maybe some vegetables here. The one thing I like to do with my salad is that you can actually use mason jars to put your salad in

[00:06:37] and then you put the lid on it and it'll stay fresh in your refrigerator. Or I like to use these different glassware where I can put my salad here and it's good for a couple days. Each day I'll grab like a little salad to go. And so there's different containers that you can use to help with your salad. Or not even your salads, but just having when you're actually meal perfect. So next, let's think about some tips to help with your meal prep.

[00:07:05] Number one, like I mentioned, use pre-chopped vegetables or frozen options. When they freeze, like the vegetables, they're frozen at the maximum time of freshness. So you are getting fresh vegetables, but it's just frozen. And so you can use frozen options. You can get them pre-chopped vegetables. Like sometimes if you use a stock with onions, bell peppers, garlic, sometimes, maybe not the garlic's in there, but at least the onions and bell peppers are together and they're all chopped up so you don't have to chop them.

[00:07:34] Also, maybe try having like a slow cooker, something that you can put on and cook while you're at work. You come home and it's already ready. Even a pressure cooker or air fryer to kind of make things a little bit easier when you're cooking as well. Also, to keep food fresh, the things are stored separately. Like your dressing is stored separately than the salad so that when you're ready, you just kind of pour them all together and you enjoy it. Also, don't forget to label the container with dates of freshness. I know I've done this before where I'm like, is this fresh?

[00:08:04] Let me smell it and see. You know, if you know the date, if it's too old, you're going to throw it away. So it's better to make sure you label those containers. Also, when you multitask while you're cooking. So cook multiple items at once. Like let's say if you're baking your chicken and then you're boiling your egg for breakfast the other day, like you can do them all at the same time while you're cooking to kind of save time. Also, prep your snacks or smoothies while waiting for the food to cook. I sometimes would prep my smoothies the day before.

[00:08:34] So all I have to do is just grab and go. So finding little ways that work for you as far as multitasking so that you're not spending the entire afternoon cooking. And there are some common obstacles that I see. One of the biggest obstacles that I see is that people are like, why don't I have time to, you know, to meal prep? It doesn't have time in the week. I always recommend to meal prep on the day you have off so you can be able to find time to do it. And you don't have to meal prep and then go grocery shopping.

[00:09:02] You can actually go grocery shopping another day, have the food that you're going to eat. My friend uses services like Instacart where she'll prepare what she has, but then she'll get them to get her food together. And then she'll either pick it up or they're delivering. So it makes it a lot easier. So finding ways to make it easy. Some people get bored with the same food, right? They're like, I don't want to eat the same food a couple of days back to back. And that's when you can make it a little bit more different.

[00:09:28] So let's say if you have a bowl of rice, you can be able to put some beans on that rice. You can change around when you add a protein to the rice as well. You can change things up. So even though you, yes, you cook this batch of rice, you can still use it for many different purposes. The other thing that I use to kind of help me not get bored, because sometimes I'm like, I don't know what I want to eat. I'll go to Pinterest and I'll put in healthy dinners and they'll pop up all these different recipes.

[00:09:55] And so I can get inspiration and it makes it so much easier when I'm trying to cook. And the recipes right there, it's easier. The other thing that I've been using to kind of help me stay more creative is Shaq GPT or something similar, AI generated. Because with the AI, you can put a prop saying, help me create a meal prep that's under 1500 calories per day, that is high protein, low carbs, and only wanted to have five ingredients.

[00:10:21] And it will give you on different examples of things that you can use to help with cooking it. And it can actually make a meal prep. It can give you the recipes. So if you're forgetting or not having other options for why you want to cook or what you want to cook, or not just feeling creative, try Pinterest, try Shaq GPT, which can help you with creating really interesting and good food. The next obstacle that people say is that they think, oh, it's too expensive to meal prep.

[00:10:49] Well, when you add up all the food, I was talking to somebody today, they're like, man, I was drinking a $6 Starbucks every single day. Well, that adds up after the week. And I'm sure you're spending less money on food than if you were to actually spend money going out to eat every single night of the week. And you can also try some budget-friendly foods like beans, lentils, seasoned produce that are already kind of made that makes it a little bit adjusted.

[00:11:19] Last but not least, it's always going to be important to stay consistent with what you do. So especially when it comes around meal prepping. So once you've gotten meal prepping down, it's becoming like, hey, this is what I do. You want to be consistent with it. Because when you stop, that's when you'll find not only will you sometimes make gain weight, but you may find that you're not eating as healthy or you may have other problems as well. Well, I thank you so much for your time today.

[00:11:44] As we talked about meal prepping as we kickstart January with our new healthy goals. Feel free to tag me on Instagram or LinkedIn or even TikTok where we talk about what are some ways that we meal prep our meals throughout the week. I want to hear what you've done and different. And there are probably some creative things I would not have thought of that you do. So please share those with me. Thank you again for joining us on the Back on Track Achieving Healthy Weight Loss.

[00:12:12] If you like this podcast or this episode, please share it with others. Like it and subscribe. And don't forget to leave a five-star review. And we will see you next week for the beginning of February when we talk about loving our body. So we'll see you all next time.