Hi everyone!  Hope this finds you well!  Wow—I just checked, and it looks like I haven’t done a post in 2 weeks!  Y’all probably wondered where I went!!   I’ve been busy throwing weights around I suppose!  Feels good to sit down and write!!

I frequently get asked A LOT about nutrition and what I recommend people eat.  I thought I’d give a brief overview  of how Shane and I plan our weekly meals, and then later over the next couple of weeks take things meal by meal to go further in detail.

“Meal Prepping” in my opinion can best be defined as pre-planning your meals, pre-cooking the meals you have planned, and then adhering to eating those meals that you have planned and cooked.

I’m sure that many of you can relate to how things used to be in our household.  Let me give you a little back story on how our meals have evolved over our 10 year relationship.  When we were first married, I really took it upon myself as a newlywed to cook dinner for us every night.  Growing up, my family had always traditionally had dinner together and I really enjoyed cooking (and, I still do)! Shane and I would think ahead of time of what we wanted for dinner that week, I would grocery shop (*note—I LOVE to grocery shop!!), and then cook dinner when I got home from work.  We typically ate things a lot of American families do—spaghetti, tacos, stir frys, those frozen meals in bags (a.k.a. salt licks in a bag—they are full of sodium!), and every now and then I’d try out recipes I’d seen online, in a magazine, or on the Food network.  But this got to be exhausting.  I got tired of constantly cooking and cleaning after working a 10-12 hour day.  I wasn’t working out at the time, but who has time to cook a gourmet freaking dinner every night?!  We never fight, but there were oh so many nights where one of us didn’t want the “planned” dinner that night, or we got home too late to care and went out to dinner instead.  Food was often wasted, and pounds kept creeping up.  Sometimes I would take leftovers for lunch the next day, but we’d usually throw a lot out because I’d cook too much food for two people, oh and Shane never ate leftovers back then.  Honestly, we probably ate out or ordered in 4-5 nights a week easy.  Shane would never eat breakfast, never took snacks to work, and ate out for lunch every single day.

Fast forward a few years.  When I joined Texas Fit Chicks boot camp, the trainers put a lot of emphasis on clean eating.  This opened up my eyes a lot!  I had always tried to be pretty healthy eater.  Since High School really, I would often choose healthier food options over burgers, pizza, etc., but the clean eating concept really clarified it a lot for me.   I would take snacks to work, but realize now that I was probably not eating enough food.  I would often skip breakfast, or have just a yogurt or pack of oatmeal, and maybe have a few almonds or a granola bar if I got hungry during the day at the office.  In my last job I often had to take clients out to lunch, which meant eating out almost every single day.  And the pounds just kept creeping on.  I still “cooked” dinner every night, but focused on healthier, cleaner options.  A lot of our dinner recipes from about 2012 – 2013 came from a website called skinnytaste.com.  It’s fabulous if you’re looking for simple, easy to make healthy dishes.  I still use them from time to time!

Last year when we finally made the decision to really make fitness and nutrition part of our lifestyle, things totally changed.    I really began researching nutrition and the concept of macros, and what I should be eating in order to fuel my body, not just lose weight.  Instead of planning my weekly grocery list around recipes, I began planning it around protein, carb, and fat sources.  Things totally changed for us.  It wasn’t easy at first, but we figured out that having pre-cooked chicken, and simpler meals geared around hitting our macros really worked for our lifestyle and was SO much easier than freaking cooking every night.  Both of us eat 6 meals a day (3 meals, 3 “snacks”) and have one weekly cheat meal (Saturday nights!  Hooray!) where we go out to dinner.  It has saved us so much stress and money (that now gets put right into supplements, protein powders, and cute workout gear! HA), but the best part is not having the “what’s for dinner” debate every night.  Well that, and how freaking awesome you look and feel when you’re healthier!  I really don’t miss the stress of cooking a fancy schmancy meal every day.  Are our meals boring? Sure, some would say that, but we eat a lot of the same foods day after day and we’re okay with that.  This is a lifestyle.  It doesn’t work for everyone but it works for us.  Like I’ve said so many times before, nutrition is the BIGGEST component to getting results.  You can just eat clean, whole foods, really put a limit on eating out, cut back (or cut out!) alcohol, and NOT EVEN WORK OUT and see results.  On the other hand, however, you could bust your ass in the gym every day of the week, and if you’re eating crap you’ll never see results.  Interesting, huh?

You don’t have to be super “hard core” with this.  Maybe just start by thinking okay, I’m going to cook dinner these nights, and go out to dinner these nights, and here’s what I’m going to have for dinner when I cook.  I’m going to pack a lunch every day for work instead of eating out, and I’m going to have xy and z for breakfast and snacks.  The tricky part, though, is being consistent with it, meal after meal, day after day.  It WILL get easier!

Here are my biggest tips for meal prepping and how it works for us:

• ALWAYS have cooked chicken in the fridge. I change up our seasonings, and cook about 2 pounds of chicken twice a week.  We weigh it out when we eat or pack our meals.  Chicken will stay good for 4-5 days at a time.  Shane does the same thing with lean ground beef since that’s mostly what he eats during the day.
• Cut up fresh veggies or buy frozen ones. You can microwave just about any vegetable in 2 minutes!  Season them with whatever flavorings you like and it will change up the taste.
• DON’T BUY JUNK and you won’t be tempted to eat it! If it’s not in your house it’s not there to entice you.
• I grocery shop once a week (every Sunday!) and buy everything we’ll need for that week. God knows how many hours I spent stopping by the grocery store on the way home from work after a long day just to wander around the aisles before I figured out what to make.  Going to the store once a week is so much easier!  I love a clean house and a well stocked fridge on a Sunday afternoon!  By Saturday night the following weekend, our pickin’s are slim and the fridge looks empty!
• Have healthy food options at home and you won’t be tempted to eat out as much. Yes, this means grocery shopping, buying healthy options to eat for the week, and thinking ahead of time.
• Bake sweet potatoes ahead of time! I bake about 8 at a time (350 for an hour and half and they’re perfect!) and they stay good for 4-5 days in the fridge.
• Have quest bars, rice cakes (watch the sugar!!) and almonds on hand for healthy snacks and fats.
• Shane weighs out most of his meals and puts them in Tupperware for the week so he can just grab and go when he’s headed out the door. I work from home most of the time, so I don’t have to do this, but I’ll admit it’s much easier and I do it a lot when we’re out and about on the weekends and such.
• Every Sunday, I “baggie up” my supplements for the week—pre / intra / post workout, and my vitamins for the week as well. This saves A LOT of time and ensures I won’t miss something if I need to rush to get out the door.

Hopefully my tips and tricks were beneficial to you.  If this is a new concept for you, I would encourage you to try having your “meals planned” this week and see how things go.  I’m always HAPPY to answer questions and would LOVE to hear from you.  Feel free to email me at lipglossandlifting@gmail.com.

Till next time!

-Mere