Meal prep???

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soba82
soba82 Posts: 13 Member
edited April 2016 in Food and Nutrition
I want to start doing week long meal preps. But i have no idea where to begin. I also have a freezer full of food that needs to be consumed before i can add anything else.
Has any 1 started meal preps?

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  • mylifeisbeautiful
    mylifeisbeautiful Posts: 292 Member
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    I'm not a huge fan of freezing meals- Although I do keep frozen veggies and fruit on hand. My prep includes some or all of the following: roast veggies (zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, brussel sprouts) slow cook veggies (carrots, potatoes, squash), wash and chop fresh veggies, open a couple tins of beans, grill a couple packs of temphe, boil some eggs, make a batch of rice or quinoa and cut feta cheese into one ounce cubes :) This allows me to quickly throw together lunches and dinners. I also started making a big batch of steel cut oatmeal for breakfast : )
  • valente347
    valente347 Posts: 201 Member
    edited April 2016
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    Meal prep is how I made it through a stressful first year of teaching while my husband was gone for a year of Army school. I lost ~40 lbs through mostly diet in that time. It was a lifesaver for me.

    Search the forums for great meals and look up crock pot meals. You'll only be making a few each week so you'll have a lot of time to research between your prep sessions.
  • abatonfan
    abatonfan Posts: 1,123 Member
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    Meal prep is my best friend, especially for my lunches, snacks, and dinner vegetables. It only takes two hours max for me to prep my vegetables for the week (washing mushrooms, slicing peppers into strips, chopping radishes and asparagus, slicing strawberries, making cauliflower rice, etc) and weigh out my lunches and snacks for Mon-Thurs (I often take in leftovers from dinner a few nights prior or do a really low-effort meal like oven-cooked chicken and mixed frozen vegetables, so not a lot of that time is spent actually cooking), and it makes it a lot easier to stick to my calorie goals and budget (I'm not paying the $12 my university wants for lunch at the dining hall).

    You don't need to do all your meals and snacks in one prep, especially if doing all that seems intimating or you don't have the fridge/freezer space for a lot of stuff. You could do stuff like weighing out grab-and-go portions of chips/chocolate/nuts, chopping vegetables to use for dinner and snacks that week, or planning your weekly meals to take advantage of leftovers (if I make chicken breasts for dinner on Sunday, I might make a few extra to take for lunch for the next few days. Chili and cauliflower rice tonight can be repurposed into a taco salad tomorrow).
  • Paiger816
    Paiger816 Posts: 129 Member
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    I meal prep weekly usually. I weigh everything and then save it as "meals" or "recipes" in MFP. It's easier for me to log when I eat it then, because I don't have to remember exact ounces of everything. I divide everything up into glass Pyrex containers and freeze it. I usually make 10 servings at a time, with a few different meals for variety. I've also been making rolled oatmeal in big batches too, because I'm always running behind and don't have time to make breakfast in the morning.

    Here's a couple different preps I've done recently.

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  • ddavenport63
    ddavenport63 Posts: 74 Member
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    wow what a great variety and its so organised ,it all looks great !!!
  • evivahealth
    evivahealth Posts: 567 Member
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    My meal prep usually involves getting a bag of salad groceries to take to work on monday and cooking whatever meat it is I'll be topping the salad with. This week I put a whole chicken in the oven and then stripped it back, weighing all the meat. Next week I'll use the bones to make a stock for a vegetable soup for lunches - pumpkin or carrot or something like that. I also try to make myself a sweet thing for afternoons - this week I've just cooked up a bunch of apples and strawberries which I'll top with natural yoghurt. Meal prep looks different for everyone - mine is just taking the guess work out of what I can eat during the day and leaving myself flexibility for dinners.
  • soba82
    soba82 Posts: 13 Member
    edited April 2016
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    Wow lots of good info! @Paiger816 That is some great meal prep motivation right there! you are rocking it! @mylifeisbeautiful that's a great idea I bet freezing your own fruits and veggies is more cost effective as well. @valente347 40lbs! that's awesome way to go girl! I love my crockpot and I don't use it much I always end up making to much food, but now that's a good thing since I can just portion it up and freeze it. @abatonfan That's indrecibly smart I'll use that advice and portion out non freezer foods as well! thank you. @evelynwhitelaw that's a great way to use your whole chicken to the max! This really helping a ton. I just realized that I started my meal prep without knowing! Found a pack if chicken breast and threw it in my crockpot because I couldn't' honestly figure out what to make. Now I'll have at least 3 extra meals. Oh I think I'll make some oatmeal breakfast muffins for on the go! Lol
  • bebeisfit
    bebeisfit Posts: 951 Member
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    I roasted a whole chicken yesterday. I made a half sandwich today with breast meat, avocado and a spicy olive mixture. I can use the chicken for a few days on salad or tacos. I saved the drippings and will use them in black bean soup. I'll save the bones in the freezer and when I cook another chicken, I'll make stock with 2 carcasses. I cooked up a butternut squash and ate some with the hot chicken and the rest I'll use in maybe a soup. I like having at least one soup on hand every week. Black bean, butternut squash and red lentil are my favorites. I don't mind eating the same thing for a few days, so I typically don't have much to put in the freezer, but when I make spaghetti sauce or chili - I always pack up a meal or two for the freezer.. lifesaver! If I have Italian sausage, I use some for spaghetti and some for a nice flavor addition in soup with greens and white beans and chicken stock.
  • hockeysniper8
    hockeysniper8 Posts: 253 Member
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    Awesome meal prep @Paiger816
  • dargytaylor
    dargytaylor Posts: 840 Member
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    Also, if you're on pinterest, search meal prep.....tons of good ideas!

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