Whether you are just beginning your health and fitness journey or this is something you have been working on for quite some time, learning the most appropriate ways to go about meal preparation and cooking is a must-do. Often dieters don’t fall off the bandwagon simply because they are bored with their eating plan or aren’t putting in enough effort. Rather, it’s because they don’t have the time they need to meal prep properly. The good news is with a few quick tips and tricks; you can get your meal prep back on track.
Let’s look at ten tips you can include in your meal preparation to help you better manage this area of your program.
- Buy food in bulk. Save time on grocery shopping by purchasing larger containers/servings of just about everything you buy.
- Get larger cooking devices. Sounds silly but it works. Get larger pots, larger baking pans and a larger grill if you have to – the more food you can cook at once the better?
- Invest in good Tupperware containers. You will need a place to store all the food you’re preparing, and nothing is better than Tupperware. Be sure it can go from the fridge to the microwave to the freezer without an issue.
- Buy pre-chopped vegetables. If cutting vegetables prevents you from getting these down, buy the pre-chopped variety instead.
- Don’t overlook frozen vegetables. Or, consider going the frozen vegetable route. You’ll never have worries about them staying fresh throughout the week.
- Buy convenience for half the process. Okay, so you cannot cook a full-blown meal some days when things are hectic. Why not just modify a meal you buy so it becomes healthier for you to eat? Try purchasing a frozen dinner for instance and add some of your own freshly steamed vegetables to boost the nutritional content. You can make convenience food healthier much of the time if you make a few small tweaks.
- Use your slow cooker. Using a slow cooker is by far the most straightforward and basic way to make healthy eating easy.
- Swap cooked food for salads for a few meals during the week. Not only are salads incredibly healthy, but they are also easy to prepare as well. Include them in your eating plan more often.
- Snack on fruit. Nothing is easier than smearing a little nut butter on a banana or apple. They are a very healthy and relatively low-calorie fruit to include in your eating plan.
- Seek out new recipes. While preparing a fresh new recipe is a bit more work, its fun, and when it’s fun, it won’t feel like meal prep.
Keep these ten tips in mind and start applying them to your healthy eating plan? If you do, you can cut the excuse of never having time for meal prep again. Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must live with. You can make easy changes to your daily routine and reduce both your weight and your blood sugar levels.
By Meal Prepping Every Week, You Save Time and Everyone in Your Household Will Be Eating Healthy
It’s important to plan what meals you are going to cook. It will really help if you start out with a small time-frame for two or three days, no more than a week at first. Don’t over-complicate things trying to prepare the most elaborate, fanciest meals around. Keep it simple and healthy, that’s the main concern here. Once you have your plan in hand, you can then make your grocery list so you will have everything needed to prepare all those meals.
Cooking extra portions is one of the best tips you should get in the habit of doing when it comes to meal prepping. For instance, if you are planning to cook whole wheat pasta with turkey meatballs and a salad for dinner, simply cook a couple extra portions and you will then have the best travel sized food for lunch the following day. If you don’t feel like having the same meal two days in a row, you can always freeze the meal and enjoy later on in the week. Having snacks already portioned and stored will keep your family members will continue having healthy.
Your freezer is your friend, so get in the habit of storing meals that are already appropriately portion sized into containers and label with the date, so you know when it was prepared. You can do the same thing with snacks too. When you purchase fruit and veggies from the market, cut them into snack-sized bites and portion into baggies or containers. Label and place in the freezer if you aren’t planning on eating them in the next few days.
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