5 Meal Prep Tips to Avoid Spending All Day in the Kitchen

I have a confession to make. I hate meal prep.

Now I know that may come as a shock... especially since I'm a nutritionist.

But hear me out.

Is your meal prep holding you hostage in the kitchen all day?

Meal prepping is no way to spend your weekend.

Do you meal prep every week? Are you on a weight loss journey and you find yourself falling off the wagon? Or are you starting and stopping a lot?

Meal prepping is vital to your weight loss journey. If you're not prepared it's easy to just grab unhealthy food quickly, ESPECIALLY if you're crazy busy.

If you're super busy, like most of us, then it makes it a lot easier when your meals are ready to grab and eat.

Meal prepping is vital to being successful on your journey.

In today's episode, I'm going to share with you my top five tips so that you can be successful at meal prepping and reach your goals faster.

I don't like to spend one second longer in the kitchen than I absolutely have to. So I put together a list of my top 5 things for someone who is starting out fresh in the meal prepping world.

However, here's the deal. Cooking food is going to get you to your goals, period. It's going to help us really be able to live in our best bodies.

Meal prepping is just like laundry. It's just one of those things that we have to learn to love. You've got to get fast at it because no one wants to spend their day prepping their food and spending all that time in the kitchen.

MEAL PREP TIP #1 - Set Realistic Goals

• I think that's the number one thing where people fail is when they don't set realistic goals. For me, I set the goal on Sundays and I fix my lunch and my dinners for Monday through Friday. I know that if I set myself up this way, I'm going to be successful in hitting my fitness goals. I like to cook my breakfast fresh every morning, however, you can be one of those people who is like, Nope, breakfast needs to be cooked ahead.

MEAL PREP TIP #2 - Leftovers

• I love, love, love to cook extra dinner and have those for leftovers the following day. Leftovers for me normally ended up being a snack. I eat four meals a day, so I prep my lunch, I prep my dinners, but I always have extra dinner leftover to kind of hit that between lunchtime and dinner time frame. Some people prep dinners and then use the leftovers for lunch the following day and if that's your system, awesome, but definitely make sure that when you're figuring out your week and take into account for leftovers because leftovers mean you're cooking less and you have more food.

MEAL PREP TIP #3 - Pick A Day And Stick With It

• This one took me a hot minute to get down. I'm one of those that beat my head against the wall a few extra times than the normal person to realize what works and what doesn't. Picking a day and sticking with it, no matter what is going on, will make sure that you're massively successful. I love Sundays. Sunday is an awesome day for me to hit the grocery store in the early afternoon and then spend about 90 minutes in the kitchen prepping for Monday through Friday.

MEAL PREP TIP #4 - Kitchen Tools

• I'm from a family where my momma really taught me how to stretch a dollar and up until recently if I had extra dollars, they went towards cool shoes, not towards rocking it out with kitchen equipment. However, I realized one day that is not the 1980s and neither is the cooking equipment that should be in your kitchen. So I did a little upgrade and it changed my life. So make sure that you have tools that are going to get you in and out quickly. It's going to be worth every red cent that you spend to grab those few items that will help you spend less time in the kitchen. I'm going to link the information below so that you can just take a little quick check and see what I feel like I couldn't live without.

You can check out my kitchen MUSTS HERE!

MEAL PREP TIP #5 - Take Inventory

• I like to hit the grocery store one time and one time only. Take inventory, check out your fridge, make a list. I read somewhere recently that every person wastes about 20 pounds of food a month in the US. That's mind-blowing to me. So make sure you check into your refrigerator, make sure that no produce goes there to die. Utilize all of your ingredients.

Meal prep is necessary to progress in your fitness and health goals. Losing weight, gaining muscle, getting tone, gaining energy, or increasing your athletic ability can't be accomplished without proper nutrition and timing. If you're overwhelmed by where to start, want accountability, or want a VIP introduction to delicious goal-crushing recipes, then I got you girl!

I've created Wholly Fueled Fit Foodie to show you how even as a busy, goal-getting woman how you can have the best of both worlds of fitness and flavor. Learn the details by clicking the button below:

Do you have anything that you would add to this for massive kitchen success, drop it in the comments below. I'd love to see what you feel like would be a top-five for you.

If you grabbed value here, make sure you share it and I'll see you next week.

SHOW NOTES

My Kitchen Must Have's. These are not only amazing but have saved me so much time in the kitchen. If you feel you're spending a lot of time in the Kitchen check out the ones that have helped me HERE