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| I DO get a crown, right? |
Happy Friday everyone! It's time to begin thinking about the weekend, enjoying some time away from work and of course- meal prepping! My parents are coming in town from Iowa tonight and I'm so excited to see them. Isn't it funny how even at 33 I miss my parents a lot. :) They're actually taking Zeke back to Iowa with them on Sunday for some Granny/Poppa/Zeke time- how special! He's a lucky duck to have such amazing grandparents on both sides- plus if the weather holds up I think he'll get some time riding the ATV with Poppa (Lord pray for them!).
Now on to today's topic...in one of my
Challenge Groups I've been called the Meal Prep Queen. It's a title that I love- and honestly, came (surprisingly!) naturally to me. I'm going to try to give you some tips to get started but I'd recommend prepping maybe for 2-3 days to start and go from there. Tackling a whole week (or more!) your first time can be intimidating.
First a few things:
*Get lots of storage containers. You should have heard the annoyed sign I did when I saw that Ryan had used a lot of our containers and I didn't have enough for the week. :) I use Ziploc 3 cup containers for my meat/veggie/carb portions and 1 cup containers for my afternoon snack of fruit and Greek yogurt. I also bought some smaller ones for cheese and dressings. Get Ziploc baggies too for shaking/coating fish and veggies and for snacks- though a lot of this can be done in reusable containers, too.
*DON'T (or do so sparingly!) use your 21 Day Fix containers as storage. Use them as measuring scoops and portion things out in to your other tupperware. If you order Fix, Fix Extreme, Master's Hammer etc. you'll amass a few sets of containers (
you can always order them individually- here)- but I'd still recommend using them mainly as measuring scoops. The other issue with using them as containers is we are
VISUAL eaters- so seeing those tiny containers is just that- seeing tiny containers and not the delicious meals they're going to become.
Left to right: Marinated chicken, greek yogurt/cottage cheese and fruit,
brussel sprouts, Fixate Meatballs, sweet potatoes, Fixate Chili
*Prepare your ingredients. It's the WORST to run out of olive oil mid-prep or find out you need twice as many peppers for your recipe. Make a list- check it twice. Remember many veggies and proteins shrink as they're cooked so over-buy if possible (though don't go too nuts!). Frozen meat is great because in a pinch you can defrost and add that as a protein.
*Prepare your kitchen before you begin. Make sure you have enough clean tupperware, cutting boards, knives, kitchen counter space, fridge space, clean pots/pans and such.
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One pan salmon, brussel sprouts
and sweet potatoes |
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Use one pan- if you can! Many foods cook at the same temp in the oven so use one pan to prepare them. This is a SUPER helpful tip for dinners- preheat the oven, add the longest cooking item and then add the next longest when it's time. This method saves you dishes, too! I'll often use one pan to make breakfast- fry one egg up and add two turkey bacon slices to the same pan.
*Honestly- I grocery shop 2 times a week. I'm not great at planning how much fresh produce I need so typically I make one bigger run and then another smaller one to get me through the week and filling my green containers. I don't mind frozen veggies but I much prefer fresh so it's worth the two trips to me!
*I eat a lot of the same thing for a week or so. It's the easiest way to batch meal prep- and I don't mind it as long as I'm switching things up every week or so. One week I'll eat pasta topped with
Fixate Grandma's Tomato Sauce and
Fixate Turkey Meatballs sprinkled with parm. The next week I'll do fajitas with two corn tortillas, beef, roasted veggies. The following I'll do couscous with diced chicken and brussel sprouts. My lunches are typically a red, a green, a yellow and sometimes a blue or orange. Snacks are a red and purple.
I typically cook/prepare on Friday/Saturday and Sunday. Friday/Saturday I'll make sure dishes are cleaned, I have enough tupperware for storage and that the fridge is fairly clear with enough space. I'll also go grocery shopping and when I arrive home begin prepping including chopping up veggies, defrosting meat, mincing garlic and such. Then Saturday (depending on time and motivation!) or Sunday I'll cook and portion out.
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Portioned out Fixate Tomato
Sauce- ready to freeze! |
The type of meal prepping I do is called
buffet or batch style where I cook a big batch of each thing and then use my
21 Day Fix containers to portion the large portions in to small portions. For instance- if I'm wanting pasta for lunch one week I'll cook a big batch of pasta, make a big batch of the
Fixate Grandma's Tomato Sauce, make sure I have feta or Parmesan cheese purchased, and cook a big batch of
Fixate Turkey Meatballs. I'll buy 5 cans of no-sugar fruit and two containers of plain Greek yogurt or cottage cheese. You can do this for just your lunches and snacks like I do or extend it to your dinners and breakfasts!
There are so many things that freeze well from the
Fixate Meatballs to the
Fixate Grandma's Tomato Sauce and more. If you are going to take the time to prepare and make these- make a double batch and freeze half!
Once you're done cooking clean up the area and begin setting out your tupperware. I recommend putting the lid underneath the container and lining them all up so you can just scoop, scoop, scoop with your appropriate container in to the individual tupperware containers.
To finish (if you have the fridge space) I like to cluster containers together. So I'll put one container of my meat/veggie mix under my containers of fruit and yogurt. If you keep them grouped together it helps make it easy to just grab and go.
Meals for 3/4/16:
Breakfast: Vegan Chocolate Shakelogy blended with spinach, frozen raspberries and
cold press coffee. Green tea.
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| Dinner tonight- what a treat! |
Lunch: Ribs, potato salad (lunch prepared by one of our owners- smoked at the brewery!), King's Hawaiian Roll, Doritos.
Dinner: My husband's delicious pulled pork, Asian side salad, 1/2 a bun, cole slaw and we broke open a special bottle of
Badger Hill Cherry Double Dunkel. YUM!
Workout: PiYo Drench. It was my first time doing this workout- and it was intense! From here on out it is part of the program each week. I always remind myself that every workout the first time is clumsy and hard. This is going to be the most intense one- and it is 48 minutes long, which is the longest workout I've done with the BeachBody programs. Cheers to new challenges!
Now here's today's lesson: You CAN eat "bad". There really isn't
bad eating- it's learning to not do it every meal and everyday in a row. It's learning to not eat the entire rack of ribs- but recognizing when you're full and that there will be more food in the future (you don't need to eat it
all right now!). It's pushing play on your workout and kicking your own ass- then rocking the 80/20 rule. 80% great, on point eating- 20% indulgence. I try to do 90/10 so when that 10% comes I don't feel a drop of guilt. I eat 4 meals a day- the 90/10 rule breaks it down to 25 on-point meals and 3 not-so-on-point meals. Those three meals won't impact (most likely!) your progress if you are honestly, truly hitting the mark for the rest of those 25 meals and working out (kicking your own ass!).
Guilt helps you NONE. Get past it, move on- move forward, make better decisions and better habits. Build habits, folks.
Why Red Rover? I don't know to be honest... I think I've used Red Rover for a while now because I love trying new things, traveling, taking journeys of all types. Red for the hair, obviously- Rover because of the journey. If you're interested in roving into your own fitness journey with my support reach out to me here. Or check out my BeachBody site. Oh, and for sure follow me on Instagram.
Join my Challenge Group- take a step towards a healthier and happier you.
and I'll see you in the group!;
