Meal Prep Sundays

Meal prep Sunday is a fairly common trend in the fitness world - essentially it is the act of setting aside a few hours one day a week to prep all (or most) of your meals for the upcoming week - it doesn't have to be on Sunday by any means, but it seems like that is when most people choose to do it.  By setting aside a few hours one day a week, you make it much easier on yourself when it comes to sticking to healthy eating throughout the week - your meals are already prepped and ready and all you have to do is grab them and go.

 Today I want to give you a look at my Sunday meal prep and give you some ideas for healthy meals you can make for yourself during the week.  When I prep my meals, I only actually pre-make the meals I take to work - as I outlined in this post, I eat roughly 4 meals a day, only 2 of those are eaten at work so the other 2, that I eat at home, I make at home.  I enjoy sitting down and eating my meals at home on a plate (not in tupperware) and since I have the time, I make them fresh.  For the meals I prep for work, I use the following:

For the chicken, I actually make it on Saturday night - I put 4-5 pounds in the crockpot with 2 packets of Italian dressing mix and enough water to fully cover the chicken - I cook it either on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4 - it is my absolute favorite way to make my chicken.  I usually have to do this twice, once Saturday night and one more time Sunday - we go through a lot of chicken in our house!

I buy microwavable brown rice because it is super easy to prep - I weigh each portion in it's own tupperware and cook it in the microwave prior to adding my veggies and proteins:

I weigh everything, I have a slight OCD about portion size and I am terrible at estimating..

After my rice is cooked, I weigh out my portions of veggies and proteins for each meal, and add 1-2 servings of my absolute favorite dressing (Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian) to flavor it all - this is everything that goes in one of my favorite meals of the week:

After all is said and done, my fridge looks something like this:

All of this usually takes about an hour and a half every Sunday morning, I can't emphasize enough how much help the crockpot is, and how convenient things like microwavable rice and canned tuna are - and believe it or not, my meals are good!  Healthy eating doesn't have to be boring, or hard - experiment a little, find things that you enjoy and that make your life easier.  It may seem like a lot of work at first, but doing it all at once saves you so much time during the week, you can literally just grab and go - no more excuses to go get "fast-food" - this is your fast food, and it is much healthier than the alternative!

My remaining meals during the week vary - I love my 'egg-pizza' that I make and eat as soon as I get home from work - and my post workout poptarts ;-) Dinner usually consists of sweet potatoes and either chicken or red meat (red meat is super beneficial when trying to gain lean muscle mass).

That's all I have for today - I hope you all give meal prep a shot - you will be amazed how easy healthy eating can be with a little effort!