Eating healthy meals every day is one of the biggest hurdles to maintaining a healthy weight. If you have a busy schedule, finding time to cook meals at home may be challenging, and you may find it easier to order convenience foods. However, if you want to lose weight, you need to eat healthy meals every day, and meal prepping comes in handy. So, what is meal prepping?
Meal prepping for weight loss involves prepping healthy meals and snacks and storing them in the fridge or freezer in small, ready-to-eat portions. It makes it easy to stick to a healthy eating plan and eat home-cooked meals, especially if you have a busy schedule and cannot cook daily. It is a great way to reduce stress over what to eat, save time, reduce food wastage, and help you maintain a healthy weight.
You can prepare a whole meal or ingredients and prep an entire week of meals. However, to get the full benefits, you need to combine meal prepping with other lifestyle changes, such as exercise and adequate sleep. This article shares a comprehensive guide to meal prep for weight loss, the benefits of meal prepping, and how to get started today to accomplish your weight loss goals.
In This Article
Is Meal Prepping Good For Weight Loss?
Nutrition determines about 80% of your weight loss and can help you attain your goals. Meal prepping ensures you have nutritious home-cooked meals with the proper portion control. It can help you manage your diet and control your calorie intake without cooking every day.
Having ready-to-eat snacks can also help reduce the temptation to eat unhealthy foods and curb cravings, which is beneficial for weight loss. Ensure your meal prep foods form a balanced diet, including whole grains, legumes, lean meat, fish, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables. Here’s why you should meal prep for weight loss:
- Helps with portion control and helps you adhere to a healthy eating plan
- Eliminates unhealthy cravings and temptations
- Reduces stress by trying to figure out what to cook every day
- Reduces impulse eating and the need to order convenience junk foods
- Makes it easy to stick with a healthy eating plan and manage your diet
- Save time on food preparation and cooking daily
- Saves money through bulk shopping and reduces impulsive or unnecessary spending
- Reduces food wastage since you prep ready-to-eat meals in the right portions
However, to improve your overall health, you need to combine meal prepping with other lifestyle changes, such as getting adequate exercise and sleep, drinking enough water, and lowering your stress levels.
Also Read: Why is My Metabolism So Slow? 9 Causes of Slow Metabolism
What Are the Best Meal Prep Foods for Fat Loss?
The best foods for meal prepping for weight loss should be whole, well-balanced, and a variety of healthy foods. Not all foods can be chopped up in advance or reheated as they have a short shelf life. For example, you may have to keep fruits whole and chop them up when ready to add to the meal or salad.
Some foods not recommended for meal prepping include cooked rice, which is prone to food poisoning. Others, like crispy chicken or pasta, may become soggy and lose their crispiness. Some fruits, like avocados and bananas, need to be stored whole, as they quickly brown if chopped.
Here are some of the best meal prep foods you can store in your pantry for weight loss.
- Whole grains: rolled oats, brown rice, whole grain bread, whole grain cereal
- Protein sources: chicken breasts or thighs, fish fillet, salmon, ground meat, eggs, tilapia, Greek yogurt, tuna, steak
- Legumes: beans, lentils, chickpeas, green grams, dried peas, tofu
- Root Vegetables: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, butternut
- Fruits: apples, oranges, pineapple, mango, kiwi, melon, berries
- Vegetables: broccoli, lettuce, onion, bell peppers, zucchini, spinach, carrots, cabbage, kale peppers, cucumber
- Healthy fats: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil
- Nuts and seeds: almonds, macadamia, chia seeds, peanuts, flax seeds, cashew nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds
- Other condiments: broth, herbs and spices, cheese, ghee, nut butter.
Also Read: What Are The Top 10 Best Foods For Weight Loss?
What is the Disadvantage of Meal Prepping?
Meal prepping is effective, convenient, and time-saving, but it is not for everyone. Some people encounter challenges and give up. If you don’t like eating leftovers or eating the same foods within a week, then meal prepping is not for you. Here are some of the cons of meal prepping.
1. It requires a big storage space
Batch cooking requires larger cooking equipment and storage containers to store several meals at a time. Furthermore, you need a large counter space to prepare ingredients and cook several meals at a time, so it may be difficult if you have a small kitchen. Also, people who live in shared spaces may struggle with meal prepping.
2. May cause food wastage
Although meal prepping reduces food wastage, it has to be intentional. You need to label and date food containers and use them before they go bad. Moreover, some foods don’t work well with meal prepping if freezing and reheating destroy their quality, texture, or flavor. Most foods can stay refrigerated for up to 3 to 4 days, so if you don’t comply, you may pour a lot of food.
Also Read: Meal Prep for Success: 10 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Meal Prepping
3. May be time consuming
Cooking a lot of food at once takes a lot of time and means you have extra utensils to wash. You also need to wipe the preparation surface and the cooking equipment. However, since it involves doing all the cleaning in one day versus when you cook every day, it may work for people who can devote an entire day to cooking and cleaning.
How to Meal Prep for Weight Loss for Beginners Step by Step
Meal prepping is life-changing and can save you time and money, but it may seem daunting for a beginner. If you’re new to meal prepping, you don’t need to feel overwhelmed. Start small by preparing food for a day or two to make it easier to maintain.
Once you get a hang of it, you can prep meals for three to even days. You can set aside an hour or two every other day to prepare your meals and go grocery shopping the day before. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to meal prep for weight loss.
Planning is the key to successful meal prepping. Before you start meal prepping for weight loss you need to have a healthy menu plan for a week or two. Since meal prepping may be a new concept, you can start with just meals for two to three days so you don’t feel overwhelmed.
Make sure to include meals from all food groups, such as protein, carbohydrates, vegetables, and healthy fats, for nutritious and balanced meals. Also choose a variety of foods to avoid repeating the same meals over and over again to prevent monotony as it is easy to get bored quickly with the same meals.
Your meal plan should meet your specific nutrition and fitness goals. For example, if you are trying to lose weight and gain muscle, you need to include more high-protein meals in your plan. Write down what you intend to eat for breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner.
You can focus on ingredients that are common in all the meals to make it easy to cook the meals. For example, beans, rice, and chicken may feature in more than one meal. Also, choose meals that are easy to prepare and those that use the same ingredients to save time and money. To make it easy to plan you can use this:
- Basic: protein, grain and vegetable
- Low carb: protein, vegetable, vegetable
- Vegetarian: legume, grain and vegetable
Also Read: Facts about Fast Foods That Will Make You Rethink Your Health Choices
#2. Grocery shopping
Prepare a shopping list with the ingredients you’ll need based on your healthy menu plan. Write everything from the herbs and spices you will need to make your meals so that you don’t miss an ingredient.
Then, plan for the day you’ll go grocery shopping, preferably a day or two before you intend to cook, to save up time instead of going to the store every time you need an ingredient. Furthermore, having a shopping list keeps you focused and prevents you from buying unnecessary things. Another advantage of meal prepping is you can get groceries at an affordable price if you buy in bulk, and you also save time.
Ensure to buy the right airtight food storage containers or freezer-friendly Ziploc bags. You can also buy microwave-safe glass containers with separate compartments, making it easy to reheat on the go.
Also Read: 12 Healthy Foods You Should Always Have in Your Kitchen
#3. Prep the meals at your convenient time
Once you have all the required ingredients, you’re ready to batch-cook your meals ahead of time. All you need to do is multiply the ingredients according to the portions you want. The amount of food you’ll prepare depends on the number of meals you want for the week, the time you have to cook, the number of people you’re cooking for, and how much storage space you have for your meal prep foods.
The best time to meal prep for weight loss is at the beginning of the new week so that you can have a plan for the week’s meals. However, you can also meal prep mid-week if you can get two days a week to cook. For example, Wednesdays and Sundays work for me. You can dedicate a day to preparing the food, particularly if you have a busy schedule. Make sure to block out time in your calendar and set reminders.
To save time, you can batch-prepare a single ingredient, such as onions, for all the meals that require it. You can also boil ingredients such as beans and lentils to be ready when you need to cook. I usually start with meals that take longer to prepare, such as beans, so that I can cook other foods as they boil.
Use healthy cooking methods such as broiling, roasting, grilling, or baking to make healthy foods ideal for weight loss. Also, use sugar, salt, and unhealthy fats sparingly in your foods to make them healthier.
#4. Meal storage
Once all the batch meals are ready, allow them to cool before you transfer to food storage containers in individual portions and store in the fridge or freezer. For example, you can pack minced beef and steamed mixed vegetables or cooked beans and mixed vegetables in the next storage container to get a variety of meals. Portioning your meals can help prevent overeating and ensure you eat just the right calories daily.
There are no specific portion sizes because every person, depending on metabolism and personal goals, has different requirements for calories, proteins, carbs, and fats. To achieve weight loss goals, all you need to do is include protein, healthy fats, and fiber in every meal portion, as the combinations keep you full longer. If you are looking for a customized individual plan, book a one-on-one consultation with me here.
Alternatively, you can still store the bulk meals separately to allow you to prepare different meals throughout the week. For example, you can store the cooked chicken breasts, fish fillet, broccoli, cabbage, or lettuce separately to create different salad mixes throughout the week. A variety of food sources ensures you get all the nutrients your body needs and avoid repeating one food every day of the week.
Most meals can stay fresh in the fridge for about 3 to 4 days if you store them correctly. You can store the remaining in the freezer for a longer shelf life and thaw overnight in the fridge to get it ready for the next day. Alternatively, you can prepare ingredients and store them separately to prevent them from spoiling faster.
You can use individual meal containers to store ready-to-eat meals that you can quickly warm in a microwave or on the cooking stove. Alternatively, you can use larger containers to store prepped ingredients for bulk cooking, such as chopped vegetables.
Ensure you use freezer-safe containers to store your food and label and date them to remind you what is in each container and when you cooked it. This will prevent you from having to open each container when looking for something. It also makes it easy to implement the first-in-first-out strategy to prevent food wastage.
#5. Reheating tips
When it is time to eat your meal prep foods, you need to reheat them at the correct temperatures to ensure the food is warm evenly. If the food was in the freezer, defrost it overnight in the fridge the previous night to get it thawed by the next day you intend to eat it. Ensure you use thawed food within 24 hours and reheat the food once to prevent food poisoning.
FAQs
- Is meal prepping a good way to lose weight?
Meal prepping is a good way to lose weight because planning your meals helps you to shop for and cook healthy meals ahead of time. It ensures that you have healthy foods in stock and don’t have to spend much time in the kitchen every day.
- Is it safe to meal prep for 5 days?
It is safe to meal prep food for 5 days as long as you store food in a proper way. You can store ready to use food in the fridge for up to 3 to 4 days or longer in the freezer.
- What foods are good for meal prepping?
Some of the best foods to meal prep include cooked beans, grains, meat, vegetables and pasta. You can also meal prep fresh whole fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds.
- What are the rules for meal prepping?
The basic rule for meal prepping is to cook extra portions of meals and divide them into portions you can eat in subsequent days. When you store the containers in the fridge and freezer, ensure that they are dated and labeled so that you can use the oldest batch first to prevent food spoilage.
Final Thoughts
Meal prepping for weight loss is a convenient way to ensure that eat healthy balanced home cooked meals to prevent the temptations to order in every day. It is also cost-effective because you can do bulk shopping and prepare meals in large quantities, which saves you time, money, and effort. Ensure that you create a healthy menu plan for a week that includes the best foods for weight loss and include a variety so that you get the required nutrients for your body.
Ready to get started with meal prepping and have nutritious and filling meals and achieve your fitness goals? Do start with meal prep for weight loss today. Book a one-on-one consultation or get a personalized meal plan here if you need extra help.
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