Weekly Meal Prep

As March and National Nutrition Month are coming to a close, here is a post to help you plan out weekly meals and make it easy for you have healthy meal prepared and ready to eat throughout the week.

The key to healthy eating is planning and preparation. Without doing so, you are forced to eat on a whim. When life gets busy and hectic, we tend to resort to eating for convenience which could mean fast food, microwavable meals and pre-packaged, processed foods. However, we can avoid this by taking one day a week (Sunday is a great day for this) and preparing meals for the entire week. Or, prepare for the first half of the week and then take another day mid-week to prepare some more meals. 

Some simple meal planning tips and ideas: 

• Cut up fresh vegetables and fruit: Keep pre-cut veggies and fruit in your refrigerator for quick snacks to have while preparing your dinner or to grab to put in your lunch for the day.
• Cook meat in bulk for the week: chicken breasts, ground turkey, pork chops: Pre-cook whatever your favorite meat is for the week. Pair it with some vegetables and brown rice or quinoa for a week of healthy lunches.
• Pre-make salads to grab-and-go: Salads can be time consuming to put together every morning for lunch. Pre-make them and store them in glass mason jars to quickly grab every morning for your work lunch. 
• Overnight oatmeal or chia pudding: Are you always in a hurry in the morning and grab unhealthy items for breakfast? Prepare oatmeal or a chia pudding the night before, so all you have to do in the morning is eat! Try this overnight oats recipe and this chia pudding recipe.
• Egg casserole: Another quick week morning breakfast is an egg casserole. Simply bake on the weekend, then cut a slice and heat up each morning. Doesn't get easier than that!
• Pre-bagged smoothies: These can be used for snacks, breakfast or lunch depending on your preference. Simply place your favorite smoothie ingredients in a bag and place in the freezer. When ready to eat, throw in your blender with some almond milk and you are ready to eat!
• Portion out nuts and nut butters for snacks: Nuts and nut butters are a great snack, but can easily be eaten in portion sizes that are too large, resulting in unneeded fat and calories. To avoid this, porition out these snacks according to the portion size on the package.
• Homemade granola bars: Although this may seem time consuming, it really can be quicker than you think and will be worth it when you save money buying unhealthy snacks for a cheaper, healthier snack. Here are some great recipes to try!

Need some more ideas or motivation?? Talk to one of our health coaches!