Back to school means that you might be preparing multiple lunches all at once if you have little ones. School mornings are chaotic which means your food may be forgotten when making your children’s lunches. Even if your kids eat lunches served at school, mornings are so chaotic you might feel like there’s only time for your kids. These crazy mornings trying to get your kids off to school before you have to do your daily tasks doesn’t mean there’s no time for your own lunch! Whether you are staying home and taking care of household tasks or going off to work when your kids leave, you should be able to have a healthy meal waiting for you at lunch time. Read more to see why meal prepping could be your saving grace to staying on track with your health goals!
What is Meal Prepping?
Meal prepping is making meals ahead of time to have prepared for when you choose to eat them. Meal prepping can be preparing your lunch ahead of time to eat the next day or preparing your lunches ahead of time for the entire month. There’s a lot of opportunity for you to interpret it in whatever way works best for your lifestyle. Whatever day you choose to prepare meals, you’re doing all the work on one day so you can have less stress throughout the week. It’s like cooking a regular meal for yourself, but add on a couple more portions for however many days you need. Meal prepping allows you to make the food you need over a span of time all at once. Making meals can be fast, but most of the time it takes longer than anticipated because there’s food to take out and put away, dishes to clean, and potentially leftovers to package. Meal prepping can help you feel organized and ready to take on your week with filling, healthy meals that will keep you feeling your best!
How can Meal Prepping Help Me?
Meal prepping can save you a ton of time! For parents this is a huge deal because it might feel like there’s never enough time in the day. Think about all the tasks that you have to accomplish in one day. If you’re constantly battling against time, then making lunch everyday can be a huge time sucker. Making a healthy lunch usually involves cutting vegetables up, cooking up some meat, and cooking up rice or noodles. If you’re pressed for time, these kinds of meals might not be what you’re consuming everyday. You might opt for a quick lunch, which most likely won’t be as healthy, or you might go out to pick up lunch from a fast food chain. Not only are these quick options not as healthy, but you’ve probably spent more money on them. Meal prepping can be cheaper if you choose wisely while shopping. For example, if you plan to meal prep on Sundays for the coming weekdays, then you’re going to the store for a specific amount of food. Writing down all the ingredients and the portions that you’ll eat everyday will allow you to only purchase only what you need for meal prepping. You’ll be able to cook all the food at once, then package it up in the fridge for you to grab and go throughout the week! This is a massive time saver because you’ll be able to get your kids ready in the morning, and when it comes to lunch it will be ready for you to heat up and eat.
How is Meal Prepping Effective at Keeping me on Track with my Fitness Goals?
Meal prepping not only saves time, but also allows you to stick to your fitness goals effortlessly. It helps people get to their fitness goals because it helps with portion control and making healthy choices. Being a parent is one of the most exhausting tasks, so when you’re able to open up the fridge to a fully cooked meal, it might bring you tears of joy some days. When people are hungry and exhausted from life, it’s much easier to eat whatever’s readily available to them. Sometimes you don’t have the energy to turn on the stove or oven and get to cooking. This is when most people might make less healthy food options such as getting fast food. This is when meal prepping becomes most effective. Meal prepping eliminates that choice because you’ve already made food ready and waiting for you. When you don’t have food ready to eat, but you’re starving, then you choose the quickest food to eat. If you have meals prepared already, then there’s a sense of guilt stopping for fast food because it would be time and money wasted if you don’t eat it. This forces you to stay on track with the healthy meals you’ve created. It also forces you to stick to a specific portion size. If you plan out specific portions when preparing all your meals at once, then there aren’t usually leftovers. This means that whatever portion size you made is all the food you’ll have for that meal. This can help you realize how much you’re eating and track your hunger levels to see if you should be making bigger or smaller portions. Meal prepping saves you time, money, and your fitness goals.
Meal prepping might not be the answer for everyone, but give it a fair chance and try it out for a week. If you’re looking to stay on track with health and fitness goals, want to save time and money, and have grab and go meals, then meal prepping could be for you! When you break it all down, meal prepping saves you so much time! As a parent I am sure that’s all you long for in a day, so try out meal prepping for yourself and see if it changes your everyday life! I will link some great options for tupperware to store your prepared meals in below.
