Meal Prep 101- The Prep

Awesome! You have just got home with all of your groceries to meal prep. What is the first thing we do now? Put it all a way? No! I would highly recommend laying everything out and taking a picture of everything you bought. Why? Well for two things. One, it holds you accountable. Two, you can look back and see what you were buying to put into your body.

Did you snap a pic? Great! Now let's move on. If you plan to meal prep the next day go ahead and put everything away but if you plan on prepping then and there go ahead and get organized and grab anything else you already had on hand to help you prep.

Now that you have everything laid out, we need to ask ourselves, "What is going to take the longest to cook?" Meal prepping is all about planning and time management... as well as multi-tasking but you've got this! Usually what will take the longest will be your sweet potatoes or protein. We want to take advantage of this so while these things are cooking we can be doing other things like washing and cutting veggies and fruit or making rice and/or oats. Do NOT worry about doing everything "perfect" your first prep. It is a learning process and you will find things that work for you that make it easier.

Every time you are prepping a food item you need to ask your self:

-How many meals am I prepping for? This tells you how many servings to make.

For example, I make my oats for the entire week so I will make seven servings. With protein, I'll make chicken for three days so three servings if I plan to eat it for one meal or six servings if I plan to eat it for two.

I get this question a lot- Do you measure? Yes! Heck yes. When you are tracking macros especially when you are first starting out you need to measure things. You can use measuring cups or a food scale. I use both.

Unfortunately, it is pretty difficult for me to show you how I prep without filming. So I have posted to videos from BodyBuilding.com which are awesome! The things they share are things I do myself.

Another question I get is- Do you prep everything? Meaning every snack.

No, I do not prep everything. I will prep some of my snacks especially when I have a really busy day. For instance one of my go-to mid morning snacks are berries and almonds. I will prep the berries and measure the almonds and put them in a baggie or container to take with but I am not going to prep a rice cake a peanut butter or a greek yogurt. Part of following IIFYM is being flexible especially if you are also an intuitive eater, like myself. I like to allow myself room for some creativity. I keep healthy snacks on hand and pick what I want during that time. I don't prep every snack. But as far as breakfast, lunch and dinner- you bet.

I hope this helps you guys! As always, please let me know if you have any questions at all. Stay strong!

-xxoo Britt