Mirub's picture
Mirub
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+ 5 Prepare all your Food for the week ahead of Time

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  1. If you want to stick to your nutrition program, whether its cutting or bulking, prepare all your food for the week ahead of time. Pick a day, any day that you have enough free time, for me its sundays...go grocery shopping, come home, get your bobby flay on and cook. Its so much easier being able to pull 3-4 Tupperware containers out of the fridge, and take them to work or w/e than having to worry about cooking food. The ONLY meal I cook every day...is breakfast because I like my eggs scrambled and I have time in the mornings, its pretty quick too.

Prepping all your meals for the week will save you tons of time. The first couple times you do it, you'll be learning how to do it and such so expect to spend a lot of time on it...but once you develop your own system, get familiar and comfortable cooking chicken fish, beef, carbs etc etc....you can multitask and become very quick and efficient. The last year or so...when I do all my meal prep on sundays....takes me about 4 hours from arriving at the grocery store, until its all packed in my fridge/freezer. Easy mode man.....also, if your food is already cooked weighed and portioned....youll be less likely to cheat on your diet.
Keeping things fresh. Freeze half your meals or only refrigerate 1-2 days worth of food...freeze the rest. Pull the next days worth of food out of the freezer and let it thaw out overnight or for 24 hours. Ive left chicken and flank steak in the fridge for a week...no problems ever. But if you're worried, freeze em and thaw them a day in advance. Veggies, salads, stuff like that usually keeps pretty well.

Pro Tip: For fruit, primarily berries....once you get them home, soak them in a 10:1 water to apple cider vinegar (or any vinegar) or lemon juice mixture to kill the mold spores. Raspberries, blue, and strawberries will keep for over 2 weeks and there is no funky taste or absorption of the vinegar.

2: Yeah, tupperware to work, throw it in the fridge when you get there. No fridge? invest in an icechest. The hardest part for me was when I was on contest prep and had to drive to and from california in my truck. All my food was prepped and in the ice chest, had to pull over and eat every 2 hours or so (had to pee anyways, brb 2 gals h20 a day) and didnt want to waste time finding a gas station and HOPING it had a microwave...I ate chicken and flank steak cold. If you cook it right, it actually tastes amazing cold...srs. I was impressed.

3: Microwaves....dude don't worry about it too much, I reheat all my meals and I would say im pretty healthy and in decent shape. The effect/impact is minimal at best.

4: keep eating the same thing every day? suck it up and just do it. The food taste good and fuels you, change your diet every 3-4 weeks. But get creative with your cooking, learn new techniques, seasonings, etc etc. Watch food network to get ideas. Get creative! cooking and being good at it, is an amazing skill....plus side, girls reallllly like guys that can cook well.

5: Can't eat a lot in one sitting? ok, dont. break up your meals into 5-6 or even 8-9 smaller meals throughout the day. Increase appetite, learn to cook well...the food you make starts tasting good even though its "clean" and a normal person would think its bland. The better your food tastes, the more you can and want to eat.

konared's picture

Nice write up,
This is how I cook as well. I cook up 2kg of turkey, and 2 kg of hamburger each week. I also cook up 3 or 4 cups of rice. I don't use spice for this bulk meat though. WHen it cools down I either tupperware it all into 3 containers, or just measure it out into freezer bags. I use my electric scale if I am watching my exact macro's but I put rice and meat into a bag, tie it up and freeze it.
I take out a bag for my meal, add spices and veggies (usually just onions and tomato) and it lasts me 4 or 5 days. Another easy addition are frozen hamburgers. I found some great scottish beef patties at morrisons for 2 pounds you get 4 quarter pounders and they taste awesome...
anyways, I like your post dude.

sic26's picture

Nice mirub I've done for two months then started getting lazy but it does save time preparing meals for the week

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Venemy's picture

This is diet preparation gold.

I have been cooking my fish and turkey patties every 2 days, and my chicken every 4 days. I think I may try to convert to once a week as I'm not a fan of being in the kitchen when I'm not eating. Thanks for this.

Kuragari's picture

nice write up. I've been slacking on my meal prep as of late but your post reminded me that i need to cook... But your right. Keeping it creative is the key to keeping up with healthy eating.

Justanotherguy's picture

This is a pretty damn good write up! +1

A few things I want to comment on:
We've (as a society) become so used to insanely over flavored foods that contain horrible amounts of sugar and salt, that clean eating is considered bland. Food has natural subtle tastes that one should learn to enjoy.

Other then that, food is for fuel. Nothing more. I do eat a lot of carbs personally and not terribly clean. My sport just doesn't require it of me. I do feel like my body is "better" for lack of the right word, when I eat clean prior to a competition to make weight.