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Meal Prepping – The Honest Realities of The Popular Food Hack

As part of my attempt to lose 16kg, I’ve started meal prepping. In this post, I’m sharing the honest realities of eating prepped meals.

Meal prepping isn’t new. It has been around for donkey’s years. It’s also one of those things that we all instinctively know is a good idea, but we don’t really seem to do. The ones who do seriously food-prep really reap the benefits though.

With a combination of a weight loss goal, an interest in reducing the amount of processed foods I’m eating, and a new year motivation spike, I’ve started meal prepping.

I bought these glass food prep containers (I’m reducing the amount of plastic I use) and got to work.

Food Prep Meal Ideas

Here’s what I started with…

  • Chilli con carne with rice
  • Chicken Katsu curry
  • Sausages with mashed potato and green beans
  • Sausagemeat balls with garlic potato and beans
  • Meatballs and rigatoni

Pros and Cons of Meal Prepping

I’m aware that anyway espousing the virtues of a ‘new’ thing they’re doing can come across as a bit of dick, so I’ll endeavour to not do that by sharing the honest realities of meal prepping that I’ve discovered so far.

The meal prep pros are simple…

Convenience wins

When I’m home late from work, of when I’ve arrived back after ferrying the kids to various sporting commitments, the last thing I want to do is cook. The meal prepping has been a god send. I look in the fridge and I’ve got several healthy options to choose from. It has been a complete win in that sense.

Time is chunked

I’m not going to say time is saved, because ultimately you’ve still done the work at some point. The difference is you chunk your time, meaning that you cook once, then eat all week. It saves taking up time at the end of the day when you’re tired, or when you’ve got to sort the kids out.

Healthy convenience

Some people argue that you could just use microwave meals instead. That’s true, but there’s a couple of points they miss out – one is that the quality is often crap. If it’s home cooked food, it’ll be much better. The other is it’s fresher doing it yourself. A frozen microwave meal might be months old – at least with your own cooking it’ll be fresher!

Time to eat is faster

When you arrive home and you’re hungry, the time between deciding what to eat, and actually eating is short. It’s basically a couple of minutes in the microwave and you’re good to go. That short time cuts down snacking time, or temptation to order a takeaway. It’s the ultimate in convenience.

Decisions made for you

One of the problems with deciding what to eat of an evening is the lack of preparation. You might be lucky and have all of the ingredients you need in. Also, you might not. That means you’ve got to go to a shop, or make a different decision. With meal prepping, you’re going to eat what you’ve already made – simple as that! It’s one less decision for you to make of an evening.

meal prepping, calorie banking

The meal prep cons exist too…

Fridge space is taken up

I’ve got a slight issue now… There’s not much room left in my fridge! The sheer number of containers in the fridge eat up space that would be used for ingredients! In theory one would replace the other (you cook the ingredients and put them into the containers), but there’s a time when you’ve got ingredients left over and not much room to store them. That’s my current reality!

You need a lot of containers!

I bought 15 containers – 10 meal-sized, 5 snack-sized. That is enough to supply us with lunch and evening meals in the weekdays, and they’re filled across a couple of cooking sessions. That keeps us going throughout the week, and we can spend time at the weekend refilling them. Without that many containers though, there’d be more cooking time in the week.

It’s repetitive

When you meal prep, you’re going to be cooking variations on a theme. You’re not going to cook single portions of a meal. It means you’ll be eating the same thing a couple of times in the week. Personally, I’m not too bothered about that, but it’s definitely something to bear in mind. I’ve had Katsu curry twice this week!

Balanced View on Meal Prepping

Overall meal prepping has been a huge positive in my life. It’s not without its slight drawbacks (as I posted about), but it’s an overall improvement. I’ve noticed I’m eating a lot less crap now than I was before, and the benefit of having home-cooked food ready when I want it is huge.

The glass food storage containers I bought are a big recommendation, because you can heat food in them in the microwave or the oven, giving you a lot more variety and food options.

I think the meal prepping is a fundamental part of my weight loss journey because it will automatically calorie control my day. If I stick to the foods I’ve already cooked, it’ll help me stay within appropriate calorie levels. Whilst at this point I’m not calorie counting, I know the meals are certainly not excessive in terms of calorie content.

Weight loss isn’t just a decision – it’s actions too. The meal prepping is the big mover in this sense, because it helps to control my calories and make life more convenient food-wise. That leads on to other positive behaviours.

If you want to start meal prepping, I hope this article gives you an honest perspective on the good and bad of the approach. In my world, it’s here to stay!

If you want to follow me and my life in more detail, come and catch me on Instagram

Published by

HoylesFitness

Owner of www.hoylesfitness.com. Personal Trainer, Father and fitness copy writer. Working hard making the world fitter and healthier!

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