Beginner’s Guide To Food Prep

Become Healthier and More Organised

Food prep is all about being organised and planning your meals for the week ahead.

It can be quite daunting to get started, but you’ll soon realise how helpful it is to stay on track with your diet and fitness goals.

Some benefits of meal prepping include saving money, eating healthy, not wasting any food, saving time and stressing less about what to eat that day.

To make things easy, we’ve put together a how-to guide on food prep for all the beginners out there!

Plan Ahead

What will you be eating?

First things first, you want to plan what you’ll be eating during the week. Take a moment and think about what kind of recipes you’re looking into and decide how much you’d like to make. Make a plan and stick with it.

What does the week ahead look like for you?

Now that you’ve decided what you’ll be eating, it’s time to flip open your schedule and see what your week ahead looks like. If you have work meetings, appointments or other commitments, save time and money by not creating these meals for those periods and only prep for when you don’t have a meal planned.

Make a shopping list

Next, compile a shopping list that will include all the ingredients you’ll need for your week of meals.

If it helps you, go shopping the day or couple days before so you have plenty of time to prepare the food prior to the week starting.

Mark it in your diary

Choose a day to do it. Failing to plan is a plan to fail, so pick a day of the week where you will prepare all your meals. Put aside 2-3 hours of your time and make it a habit each week. It’s important to try and make it a routine so you can stay on track with your own nutritional goals.

Be Smart With Your Storage

Meal prepping doesn’t have to be boring. Make it exciting and get some really nice containers for yourself. Invest in high quality plastic containers that are safe to use (such as BPA free) and easy to wash. That way you can reuse the containers time and time again and the added investment will help you keep to the plan.

Start with Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner

When you’re just starting out, there is no pressure to meal prep for the entire weeks worth of food. You will feel quite overwhelmed if you try to plan 3 meals a day for the week ahead, especially if you’re just starting out.

Instead start with only planning for your breakfasts for the week. Once you’re comfortable and sticking to that, then start moving on to lunches, dinners or even snacks.

Mix it Up

You may find after a while of using some of the same recipes (or foods) that you get bored of consuming the same thing or similar meals. Here’s a couple of tips on how to avoid this from happening throughout the week.

• Add colour to your spread: Healthy food doesn’t have to be boring or bland. In fact each colour of the fruits and vegetables provides a different set of phytonutrients. They help prevent disease and keep your body working efficiently. Secondly, you eat with your eyes! So if you see your food is aesthetically pleasing, you’re more likely wanting to eat it!
• Trying a new recipe each week: Mix up your meals every week and try something new. Research and find new recipes from different chefs to try.
• Spice it up: Expand your tastebuds and experiment with different herbs and spices. Try and stray away from your usual salt and pepper. This will keep your meals from being tedious, and you may stumble on your new favourite flavours!

Use your freezer!

Take advantage of your freezer. If you are making meals that may not have a very long fridge life, make sure you store them in airtight containers in the freezer. Airtight containers are going to prevent freezer burn which is where ice seeps through onto your food and it won’t taste so nice when you reheat it.

Pro tip: label your containers so you know what food is in them!

Make it social

As a beginner we’ve mentioned that it can be quite scary to start this process. A great solution to combat this is to meal prep with a friend! You could even host your meal prepping party.

Let us help plan your journey!

At Crunch Fitness we strive to motivate and inspire, and we know that committing to a nutrition or fitness plan is way easier with your mates. That’s why we allow you bring a guest for free every time you work out! That way you keep on track and keep each other accountable.

Now that you’ve learnt how to meal prep, let us help you with your fitness goals. Get in touch with us and see how we can make working out fun and motivating for you!