Here’s the deal, everyone is super busy these days and often you get home too tired to prepare a healthy home cooked meal. Most of us are guilty of grabbing the easiest convenience meal from the fridge, throwing it in the microwave or ordering take out after a busy day.
The problem is, the less you cook, the more you get used to eating out and eating pre-prepared foods that are often full of salt, sugar, preservatives and other nasties. Not to mention a severe lack of vegetable content!
If you want to eat way healthier, save a boatload of money and feel less guilt then you need a system to ensure your house is full of great food that’s easy to grab and eat quickly. Here’s why you need to become a meal prepping badass:
Benefits of Meal Prepping
Here are the main reasons I started to meal prep and cook meals in bulk:
- It’s far more efficient and I save so much time! I can prepare, slice and dice ingredients for multiple meals in one go;
- Cooking one big batch of a great dish takes almost the same amount of time and energy as only cooking a single portion;
- By being organised and knowing what I am going to cook, I can shop once for all the ingredients for the week and share fresh produce across meals, meaning far less food waste;
- I wanted healthier grab and heat options than anything packaged I could buy at the supermarket;
- I prefer to eat my own home cooked food, full of the ingredients that I like to eat the most;
- Portion control sorted;
- By cooking larger batch meals, I always have a healthy lunch option waiting for me every day; and
- It absolutely helps me commit to eating healthier!
In addition to the above, a 2014 American Journal of Preventive Medicine study on home food preparation found that people who prepare home cooked meals are more likely to have healthier diets and eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.
I’ve found that having a system that includes a consistent weekly schedule for shopping, prepping and cooking makes it really easy to stick to meal prepping every week. I also get an amazing sense of relief and achievement once I see all my meals ready to go, knowing that I’ve done something healthy for myself for the next week.
If you don’t have a few hours to set aside once a week, you can easily do two meal prep sessions instead and just prepare a few days meals each time. I switch it up depending on what I have on during the week, but I tend to stick to one cooking session on the weekend. If you feel like you’re too busy to meal prep then check out my top time saving meal prep tips.
I think meal prepping and cooking in bulk are the best kept secret of the healthy, organised people we all aspire to be!
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