My Meal-Prep Strat
- Each of my recipes is designed to provide 4 servings, as eating more than this within the 3-4 day period leftovers are safe for is difficult. You can adjust the servings for each recipe as you work to find the tempo that works for you
- I meal prep two batches on Sunday or Monday (8 meals) which gets me through the weekdays. I know this doesn’t cover the full week, but I don’t like freezing meals & with my current goals, I can make room for eating out with the boys a few times a week.
- Links to all the equipment I use can be found on the “shop” page, but you probably already have everything in your kitchen.
That’s basically it! Simple, but that’s what makes meal prep so great. I’ve found it to be the most efficient way to eat healthily by far. Go to my “Recipe Archive” page and start looking around for something that looks tasty!
I’m not a fitness guru that’s going to give you a personalized one-size-fits-all diet and workout plan. Reason being, I don’t know what your goals are. That’s something you need to figure out on your own. What I will give you are a ton of awesome meal prep recipes, a tool (this website) that’s easy to integrate with MyFitnessPal, and general guidelines that apply to those bulking, cutting, or even maintaining their current weight. The guidelines for achieving your fitness goals (in descending order) are:
- Hit your calorie surplus/deficit goal
- At the end of the day, weight gain and weight loss boil down to a math equation. Above all else, make sure that you are burning more calories than you consume if cutting or vice versa if you are bulking.
- Eat one gram of protein per pound of body weight every day
- No matter your goal, a high protein diet is what you need. There are a billion reasons as to why a high-protein diet is good for you, but you can check out this academic study if you want to read more. These benefits apply both when bulking and cutting, so it is the calorie deficit or the calorie surplus that really distinguishes the direction your weight goes.
- Aim for a balanced macro spread
- This step is important to keep in mind because many tend to demonize carbs or fats. In reality, all three macronutrients play an important role for your body! The fact of the matter, though, is that a consistent macro spread is less important than steps 1 and 2 by orders of magnitude, and many choose to leave this step out. If you’re a beginner or want to take it easy, I even recommend leaving this out. Hit your calories differential, get your protein, and when you feel up to it, find a macro percentage goal you like. Make sure you get some carbs and protein though!