In this post I am going to discuss the benefits of meal prep. That is, prepping your meals in advance to achieve a certain nutritional or physique goal.
You see, I have been an avid athlete, and obsessed with bodybuilding ever since I was 16 years old.
I was always trying to find ways to pack on weight since I was a very light weight growing up, but extremely fast since I played:
- Soccer
- Basketball
- Lacrosse
These sports taught me discipline. Daily consistency for my training regimen was critical, but eating enough calories from all the excessive cardio was even more vital for my growth in these sports and in order to compete at the highest level possible.
Education was lacking in the nutrition department when I was playing sports. I had always eaten fairly healthy growing up, my parents never let me and my sister eat much crap, so I learned from a young age what a good diet was like. It wasn’t until near the end of high school, and the beginning of first year college that I started to take my nutrition to a whole other level.
I started to really get into bodybuilding when I entered first year college, and nutrition played a huge role in helping me progress with my training. I didn’t compete, but I felt like all I did was workout for my first year at college. I was so fascinated with reading all the books I could get my hands on that taught me how to get that ideal tapered physique with a huge chest, broad shoulders, and lean looking legs. I was doing everything I could to learn how to build lean muscle, and eat as healthy as possible.
This is where meal prep came in. Meal prep was something I saw so many pictures in books, magazines, and youtube videos of athletes diets. At this point, I was drawn to getting as lean as I could to look my best, and really make my abs pop. Meal prep would help me get there.
Utilizing all my resources I had learned about nutrition in the books and magazines I read, I started to do tons of bulk shops at Costco during school. These shops I would bring home a ton of food that had to be cooked fairly quickly, so I really started to develop a passion for cooking well, because I was living with a roommate and was hungry… OFTEN!
Cooking in bulk was my saviour! Learning most of my recipes from youtube videos, I would later cook at least 5-10 meals worth for a week, so I had plenty of food to fuel my workouts and help me focus in my classes. I would usually freeze half of my containers of food, and eat the rest.
The main foods that I would eat every week and I still eat now are: ground turkey, chicken-thighs, chicken breast, extra lean ground beef, eggs, egg whites, kale, spinach, spring mix salad, oatmeal, yams, sweet potato, couscous, quinoa, greek yogurt, berries. I feel the best week over week eating a lot of the same foods. Plus, when you eat healthy and you develop a consistency to your eating patterns this helps your body with digestion and satiety.
With all the meal prep, I started to develop a massive pantry littered in tupperware containers, since you can never have enough tupperware right??? Tupperware helped with organizing all my bulk prepped food to put in the fridge for the rest of the week.
Cooking 1x/week in bulk, was what helped me stay on track with eating healthy, and staying energized throughout the day. While most students drank and ate like crap, I would be home preparing food, and preparing for the following work/school week. It was not easy, dedicating sometimes 2-3 hours or more for 1 night to prepare all the food, but I knew that if I did it, I could relax and have that sustained feeling of fullness daily.
My recommendations for meal prep are to cook either 1x/week or 2x/week to avoid shopping every other day. Divide all your meals equally portioned in tupperware or glass containers for lunches, and keep breakfast and dinners fairly consistent to avoid weekly dinner decision fatigue.
If you enjoyed this post give me a comment, and let me know what other content or posts you would like to see next.
Cheers!
Alex
