Cut Meal Prep Time In Half With These Hacks

Cut Meal Prep Time In Half With These Hacks

Cooking your meals for the week, aka meal prep, is a game changer. It will save you hundreds of dollars every month and make it simple to be lean and athletic.

But it can take a few hours a week, and…life happens, so it can be hard to be consistent meal prepping.

This blog will give you the blueprint to cut your meal prep time in half so you can follow through every week

 

What You Need To Start Meal Prepping

  1. Look at your schedule for next week and determine the number of days you’ll cook for. 5 days is usually a sweet spot. Schedule an hour that you’ll go to the store to buy the food and then another 30-60 min to cook. These can obviously be separate days. Typically, Sundays or Mondays work best.
    • We’ll use the example of a woman and male cooking for 5 days.
  2. Think about your goals for the next week or month: Do you want to lose body fat and stay fit? Or maintain your body fat and improve your fitness?
    • We’ll provide examples for both.
  3. Make your “Perfect Day” nutrition template. Typically, 4 meals (including meal replacements) a day, eating every 4 hours is best. We’ll use this template:
    • Breakfast: Protein shake
    • Lunch: Meal with veggies
    • Snack: Protein bar and fruit
    • Dinner: Meal with veggies
    • (For elaboration on why we made these suggestions, check out our blog: The Last Diet You’ll Ever Need To Be On)
  4. Determine what meals you want to make. We suggest simple recipes to get started. For this example, we’ll go with Crock Pot Pulled Chicken and Ground Turkey Tacos.
  5. Make a grocery list. Again, we’ll provide examples below.

 

Women’s Meal Prep Grocery List

  • Protein Powder: 5 Servings (1 per meal at breakfast) Quest, Orgain (dairy-free)
  • Protein Bars: 5 Bars (1 per snack) Quest, One Bar, No Cow (dairy-free)
  • Fruit: 5 Servings (1 handful per snack), Ex: 1 lb of strawberries, and 1 lb of blueberries
  • Pulled Chicken: 1.75 lbs of chicken breast, Stubbs BBQ Sauce, Splenda, other seasonings as desired.
  • Veggies: 2 microwaveable bags of frozen veggies. (1-2 Fists at lunch Ex: 1 bag of Broccoli and 1 bag of cauliflower rice
  • Turkey Tacos: 1.75 lbs of ground turkey, 2 taco seasoning packets, lettuce. Sides: salsa, hot sauce?

*This plan is suited to help you lose body fat. If your goal is to maintain body fat, then add a serving of carbs 1-2 meals such as oatmeal at breakfast, whole grain bread at lunch, or potato (with a little butter) at dinner. Feel free to swap any of the foods above with foods of similar calories and protein/carbs/fat.

Men’s Meal Prep Grocery List

  • Protein Powder: 7.5 Servings (1.5 per meal at breakfast) Quest, Orgain (dairy-free)
  • Protein Bar: 5 Bars (1 per snack) Quest, One Bar, No Cow (dairy-free)
  • Fruit: 7.5 Servings (1 and a half handfuls per snack), Ex: 1 lb of strawberries and 1 lb of blueberries
  • Pulled Chicken: 2.5 lbs of chicken breast, Stubbs BBQ Sauce, Splenda, other seasonings as desired.
  • Veggies: 2 microwaveable bags of frozen veggies. (1-2 Fists at lunch Ex: 1 bag of Broccoli and 1 bag of cauliflower rice
  • Turkey Tacos: 2.5 lbs of ground turkey, 3 taco seasoning packets, lettuce. Sides: Salsa, hot sauce?

*This plan is suited to help you lose body fat. If your goal is to maintain body fat, then add a serving of carbs 1-2 meals such as oatmeal at breakfast, whole grain bread at lunch, or potato (with a little butter) at dinner. Feel free to swap any of the foods above with foods of similar calories and protein/carbs/fat.

 

How to Cook This Ish

Pulled Chicken: Throw the following ingredients in a crockpot on high for 5 hours. The chicken should easily shred with a fork after this amount of time:

  1. 4 lbs of chicken breast (based on a couple, if cooking solo or for a fam, adjust chicken and ingredients proportionately)
  2. 1 bag of frozen chopped onions
  3. 1 cup Stubs barbecue sauce
  4. 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
  5. 1/2 cup chicken broth
  6. 1/4 cup Splenda brown sugar
  7. 1 tbsp yellow mustard
  8. 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  9. 2 tbsp minced garlic
  10. 1 1/2 tsp dried thyme

TRUST ME, every ingredient is worth the flavor of this pulled chicken! Throw it on some greens or ancient grain bread and VOILA!

 

Turkey Tacos: Crockpot or cooked in a skillet. Place on a bed of greens or use corn tortillas for carbs.

  1. 1 tbsp of olive oil or nonstick spray in the bottom of your crockpot
  2. 4 lbs of ground 99% lean ground turkey (based on a couple, if cooking solo or for a fam, adjust turkey and ingredients proportionately)
  3. 2 jalapenos (finely cut with a food processor) OPTIONAL!!
  4. 4 packs of Old El Paso Lower Sodium Taco Seasoning
  5. 3/4 cup unsalted chicken stock
  6. 4 beef bouillon cubes for savory flavor OPTIONAL

I like to throw on fresh salsa, chopped green bell peppers, and fat free plain greek yogurt for garnish 🙂 ! YUM

 

The Last Step

It’s imperative that you take the time to weigh your food (link to a good food scale) and put it into separate containers. For couples, I suggest getting different colored containers to keep things organized in the fridge. Here are a couple of good options (1, 2, 3). Portion the meals into 5 containers each of about 4 oz for women and 6 oz for men. Add veggies to the containers when applicable (not lettuce…ew, that would be gross).

 

Wouldn’t it be sweet if you could get a new meal plan like this every week?!?

At Faster Fitness, not only do they get a fun training program that helps them get lean and athletic, but they get a new meal plan with grocery lists and macro recommendations every week 🙂

If you’d like to hear about the awesome program that St. Louis is buzzing about, then click below!

About the Author: Marshall Ray

Marshall Ray is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), Level 2 Poliquin International Certified Strength Coach (PICP), Biosignature Practitioner and a certified Precision Nutrition Coach (Pn1). He is the founder of Faster Fitness and co-founder of Femme Fit. He's passionate about building a community of people who love fitness and taking control of their health.