Meal prep for busy lifestyle / How important is the meal prep
Planning meal prep on time can give you a lot of advantages & can save you from a lot of stress as well! It also makes you do a lot of work done on time which can be a great relief. It can be quite stressful to think about the meals & its preparation especially when you're so busy & have got no time to spare from that busy schedule of yours which includes that assignment or project that you have to submit at office the next day! Imagine you're coming back from office & have your dinner cooked already? That relief on your face will make even a dull day shine bright!
Meal planning can be extremely useful to the students as well... And not to forget, working women, bachelors, body-builders & so many other people.
Here you get a WIN-WIN situation, you get all the essential nutrients, meal prepared on time plus you can maintain your body goals. Also, nowadays people have got busy with their schedules & find it very stressful to get things done!
STEP 1: PREPPING IT RIGHT
You can also make a calendar or a spreadsheet to plan & record in advance all the meal preps that you want to make & cook.
One can also discuss with the family what they like to eat & what to include in the meals. At first one can start planning & making healthy dinners for 2 or 3 days of the week in advance.
One can also consider making different types of food on different days so that one remains enthusiastic about food planning & prep.
For easy planning & healthy recipes, one can also save the recipes from the mobile app, magazines, newspaper or their favourite online source!
STEP 2: HOW TO START
After the planning stage one needs proper guidance on how to start it right! Grocery planning, deciding what to cook first based on what takes longest to cook & what gets cooked in the shortest period of time, choosing a specific day or time to cook based on how much you can spare time & can cook with comfort. All these factors play an important role in maintaining the proper diet & lifestyle.
After that you have planned, you should note down your grocery list & try to manage to make meals as per the schedule that you have planned.
A good tip would be to try making bigger portions even for the next day to save you from the hassle of a lot of meal planning & prepping.
One can also add funky names to the days to make them inspired to meal prep on those days even more. For example, Stew Saturday, Stir-fry Friday, etc
ADVANTAGES:
If you have planned already & have got adapted towards the meal planning process now, you can surely see these advantages! More time for other stuff.
No more stressing over meal plans.
It helps you achieve your body goals as there are already pre-decided portions of food.
Saves money too.
It saves you from buying the unwanted stuff.
STORAGE:
After that the meal has been cooked, its proper storage is very essential so that it doesn't get contaminated. So, for that proper storage, the appropriate temperature is very important so that the food doesn't get contaminated with the food spoiling bacteria like E.coli, salmonella, etc.
You can store foods such as fresh & roasted vegetables, meat, pasta, grains, whole fruits, nuts, cheese, etc. for a longer duration of time easily.
MEAL PREP ADVANCE/DURATION:
The entire idea of the advance meal prep is to have a little more time left to do things that you feel like you want to do that too freely. Also, special care should be taken while doing the refrigeration & freezing process for the meal prep. Therefore, it's advisable to keep 3 days of food in the refrigerator & freeze the rest of the meals. To maintain the healthy level of lifestyle one must adapt towards these changes which can actually get you a lot of free time to do other stuff & one can achieve a lot of other things rather than just being in the kitchen whole day.