Meal Prep Tips Part 1

Aghhhh. Meal Prep. *que gagging sound* I used to try to meal prep to be “healthier”, and always ended up just making boring chicken and dry salad that made me want to toss it in the garbagioooo and have a cupcake instead.

SO after years of doing that, I finally learned some things that have helped me stick to meal prepping pretty much every single week for the last 18 months because it truly makes my life so much simpler:

1. Get CREATIVE with my food choices. If I am feeling spaghetti and meatballs, I’ll use low fat meat and find other sources of noodles that are tasty to ME such as carrot noodles/ sweet potato noodles (from Trader Joe’s OMG so good) or chickpea pasta, or whole grain pasta or even regular pasta but actually sticking to ONE serving. Which brings me to my next tip…

2. Check out and stick to serving sizes! One serving of avocado (note: not one WHOLE avocado) or dressing is more than enough for my meal, but I never KNEW what a normal serving size was supposed to look like?! Once I became more familiar with that I felt much more comfortable creating meals that helped me keep my weight off.

3. Give myself two choices per week for meal prepped lunches so I don’t eat the same thing every day.

• -Maybe a Chipotle bowl knockoff with Uncle Ben’s Ready Rice, grilled chicken or steak (usually 4 oz), pico de gallo, a little guacamole from the store and some corn
• -blackened fish tacos on whole grain wraps with Bolthouse Farms Ranch dressing
• -purple potatoes, asparagus, and ground turkey sautéed together with a little olive oil and garlic
• -turkey sandwich on Dave’s Killer bread with Applegate Farm’s turkey + a laughing cow cheese + spinach and a side of cottage cheese with fruit

4. Create meals with foods that I know will not get wilty OR that will get too mushy—looking at you iceberg lettuce. Sometimes I will freeze my 4^th and 5^th meal and take it out the night beforehand but usually I will just keep everything in the fridge since I meal prep on Sundays. You can even meal prep Sunday and then halfway through the week if you would rather have more fresh foods.

5. Condiments are the new currency! Seriously, switching up your condiments can transform a meal. Using different oils or spices while actually cooking your meal will take it from boring to flavor-town with no added calories. I put salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder in literally everything and season it GENEROUSLY. Others that I love are the “21 seasoning salute” and “everything but the bagel” seasoning from Trader Joe’s. Throwing some reduced sugar ketchup onto my meal prepped homemade sweet potato fries is satisfying and a way to spice things up.

I have SO many more, and more easy go-to meal prep ideas that I will be sharing. None of the meal preps that I do take more than 1 hour, never have and never will because when you multitask and stick with easy healthy choices-it’s not complicated 🙂

Let me know any questions you may have below or leave one of your own favorite tips!

(Be sure to check out my IG: evolving.with.cait.hoyler for more nutrition, fitness and lifestyle info)

See you soon <3

Cait