“Hi, can I have a number 5 with a large diet coke?” This is something we can often find ourselves saying when we forget to pack a lunch for the school or workday. Fast food is a simple resort for when we don’t want to put the time, effort, or money into cooking. However, what if I were to challenge that by saying meal prepping actually cuts down on all of those?

Meal prepping is great for anyone with any schedule, especially those who are trying to achieve their personal fitness goals! When you meal prep it is exactly what you make it, you can tailor your specific budget, time allotment, and dietary needs. Let’s check out what to do when you get started meal prepping.

Understand Your Goals

Learning what your body needs can be challenging at times, however, it is merely a matter of breaking things down. This could look like if you are looking to lose weight you feature more fruits, veggies, and lower-calorie, high fiber options paired with a lean protein source. In contrast, if you are looking to put on weight you could feature high carb foods paired with a protein source.

Discovering your body’s needs is crucial to elevating your training. If you ever want a more specific breakdown of what this would look like for you, contact your campus dietician! Almost all college campuses feature a registered dietician on staff, for example at Whitewater our campus dietician will hold a 1:1 30 minute meeting with you discovering a plan that is specific and works for you, all while guiding you along the way!

Finding Fun Foods

There is such a common misconception that meal prepping has to be plain and boring. When in reality meal prepping can feature plenty of fun foods that expand beyond the stereotypical chicken and rice. A great place to find some ideas is Tik Tok. What is great about this is you can see how the steps are done! Unless you claim to be a world-renowned chef many of us struggle with more advanced meals. So instead of calling your mom asking how long to put something in the oven, you can reference the video! It is also great as many creators will feature their ingredients, measurements, and calorie information all within the comments!

Figuring Out When to Meal Prep

This can be challenging for some as you will have to set aside an hour out of your week to do this. However, all you have to simply do is take an hour away from your phone out of your day and you’ll have plenty of time to prep!

Finding out what meals works best for you is simply done by trial and error. For myself, I prefer to only meal prep breakfast and lunch as I know at these points of my day I am typically short on time and need a quick grab and go. Meanwhile, for dinner, I like to change things up every night since meal prepping can become repetitious if you don’t change up the variety from week to week.

What You Will Need

The benefit of meal prepping is you can go as simple or advanced as your kitchen allows! If you have a pressure cooker, crockpot, or air fryer these can all be helpful but not required! The only essentials you will need to meal prep are a large number of sealable containers, a plan on what you’d like to make, and the consistency to do so!

Meal prepping shouldn’t have to be a weekly chore, instead, make it something where you challenge yourself at trying something new and expand your horizons! The biggest key to remember as meal prepping relates to personal fitness is patience is key! The Egyptians didn’t build the pyramids in one day and neither will your body build itself that quickly. Stay consistent, patient, and driven and the results will come naturally!