Are you ready for the first day of spring?
Spring is sometimes a time where life gets a little busier, kids have more outdoor sports, you might want to go on a few hikes, or whatever you enjoy. It’s possible you want to spend a little less time in the kitchen and more time having fun.
Good news!
I have a super time-saving tip for you today – a tip that will make your life easier, save you energy AND most importantly help you stay on track with your nutrition.
In a nutshell, most of us fall into two camps when it comes to meal prep. We either overthink it, or we don’t think about it at all.
Overthinking is an easy trap to fall into… there’s just SO much “stuff” in magazines, on social media, ideas shared by cousin Sally with conflicting information. It’s nearly impossible to filter out all of the noise and to make an actual decision. We get overwhelmed and assume meal prep has to be this huge time-consuming event.
So you think about it, you think some more, decide you can’t do it perfectly and then you still don’t have a plan and end up winging it! You can’t wing your way to success.
Way too many people (I used to be one of them!) think that meal prep is all about identical-looking bland Tupperware meals (like chicken, sweet potato, and broccoli) and think, “Ugh… that’s not for me”!
That’s when a lot of us join the second camp: “put it off for next week” / or not thinking about prepping or planning meals at all.
There’s actually a happy middle ground!
What if you took a few minutes to map out even just a few of your meals for the next several days, and when you’re making dinner, you cooked 2-3x the amount you usually do? Going out to dinner, no worries, that’s not a night you prep.
You can double up by making extra turkey burgers, chili, stir fry, chicken on the grill, roasted veggies, corn on the cob. I know some of you are not into left-over lovers. That’s cool, this isn’t for you.
Taking this approach means you don’t have to set aside several hours of precious weekend time to cook for the upcoming week. Instead, you spend your normal amount of time cooking … plus 5 to 10 minutes each week PLANNING your meals.
This seems like a no-brainer, but the PLANNING part of it makes all the difference, especially if you’re used to trying to figure out every night what you’re going to make for dinner.
It might take a few extra minutes of work upfront but trust me the time and stress you save down the road will be well worth it.
