Planning And Prepping Your Way To Success

When I first started my journey of eating clean & working out, I did not plan or prep food. It seemed way too time consuming and overwhelming. I would just eat clean following the 80/20 and try my best to eat healthy every day. Even when I first started the 21 day fix, I got so overwhelmed my first round I said forget this. The problem is when you don't have a plan in place, your not paying attention to portions and you are tight on time every week night, it is very hard to make healthy meals or choices, even when you only have healthy food in your home you can over eat on the good stuff too. The other problem I noticed is my weight wasn't really coming off. So I knew I needed to get over that mental block in my head of "it's just too hard" and just figure it out.

So how do I make it work every week? First picking a day to sit down search for recipes, create a grocery list by categories and then grocery shop. Sometimes all these steps I am listing can not be done in one block of time. So Friday I may sit down, find recipes, create a grocery list and a meal plan. Then Saturday I may shop and Sunday I will food prep everything. Sometimes I do everything all in one day, it just depends on our schedule for the week. The important part is you find the time and make the time. The first fews weeks felt like this process took F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Now I zip threw it and you need to know this because I don't want you to get discouraged and throw in the towel like I did.

So how do I zip threw it all? Multitasking of course. I roast veggies in the oven, bake or grill meats and cook all grains on top. I like to do two boxes of Annies Mac n Cheese, just in case one of my new meals bomb, this is a back up for the kids and then my husband and I suck it up loading up on salad and a Shakeology. While these foods are cooking in and on the oven, I am washing, cutting and portioning out all fruits and veggies for the week. I do this for my children too. This way we all have healthy snacks that are grab and go. If I am making crock pot meals I throw all the ingredients in a large ziplock bag or container so I can throw everything in the crockpot in the morning. If you are gone to long during the day to have the crockpot on, cook it the night prior while you are home and then you can just heat it up when you are ready for dinner. I also do a weeks worth of bananas that I peel and throw in a freezer bag for my shakes.

Having a plan in place, using the containers from the 21 day fix to learn proper portion control and making it happen every week is what helped the weight start to come off. Now the portion sizes are ingrained in my head, the planning and prepping has become second nature and it makes our weeks so much less stressful. We are no longer eating at 8pm, ordering take out and honestly it makes my job so much easier and less stressful during the week. With healthy snacks prepped and ready to go in the fridge, it makes it so easy to stay on track. If you want to eat healthier and help your family do the same, you have to start having a plan in place every single week.