Prep for your day, prep for your week, prep for your life November 10, 2014 At any given time you can find me with either a backpack full of food, or a backpack full of empty tupperware. That’s just a fact. Because I prefer to eat food that I make for both health and financial reasons, food prep is a big part of my life. When busy clients come to me wanting to overhaul their diets I suggest either A) getting a weekly food prep day or a daily food prep hour worked into their schedule or B) paying me to do weekly food prep for them, because that is my JAM. I food prep in a couple of different ways: If I have a Sunday free and I’m inspired, I make a large batch of beans and brown rice or quinoa and a few different recipes to go with them. Some favorites include , , , , and . Having these meal-ready dudes in my fridge makes my life SO MUCH easier, especially in terms of dinner. (My general routine is to work during the day, work out in the late afternoon/early evening, and have dinner. Doyou think I want to make something elaborate after a long day and a tough workout? No, no I do not.) Although I love having beautiful and elaborate meals waiting for me, these days 9 times out of 10, I work 7 days a week (*winces*). I don’t have the fortitude to make fancy shit when I am super busy, but I do still prioritize my health (and ultimately my happiness, because I just feel more stoked when I eat well). What I’m saying is this: sometimes my prep just looks like using a rice cooker and crockpot and chopping a bunch of things for super-quick availability. And sometimes I do it each morning because I don’t want to give up longer amounts of time on one given day. A full day of Sunday cooking is not for everyone, and it’s not even for me sometimes. Meet yourself where you’re at. My rubric for food when I am stressed and busy is oatmeal and a smoothie for breakfast/snacks, a giant salad with protein, fat, and good whole grain carbohydrates for lunch, and a soup or steamedveggie/rice/grilled tempeh like thing for dinner. It’s boring-ish to some, but eating the same kind of stuff pretty often doesn’t really upset me, and I am grateful for the simplicity of it. On days when I eat like this I have about 30-40 minutes of food prep for the whole day, because as I mentioned I pre-chop veggies, cook large batches of brown rice, quinoa and beans and marinate tofu or tempeh in advance. A typical prep for this is: Make a pot of rice, and roast a tray of veggies (carrots, beets, sweet potatoes) for salads. Pre chop greens, bell peppers, cucumbers and other veggies. Find a , make a , slice tempeh or tofu and dump in a tupperware to sit in said marinade. I make sure I have miso, veggie broth, and maybe coconut milk on hand for soups. Rice noodles are good to have on hand too. I also always have apples, peanut butter, almonds, , almond milk, hummus, carrots, and rice cakes for snacks. So: morning. Make oatmeal according to the package and top with sliced, banana,raisins, and a drizzle of peanut butter. Blend smoothie for post workout, throw in a mason jar, put in a bag for later. For lunch put lettuce, chopped veggies, rice, beans, and dressing in a tupperware (I have a separate container for dressing, which I enjoy. Fuck a soggy salad). For dinner: come home, grab roast veggies to reheat, saute tempeh that has been marinading, steam more of those chopped greens. Put in a broth if you want it to be a soup. Snacks as often as you want from the list above. How do you food prep? This entry was posted by in , and tagged , , , .
