Wellness Wednesday Tip #32: To Meal Prep!
/Happy Wellfie Wednesday folks!!
This week’s tip is something I may have written about somewhere before in the past, but it’s a concept worth mentioning more than once. Today’s tip is to Meal Prep! Unfortunately, this is something I don’t see done often enough. I mean think about, there is more than one benefit to cooking everything in one day. For one, you get to plan your meals for the week, incorporating those healthier options you want to try without an excuse. Secondly, you come home from a long day, and there’s dinner, ready to go or just in need of a quick touch up. Third, without getting into the logistics of all, cooking at home in general, especially when done in bulk, is far cheaper than eating out or stopping at the grocery several times a week. And lastly, it’s fun!
I’ll let you in on my strategy for pulling this off. For starters, Sunday is usually my meal prep day, nothing is normally planned and plenty of time left over after church. However, there is one catch, there is a prep before the prep. And that starts with making your week’s menu and going to the grocery, and normally I do this on Saturday or early morning Sunday. The trick is, I find, you double up on selected meals so that you’re eating it twice within the week, that way you’re only cooking ideally 3 main dishes.
The things I cook in advance are usually my proteins (meat, chicken, beans, legumes, etc.), pasta, rice, and of course any crockpot meals. As I mentioned earlier, coming home for a quick touch up to your dinner, I usually will cook my vegetables the night of (but those can be pre-cooked too) and partly because most of them can be popped in the oven as I tidy up.
So try out meal prepping next week and let us know how it goes! As always, thanks again for all of the #WellfieWednesday support, be sure to post your pictures again this week and tag Eric (@Eric_in_AmERICa) or myself (@PBernerSPT) and keep the wave of healthy change going!
- Dr. Patrick Berner, PT, DPT
- Dr. Eric Uveges, PT, DPT