Fuel Your Fitness Journey: The Benefits of Meal Prepping
Between work, family, friends, and making time to exercise, it can be hard to find the time and energy to come up with nutritionally balanced meals, shop, and cook every night of the week. We know calories matter when we’re trying to achieve a slimmer, more defined look. We know macro- and micronutrients matter for our health and to promote muscle growth and repair. But that’s a lot to think about on Thursday at 6:00 pm of a long week.
Meal prepping is a powerful habit that can help simplify your life (at least when it comes to answering the question, “What’s for dinner tonight?”) and make it easier to stay on track with your nutritional goals. Meal prepping is the process of planning and preparing your meals in advance, and it has gained immense popularity, especially among fitness enthusiasts. You can find resources across the web to help you optimize the efficiency of your meal prep and explore new recipe ideas. In this post, we’ll focus on how meal prepping can help you on your fitness journey.
Saves time and effort throughout the week:
In our busy lives, finding the time to cook nutritious meals every day can be a significant hurdle. This is where meal prepping becomes a game-changer. By dedicating a few hours each week to plan, prepare and pack your meals, you can save time overall. No more standing with the fridge door open wondering what to make tonight, no more last minute trips to the store to pick something up, no more grabbing something outside your dietary plan because it’s convenient. Simply grab your pre-portioned, pre-prepared meal and go. Meal prepping allows you to streamline your daily routine and frees up valuable times for the rest of your life.
Supports weight management:
A lot of clients come to the gym looking to transform their bodies—to be stronger, fitter, and slimmer. Meal prepping can be an invaluable tool in this journey. By preparing your meals in advance, you have the ability to plan your calories and macronutrient ratios according to your specific needs and goals, and ensure that you're consuming a well-balanced mix of proteins, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Whether you aim to lose weight, gain muscle, or maintain your current physique, meal prepping empowers you to make deliberate choices about the foods you consume. It helps you stay on track, minimize impulse eating, and avoid succumbing to unhealthy options when hunger strikes. With meal prepping, you have greater control over your portion sizes and the overall nutritional composition of your meals, enabling you to achieve and maintain a healthy weight more effectively.
Easier tracking of calories and nutritional intake:
Whether your goal is weight loss, muscle gain, or simply maintaining a healthy lifestyle, accurately tracking your calories and nutritional intake is crucial. Food-tracking apps can make this easier, and are a great option to capture days when you don’t prep, but it can still be tricky to find information of everything you eat and log it in. For some people, that’s just too much mental energy spent thinking about food every day. Meal prepping simplifies this process significantly. By preparing your meals in advance , you have complete control over the ingredients and portion sizes, making it easier to know what exactly you’re eating at each meal. With meal prepping, you can take the guesswork out of your nutrition and make it more effortless to stay on track with your nutrition goals.
Boosts financial savings:
Food costs are shooting up. It’s harder than ever to just pop into the store and buy all the ingredients for a healthful meal without planning or checking sales. Meal prepping can help here by reducing your food expenses in the long run. By planning your meals and purchasing ingredients in bulk, you can take advantage or cost savings. Additionally, avoiding the temptation to eat out or buy convenience foods can cut your food budget even further. Finally, by knowing what you’re actually going to eat for each meal, and how much of it, you can dramatically reduce food waste in your home.
Meal prepping is a fantastic tool that can revolutionize your fitness journey, helping you take charge of your diet, prioritize your health, and fuel your body with the nutrients it needs to reach your fitness goals. That said, even though ultimately, meal prepping is highly efficient and can make your life run more smoothly, getting started can be daunting. The upfront prepping and cooking time requires you to devote time each week to think about your diet and health and execute your plan.
If you’re interested in getting started, lean on resources that can walk you through how to get started and schedule your week–you don’t need to reinvent the wheel here! As to what you should be eating, there are tons of resources with recipes. You can also sign up for a free consultation here at BXF. We love working with our clients to create nutritional plans that support your big picture fitness goals!
