Meal Prepping Part I: The Grocery List

 

 

(photo from tumblr)

Meal Prepping is extremely important for me if I want to stay on track with my meals and hitting my macros. It seems overwhelming at first, especially when you have no idea where to begin so I want to help you out! I want to make things a little easier for you to get started. It does get easier, you will get faster, and after a few weeks or so you will be whipping through it! I can get mine done in an hour or less usually.

First things first, you must make a grocery list of all the foods you will be prepping for the week. I meal prep only lunches (I eat 2 lunches a day) and sometimes I also use my meal prep food for dinner if I have nothing planned and there is extra.

 

1.      Since I work full time I generally don’t have the time to grocery shop during the week so my husband or I will continually add things we need to a free app on our phones called Cozi – it’s a family management system for to-do lists, shopping lists, and calendar appointments. Anything either of us adds can be seen by the both of us and you can check things off and delete them as you go. Very awesome! And one of us will do the shopping over the weekend

 

2.      Sundays and Tuesdays or Wednesdays are my two meal prep days for the week. I will make enough for my husband and I for about 2-3 days so things won’t go bad before we get to eat it.

 

3.      I buy in bulk – tilapia, frozen chicken breasts, shrimp, ground turkey, shrimp, and frozen veggies. I get all of these items from Walmart generally. They are not organic and are generic brands most of the time. I do, however, get low fat and natural foods if the option is available.

 

 

4.      Veggies I purchase from the produce section – Sweet potatoes, avocado, spaghetti squash, asparagus, zucchini, butternut squash, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach onion, etc… I don’t purchase every single one of these every week. I suggest picking a few for each meal prep, so you don’t cook it and have it go bad!

5.      Fruit I purchase from the produce section – Every single week I purchase blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries. Other fruits I purchase, just not every single week are watermelon, grapes, raspberries, apples, bananas (my company always has fresh apples and bananas for free every single morning or those would be a weekly purchase)

 

6.      Other foods that get purchased often are – tuna, whole wheat sandwich rounds, plain non-fat Greek yogurt, quinoa, brown rice, black beans, pico de gallo, spinach, turkey deli meat, whole grain noodles, peanut butter, questbars (can be purchased at GNC or online), almonds, eggs, egg whites, turkey pepperoni, low fat mozzarella string cheese, brown rice rice cakes, rolled oats, half and half, whole grain tortillas, cottage cheese, walden farms chocolate syrup, diced tomatoes (canned), Ezekiel bread, Frozen bags of veggies (nothing added to them),

 

7.      Seasonings – Pam, garlic, Italian seasoning, Mrs. Dash (all of them are awesome), Cracked pepper, sea salt, cinnamon, mustard, sriracha, truvia, all natural mustard

 

Now that you have a nice little grocery list, stay tuned for Meal Prepping Part II where I will share with you all just how I prep these foods for me and my husband’s lunches.