If you’re not someone who enjoys spending hours at a time in the kitchen throughout the week but is still looking to create healthy and balanced meals that will easily help to promote weight loss, meal prepping on the weekends can be a great solution. Cooking your food in advance will not only save you time later in the week, but will also ensure you have healthy meals at your disposal when you get hungry, so you’re less inclined to fall into unnecessary snacking habits while you wait for your food to cook.
However, while meal prepping is generally beneficial for reaching your weight loss goals, there are still mistakes you can make throughout the process that may stall your results and instead make it more difficult to see any positive changes. We spoke with Michele Canon, XPro, NASM Fitness Nutritionist, Person Trainer and Behavioral Change Specialist for Xponential Plus to get a clearer sense on the pitfalls to avoid when meal prepping, as well as what exactly you should be doing instead to see the best results.
Incorrect Portion Size
Portion size is one of the biggest mistakes you could fall into whether you’re meal prepping or not, and creating meals that are too large and offer your body more calories than it needs is almost certain to impact your ability to lose weight. “If your goal is weight loss, and your portions are too large, particularly in carbohydrates, it will stall your progress,” says Canon.
When putting together each meal, try to include a source of carbs, a large portion of lean protein, some healthy fat, and a veggie or fruit to create a balanced meal that doesn’t provide excess of one nutrient in particular. “The most important rule when meal prepping is to know your calorie and macronutrient requirements–this will help you portion out your foods. If your goal is weight loss, you want to be sure your meals put you in a caloric deficit and are not too high in starchy carbohydrates,” she adds. Being aware of these numbers can help you to create more accurate portion sizes for your body, tailoring your diet to your specific goals.
Making It Too Complicated
Meal prepping is intended to make your life easier, but if you’re crafting meals that are too complex, it’s unlikely you’ll want to stick to this routine moving forward. “If prepping takes too long or is too cumbersome you will not stick to it and ultimately end up giving up,” notes Canon. Instead, try to find meals that are packed with flavor but don’t take an exceedingly long time to prep or cook. This can include crock pot soup recipes, taco salad, or even chicken, veggies and rice which will all help to fill you up and satisfy cravings without taking hours to make.
One hack that Canon suggests is chopping your veggies when you get home from the grocery store before you put them away in order to cut down on some of the complications of prepping later. “You can chop and roast veggies like sweet potato, squash, brussel sprouts, broccoli and carrots ahead of time. Sautee lean ground meats ahead of time, roast chicken breasts and hard boil eggs,” she says. “And be sure to take advantage of pre-packaged and frozen options like riced cauliflower, frozen brown rice or veggies. You shouldn’t be spending more than an hour on meal prep.”
Creating Meals You’re Bored Of
When you make too much of one meal, or continue to cook the same thing over and over, it’s more than likely that you’re going to get tired of it, making it much more difficult to sustain your meal prep plan over time. “If you are looking at the same meal on Friday that you prepped on Sunday, you will likely get bored and opt for something else like take out,” warns Canon.
To remedy this, try making smaller portions of two different meals to allow for some variety within your week. “There are many resources for healthy, delicious and simple recipes all over the internet. One thing you can also do is devote two days to meal prepping so that you have fresh new meals during the week,” Canon suggests. A sample schedule of this can be meal prepping for half the week on Sunday, and then making new meals for yourself on Wednesday to get you through to the weekend. This will keep your fresh meals from wilting in the fridge, and will allow for more excitement within your week.
