Healthy Eating Simplified: Why Meal Prepping is a Game Changer

Master Your Meals, Master Your Goals: How to Save Time, Money, and Boosts Your Health

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” This saying applies to many things in life, but especially with meal prepping. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, improve your gut health, or simply just eat better, meal prepping has many benefits to reach your goals — I know it’s helped me a lot on my health and fitness journey. If you’re still unsure about meal prep, take a look at all the reasons why you should incorporate this game-changing effort into your weekly routine.

Saves You Time

How many times have you opened the fridge and there’s nothing there to eat, but still wondered what you were going to eat? We’ve all been there before, and in these situations, we almost always turn to fast food, simply out of convenience or just not feeling like cooking. Preparing your meals beforehand saves you the time you would typically spend cooking and trying to figure out what you’re going to eat. Personally, I like Sundays to do my meal prep; that way I know what’s on the menu the entire week.

Teaches Portion Control

Do you know how much you’re actually eating? I know I didn’t. But overeating is a real problem for lots of people; many don’t even know they’re eating too much. What happens is we don’t listen to our hunger signs. This is similar to going to the grocery store hungry and buying way more food than you normally would — Meal prepping would cut all of that out.

Studies show that people choose different portion sizes when meal prepping simply because they’re more aware of the health effects of food. Also, because meal prepping happens separately before you eat, it causes you to make healthier decisions with your portions.

Saves You Money

Everyone loves saving a few bucks whenever they can, and meal prepping is a great way to do that. Just think about it — The amount of money you would spend on takeout would cost around the same amount in groceries for maybe 2-3 meals. For me, the most frustrating part about eating out is how expensive it is. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone out to eat and thought “I could have made this at home." And the frustration isn’t just about the price, but also about the quality and taste of the food.

Helps You Resist Junk Food

As health and fitness influencers like to say, “There’s food at home!” And there is when you meal prep! Now, I will say, there have been times when I wanted fast food but I remembered that there were a few meals in the fridge I prepared and ate that instead. Was that mental strength or a little bit of “food guilt” I felt? Probably a little of both — Call it what you want, but I avoided the temptation to eat out.

This isn’t saying that if you start meal prepping, you can’t eat out anymore, but you will need to have discipline to stay on track with eating the meals you prepared. Resisting eating out or junk food won’t be an easy journey, especially when you’re starting, but it will play a major role in reaching any health and fitness goals you may have.

Prevents Wasting Food

Wasting food is one thing I really don’t like doing (or seeing other people do, honestly). Why? Because food is so expensive. Do you remember when eggs were pretty much $6.00 a carton? When food has a purpose, it’s less likely to get wasted. This is one of the biggest reasons why meal prepping is so important.

First, you have to plan your meals. For example, Monday will be turkey burgers, Wednesday will be salmon, rice, and broccoli, etc. Once you have your menu together, then you can get everything you need from the grocery store and prep everything at home. Whether you’re preparing meals for yourself or your family, taking the time to plan what you’re going to eat will prevent lots of food waste.

Take Control of Your Health With Meal Prepping

We all know the saying, “You can’t out exercise a bad diet.” And it’s absolutely true. Meal prepping is a practical and effective way to take steps toward reaching your health and fitness goals. It might be a little hard at first, but the benefits you’ll experience far outweigh the time spent prepping. Remember, start small, stay consistent, and watch how meal prepping transforms your eating habits and lifestyle for the better!