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7 Tips for Sticking With Your Meal Prep Plan
Does doing your own meal prep save you money?
If you’re meal prepping as a way to help meet your health and fitness goals, one of the issues that’ll probably come up is how to stick with a meal prep plan. After all, getting started is easy, but staying consistent for long enough to actually see results is the real hard part. Chances are, you’ll hear lots of different advice about how to stick to your meal prep plan. Some people will recommend using spreadsheets, others will swear by goal setting, while yet another group will obsess over the mechanics of making the perfect grocery list. Me? I like to keep it simple. As a former Crossfit athlete who has been using meal prep for years as a strategy to stay on track for my fitness goals while saving time and energy, here are my personal top tips for maintaining your meal prep plan in the long term.
1. Find the Best Recipes
Here’s a golden rule: if it doesn’t taste good, you won’t stick with it. As much as we try to make healthy choices when it comes to food, you simply have to enjoy what you eat if you want to stay consistent and follow through. So take the time to do your research and find the most delicious possible recipes. Try out lots of different things and save the recipes that delight you and make you excited for your next meal. You don’t need anything fancy, even just a list on your phone’s notes app works. Remember, if the food you meal prep isn’t tasty, you might as well quit now.
2. Change Things Up
A common complaint about meal prep is that people don’t like eating the same thing over and over again. And I get that. Even the best recipes get boring after a while. That’s why it’s so important to maintain variety in your meal plan. After all, it is the spice of life. Maybe you’re one of those people who can literally eat the same meal over and over again for a year and never get bored. But from my experience, one of the best ways to make it easier on yourself to stick to your meal prep plan is to plan ahead for a diverse menu. Variety is the spice of life.
3. Use Quality Ingredients
Chances are pretty good that at least one of the reasons you’re attracted to meal planning is that it makes healthy eating easier. And that’s wonderful! One of my favorite things about meal planning is that it makes room for you to be more mindful about which ingredients you’re consuming and eat more whole foods. Because your body knows when you’re putting highly processed foods in it. So make an effort to use natural, free-range, and cage-free meats and organic produce. Avoid canned, packaged, overly processed foods. Your body will thank you for it.
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4. Nutrition is Key
Along the same lines, your high-quality ingredients should also be nutritious. Because if you’re eating food that isn’t good for you, your body will tell you to give up even before your mind does, and you’ll find yourself struggling to continue eating the way you have been.
5. Stick to a Schedule
In our busy lives, things that we don’t plan ahead for just don’t happen. Yes, even planning won’t happen if you forget to plan for it. The point is that you should schedule time in your calendar for meal planning, the same way you would for anything else important to you like your workouts and your quality time with loved ones. That way, you can be sure you’ll actually do it. Of course, you can always subscribe to our weekly delivery service to automate your meal prep too!
6. Don't Be Stingy
Some people meal prep to save money. Personally, I do it to save time - and maintain optimal health. The way I see it, we only have one body, and we have to take care of it. If that means paying a little extra for better quality, I don’t see that as a bad thing. I’d rather save money on other things than the food I’m putting in my one body that’s meant to last me for the rest of my life.
7. Go For It!
And the most important tip of all? Just do it! If you’re sitting around, reading articles about meal prep and contemplating doing it, just go ahead and give it a shot. Get started, keep going. If you fall off, start again. Because even the best, most diligent athletes and responsible people miss their meal prep every once in a while. We’re humans, after all. We slip up. The important thing is that you care about your health and well-being. And you wouldn’t be reading this article if you didn’t. So what are you waiting for? Get started on your meal prep today... and if you want us to take care of it for you, we're more than happy to deliver our mouth-watering meals directly to your door!
