Meal Prep: Save Money, Time And Fight Diabetes
Many of us aspire to live a healthy and active lifestyle to feel good and energized. But when we struggle with a busy schedule, cooking healthy meals on our own can become an impossible task. This leaves us no choice but to eat out and spend more money in restaurants and unhealthy fast foods to help save time. “Meal prep” is the act of planning, preparing, and packaging your meals for the upcoming week and this can possibly solve your problems related to poor eating habits. The goal of this process is to promote portion control and provide healthy meals and boost your immunity as well. It is the key for supplementing your fitness goals with balanced and delicious meals without spending too much on your food. Keep in mind that there are no wrong or right way in meal prepping. It is all about what works for you personally and what goals you are trying to attain. Below are the top benefits meal prep can bring to your life.
- Saves You From Overspending
Preparing for your meals the entire week ahead means you can buy your ingredients in bulk. Of course buying products in large amounts is cheaper. Indeed buying them in bulk at the farmer’s market allows you to haggle and perhaps save more money on most ingredients. Having ready-made meals in your freezer will also prevent you from purchasing over-priced meals at restaurants.
- Your Shopping Trip Becomes Easier
Meal prepping allows you to plan the recipes you want to enjoy later and encourage you to list down the exact ingredients you need to buy and come prepared before shopping. It also prevents you from wandering aimlessly in the store, wasting time deciding what other ingredients you will need to buy. Before you shop, have your list ready and categorize the ingredients according to proteins, frozen food, grains, fat content, dairy, fruits and vegetables. Having an organized list will enable you from to miss the junk food aisle.
- You Will Learn Portion Control
You can easily buy meal containers on websites like Amazon.com. Such containers are just the right size for you to whip up meals that satisfy your daily calorie requirement. Packing meals in them also will refrain you from cooking meals in unnecessary quantities that often ends up in the trash bins. When you produce less waste, you help save the environment.
- Helps You Save Time
Though meal prepping requires you to invest a couple of hours every week to plan, shop, prepare and cook your meals, you still generally end up saving more time. If you think about it, you waste hours just by standing in front of the fridge, pondering about what to prepare and what to cook. Once your meals are readily available inside your freezer, all you have to do is pop one out and heat it up inside the microwave or stove.
- Prevents Deadly Health Problems Like Diabetes
The best part about meal prep is that you get to cook what you want to eat ahead of time. People who make this a habit tend to eat cleaner and healthier. The impact of preparing your meals ahead of time will help you regulate your fat, sugar and salt intakes, which means it can assist you in staving off health problems like obesity, insulin resistance, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. As these conditions can usually be prevented with an improved nutrition. Meal prep is also a wonderful technique for diabetes prevention. Since you already decided the daily meals you will be eating for the entire week, it gives you the chance to reduce your carbohydrates and sugar intake. It also stops you from scrambling to find something to eat, and protect you from the risk of being exposed to unhealthy food with too much sugar. As you get into the swing of healthy eating, your cravings for sugar and other unhealthy items will gradually decrease and save you from detrimental diseases that could be prevented by gaining a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle. Whipping up your meals ahead of time gets you to eat a variety of nutritious food from different categories of proteins, grains, fats, fruits and vegetables. Feel free to mix up recipes every week to make your meals more enjoyable with more diversity. There is no wrong or right way to meal prep. Everyone can have his or her own approach in meal prepping. If you’re new to this concept, some of trial and error at the beginning will lead you to the delicious recipes and techniques that work best for you.
Guest Post By: Katrina Rice