The Dark Underbelly of Meal Planning

I want to try something new with my eating. I want to give meal prep a go. That's the one where you make all your meals and snacks ahead of time, then just eat what is in the pre-portioned out of a cute, little container. I thought it might help me not only lose some weight, but regulate my protein and meals better for my energy and muscles. It's easy for me to forget to eat until I get too hungry, then make bad choices. One of the blessings of having ADD.

I decided I was going to pack ahead for breakfast and lunch, but not dinner. For dinner I would just have a set menu like I usually do.

Breakfast was pretty easy to put together. I put everything into a big bowl, then scooped that into small baby food jars (that I use for my dog's food). That made five breakfasts.

Inside is:

• whole oats (gluten free oatmeal)
• walnut butter & almond butter
• frozen berries
• vanilla protein powder
• ground flax
• honey
  
  
  
  
  

Next up were my snack packs. I'm not a snacker by nature, but I'm working on that. Inside is:

• super baby carrots (the smallest I could find)
• sliced celery hearts
• black bean dip
  (1 can black beans drained and rinsed, oat milk, dried onion flakes, smoked paprika, pepper, salt, pepper flakes, red pepper spice, hot sauce of choice.)

High in protein and super tasty! This is the best way for me to find a short chain fatty acid dip. To make it myself in the food processor.

Now came the hard part. Lunch. My husband and I decided on chicken burrito bowls.

But wait... that's not chicken! Well, turns out I was short on chicken, so two bowls are Vegan with pinto beans instead.

It looks so delicious. What could possibly go wrong?

To start let me say this took about three hours. That's just the lunch. Not the breakfast and snack. And that's with my husband helping by slicing the onion, jalapeños, tomatoes and lettuce. I did the chicken and rice.

I baked the chicken breast in salsa, salt, pepper and a little Tapatio. Then I intended to finish it off in a hot skillet with a bit of walnut oil. Except I was too eager and didn't get the skillet hot enough. Darn. It was still tasty though.

But check this out...

What they don't show you on Pinterest

I had SO MANY DISHES from just the lunch! It was a bit nuts actually. My kitchen was a mess. I did it though and managed to make us each four lunches. I typically have lunch once a week at my mom's, so I didn't need five.

Here's what it is:

• diced onion
• diced cherry tomatoes
• fresh mixed greens
• chicken breast (pinto beans in 2)
• sliced jalapeños
• brown organic rice (cooked in a can of diced tomatoes with green chilies, 1tbsp walnut oil and organic spicy veggie broth.)

That's it! No cheese. 

Both the breakfast and the lunch were delicious. I didn't have my snack today because I got a late start. I had breakfast at 10 and lunch at 2. At 6pm we'll be starting dinner. 

I learned a lot from my first time doing meal prep and planning.

1. It will take a lot of food. Buy double what you think you'll need. I almost didn't have enough and ran out of chicken.
2. Buy the right containers. I was lucky to find great ones my first try, but that's important. Especially for fitting everything into the fridge when done.
3. Clean out your fridge before you make the meals. Make sure you have lots of free space.
4. Have a backup plan in case you run out of an ingredient.
5. Measure to get your portion size correct. For example I used a 1/2 cup for the rice in the burrito bowls.
6. Have someone to help you, or buy things already cut or cooked to save energy and time.
7. Get your skillet super hot to finish off any meat.
8. Have an empty dishwasher. Ha ha.