Meal Planning, Do You Or Have You Done It?

arakboss · Mar 12, 2024

If you prepare or have prepared all your meals for a week or more ahead of time, why do or did you do it? Was it successful?

It seems to be popular among the body building crowd who don't mind eating the same thing everyday.

My weightloss coach does this and claims it saves him time, reduces the likelihood of him going off script with his diet, saves him money and time shopping and reduces food waste.

Seems like legit reasons but what about boredom? Where you going to store all those prepacked meals so they don't go bad or get snatched up by other lazier family members?

I might try this diet.

View: https://youtu.be/uwlP748sKYk?feature=shared

Nosferatu · Mar 12, 2024

Back when i was a young athlete, yes. Now that I'm a grown adult and have willpower? bubblegum No!

Certaindeaf · Mar 12, 2024

That dope in the thumbnail looks like a freak, not someone I'd take any sort of advice from.
Eating healthy food isn't that complicated.

Ruger Rich · Mar 12, 2024

Next to sex, good eats is best.

made in china · Mar 12, 2024

My wife and I are both overtime employed. So all of our weekday food is prepped out.

Definitely helps to keep me away from junk/fast food, but it definitely does get boring. After 5 days of the same food, I'm done.

OldTengu · Mar 12, 2024

I have.
The biggest issue I found was definitely getting bored. Rice/beans/protein/cabbage has a lot of options for variety but if you're watching things like sodium, you're in for a potentially very bland time.

Certaindeaf · Mar 12, 2024

OldTengu said:
I have.
The biggest issue I found was definitely getting bored. Rice/beans/protein/cabbage has a lot of options for variety but if you're watching things like sodium, you're in for a potentially very bland time.

I add cabbage to a lot of stuff.. stroganoff, taco skillet, soup, meatloaf, yada. Also, beans are awesome. People with the healthiest gut biomes invariably eat beans fairly regularly.

oremike · Mar 12, 2024

I let my wife do the grocery shopping, meal planing and cooking. She knows I'm on a Heart Healthy/ Diabetic Diet so reads the books and figures out the meal plan. So far, so good I'm down about 60 lbs, my daily insulin is down from 84 units to 40, A1c is down under 6 and the heart keeps ticking away.

Certaindeaf · Mar 12, 2024

This hit common news feeds today, probably again..

Junk food addiction is real, experts say — here are the signs of ‘ultra-processed food use disorder’

These irresistible dishes are not only designed to be delicious, but also addictive — so much so that some experts are calling the insatiable craving a bona fide mental illness.

nypost.com

GrayGoose · Mar 12, 2024

Certaindeaf said:
People with the healthiest gut biomes invariably eat beans fairly regularly.

They also tend not to sleep in the same room, carpool, or share cubicles at work.

OldTengu · Mar 12, 2024

Certaindeaf said:
I add cabbage to a lot of stuff.. stroganoff, taco skillet, soup, meatloaf, yada. Also, beans are awesome. People with the healthiest gut biomes invariably eat beans fairly regularly.

I like cabbage quite a lot. A buddy of mine years ago showed me his way to brine and grill it. Comes out great!
Just take some skewers, 2 or three spaced out an inch or two from one another and slice "steaks" to whatever thickness, marinade, then grill. His marinade was a mix of sesame oil, soy sauce, brown sugar, rice wine and chili crisp.

Certaindeaf · Mar 12, 2024

OldTengu said:
I like cabbage quite a lot. A buddy of mine years ago showed me his way to brine and grill it. Comes out great!
Just take some skewers, 2 or three spaced out an inch or two from one another and slice "steaks" to whatever thickness, marinade, then grill. His marinade was a mix of sesame oil, soy sauce, brown sugar, rice wine and chili crisp.

Broiling would also probably work.
Halved brussels sprouts w olive oil and salt broiled in a shallow pan is the only way to eat them.

OldTengu · Mar 12, 2024

Certaindeaf said:
Broiling would also probably work.
Halved brussels sprouts w olive oil and salt broiled in a shallow pan is the only way to eat them.

Roasting a whole stalk on a fire or grill is worth the time as well. I phuckin' love Brussels sprouts.

TTSX · Mar 12, 2024

Sometimes I try, then I get hungry and eat several days of food at once. I have no willpower at all, just ask my gun dealer.

Certaindeaf · Mar 12, 2024

OldTengu said:
Roasting a whole stalk on a fire or grill is worth the time as well. I phuckin' love Brussels sprouts.

It's asparagus season now.. roast them things!

L84Cabo · Mar 12, 2024

I'm a fan of meal prepping. But here are some comments and tips...in no particular order...

He's lying that that all that takes an hour. No way do I believe it. It would take him an entire hour...at least...just to deal with all that chicken. Probably.
No way do I want to eat 7 day old chicken. That's just playing food poisoning roulette. I don't care how good your fridge is. But maybe he freezes some of it??
Many frozen vegetables don't actually need to be cooked. The frozen broccoli I buy (Vons store brand) is lightly blanched before it's frozen and it's always crisp tender. This is a huge time saving hack. If you buy stuff like this, you don't have to cook it like he did. Just pour the frozen veggies into your storage container in the morning and it will thaw in a few hours and be ready for the microwave. No problem.
Frozen brown/white rice is another great time saving hack. It's obviously a bit more expensive than making rice yourself, but it may be worth it...or at least having some of it on hand. So give that some thought. If you're willing to eat real basic, all you would have to cook is the chicken. Then you just dole out however much frozen rice and broccoli you want into your container in the morning, and then add the chicken and you're done.
Meal prep is a hate, love, hate, endeavor. I hate the prep. I love not having to cook during the week and it makes staying on your diet super easy. But it can get boring. It is also no small feat to choke down 9 oz of plain white meat chicken breast. He didn't even season it but you can add that at meal time I guess. But you're probably going to need some soy sauce, salsa, or a lot of water to get it down. Chicken breast is pretty dry no matter how well you cook it. And you have to cook it. I mean, eating undercooked chicken is downright dangerous. And there's no way you're going to cook it, store it, and then reheat it in the microwave and not have it be at least a little bit dry.
Meal prepping fish is insane. Fish is the only thing I can't eat leftovers of...let alone eating it 3-7 days later. That's nuts. If you can do this, more power to you. I'd prep some sirloins all day every day over prepping fish...and I like fish. *shudders*
You could take all that chicken a day ahead of time and marinate it in something simple...which would probably do wonders to enjoying it more and make it easier to eat as it wouldn't be so dry.
Again, he's not getting all that cooked, stored, and cleaned up in an hour. Sorry, not buying it. It also doesn't look like his portioning it out ahead of time, but portioning it out each morning or the night before. But that's at least a 15-20 minute exercise x 7 days.

arakboss · Mar 13, 2024

L84Cabo said:
I'm a fan of meal prepping. But here are some comments and tips...in no particular order...

He's lying that that all that takes an hour. No way do I believe it. It would take him an entire hour...at least...just to deal with all that chicken. Probably.

No way do I want to eat 7 day old chicken. That's just playing food poisoning roulette. I don't care how good your fridge is. But maybe he freezes some of it??

Many frozen vegetables don't actually need to be cooked. The frozen broccoli I buy (Vons store brand) is lightly blanched before it's frozen and it's always crisp tender. This is a huge time saving hack. If you buy stuff like this, you don't have to cook it like he did. Just pour the frozen veggies into your storage container in the morning and it will thaw in a few hours and be ready for the microwave. No problem.

Frozen brown/white rice is another great time saving hack. It's obviously a bit more expensive than making rice yourself, but it may be worth it...or at least having some of it on hand. So give that some thought. If you're willing to eat real basic, all you would have to cook is the chicken. Then you just dole out however much frozen rice and broccoli you want into your container in the morning, and then add the chicken and you're done.

Meal prep is a hate, love, hate, endeavor. I hate the prep. I love not having to cook during the week and it makes staying on your diet super easy. But it can get boring. It is also no small feat to choke down 9 oz of plain white meat chicken breast. He didn't even season it but you can add that at meal time I guess. But you're probably going to need some soy sauce, salsa, or a lot of water to get it down. Chicken breast is pretty dry no matter how well you cook it. And you have to cook it. I mean, eating undercooked chicken is downright dangerous. And there's no way you're going to cook it, store it, and then reheat it in the microwave and not have it be at least a little bit dry.

Meal prepping fish is insane. Fish is the only thing I can't eat leftovers of...let alone eating it 3-7 days later. That's nuts. If you can do this, more power to you. I'd prep some sirloins all day every day over prepping fish...and I like fish. *shudders*

You could take all that chicken a day ahead of time and marinate it in something simple...which would probably do wonders to enjoying it more and make it easier to eat as it wouldn't be so dry.

Again, he's not getting all that cooked, stored, and cleaned up in an hour. Sorry, not buying it. It also doesn't look like his portioning it out ahead of time, but portioning it out each morning or the night before. But that's at least a 15-20 minute exercise x 7 days.

I agree with calling BS on the time required. I made two different rice dishes today. Two pounds of precooked sausage in one and less than a pound of chicken in the other. That took two hours. I froze a couple of containers and only need them to get me through to Saturday night.

My prep plan is not about healthy eating right now. I have very limited freezer and fridge space so I will rely on prepackaged foods for much of my planned diet.

I am going to aim for four to five meals a day. The benefits I am expecting are less dishes to wash, less time cooking and cleaning, less food waste, less snacking in between meals and possibly lower grocery cost and fewer trips to stores.

I am not doing any macros or calorie planning for now but will try incorporating that later if the meal prepping works for me.

I just added frozen mixed vegetables to my rice dish and heated it all in the microwave together. They come out fine that way.

Pop tart, protein powder in water and ounce of cheese was meal 1, rice dish with sausage, mixed vege, 6 squares of chocolate bar and ounce of peanuts was meal 2, sandwich on bagel or english muffin is coming up for third meal. Fourth meal will be trail mix and pepperoni sticks. Fifth meal will be rice dish with chicken. I love my salt.

arakboss · Mar 14, 2024

Something else to consider with meal prepping is that it may provide you with more time to eat. Imagine you have 45mins available to cook, eat and clean up in a meal period. Cooking could easily take 20min of that time, Clean up could take another 10mins. That leaves you 15mins to eat. If the food was made ahead of time and only required a plate, fork and short amount of time in the microwave, you could have much more time available to eat more or eat slower.