Prep Once and Eat Twice (or Thrice!)

Although I’ve come to love cooking, I’ll be the first one to admit that it isn’t always the most appealing option after a long day. By the time you’ve picked a recipe, gone grocery shopping and cooked a meal that (hopefully) everyone likes, you’re exhausted!  I hear you- It’s a constant battle to not pick up the phone and place an order for everyone’s favorite pizza place down the road.

Now, I’m not saying you have to LOVE cooking to be healthy- you just have to learn to cook SMARTER. To ease you into the process, here are some tips to make cooking as efficient as possible while allowing you to make the best decisions for your (soon to be) lean, sexy body!

• I know it’s easier said than done, but the first step to battling the cravings and not kicking yourself later for making poor food decisions is just removing the option from the table … literally. Throw out the take out menus and remove it as an option from your mind. 
•  Instead of starting from scratch each meal, follow a pre-determined schedule so you don’t have to make decisions on an empty stomach. Simply follow the regiment that you created for yourself earlier in the week- and stick to it! It’ll become routine.  You’ll love not having to mull over recipes and struggle to make a meal out of whatever random ingredients are left in your fridge.
• The more ingredients you can prep to stretch across multiple meals the better; less work during the week= greater likelihood for you to follow your meal plan. Do this by prepping your veggies ahead of time, precooking your meats and utilizing ingredients that can be carried throughout multiple meals in the day.
• One of my favorite ingredients for this is BROWN RICE. Cook a large quantity with dinner making sure there will be plenty of leftovers. Use the remaining rice for porridge during breakfast, add it to soup for lunch and then use it as a side with your chicken and stir fry for dinner.

If this sounds like too much work- I challenge you to try this routine for ONE WEEK.
List out every meal you plan to eat in the week and what ingredients you’ll need. Think about food that can be used for multiple meals and prep as much as you can beforehand.

I think you’ll find that not only are you feeling happier and healthier, but that the time you save DECIDING and COOKING from scratch cuts down your time in the kitchen dramatically- leaving more time for you to relax and do what YOU LOVE  to do and not be defined by your meals.

Who knows, maybe you’ll even find that cooking is what you love to do!