Meal Pr - Save Time and Stay on Track | Ep. 195

00:00Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else. Some tips for you guys for the actual meal prep process. Number one, set aside time. And I say this to everybody I've ever coached in my entire life.

00:32Dedicate a specific day of the week and time to meal prep. So for me, an example that I've used already is Sundays, our popular choice. And they are popular for me too as well. But it depends on your schedule. Hey, you guys. What's going on? Welcome to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkie Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. And on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident.

01:05I am your host, Nikkie Stott. And welcome to today's episode, episode 195. We are five away from 200. I feel like I need to do something elaborate for 200. But I don't know if I'm going to be able to. But anyway, five away. And then also, it was super cool, which I just checked our stats. And I'm still so mind blown at this. We have 620,000 downloads to this podcast since its birth in January of 2023.

01:35That means we are like 380,000 downloads away from 1 million downloads. And I want to be able to do that. I think we totally can do that before January 2024, before or 2025, before its two-year birthday. The WarriorBabe Show is two-year birthday. So the way that you guys can help do that is just keep spreading the word. Keep leaving reviews. Share it with your girlfriend, a fitness friend, your co-worker, your aunt.

02:07Keep sharing this podcast with as many people that you think would find value in it. Because that just keeps spreading the word. And that just keeps getting more people to download the episodes. And helps us to reach that goal of 1 million before our two-year birthday. Let's do it. I'm putting it out into the universe. Let's do it, guys. But today, let's dive into the episode. I think that this episode, some way, will also kind of help with the last episode that I recorded. Which was about intuitive eating. They kind of go together. But it will make you feel more successful with this concept today.

02:42With intuitive eating, too, as well. So anyway, let's talk about it. Because this topic is near and dear to my heart. If it wasn't for this topic, at the beginning of my journey, I don't think that I would have been as successful as I was. Without making sure that I was very disciplined in this aspect of a responsibility, a task, X, Y, and Z. That I had to deploy on in order to stay on track. So with that being said, today's, I believe, is a true game changer for anyone that is striving to stay on track.

03:15Or striving to find success with your nutrition aspect of your journey. And that is... Drumroll, please. Do you guys have any idea what it is? Meal prep. Meal prep. I want to talk to you. It's like meal prep 101. And maybe if you guys, you know, could be tenured listening to this podcast. You're like, Nikki, I do meal prep like the back of my hand. Maybe you'll pick up tips and tricks from this episode that you can like speed up your meal prep game.

03:46Or if you're new and just starting out, I get it. Dude, when I heard the meal prep when I first started, I was like, this is so tedious. This is so time consuming. And you're not wrong. But when it's done right, it can actually save you a ton of time. It can reduce a lot of stress. And it can help you be way more successful in hitting your goals. So whether you're just starting out your journey or you're trying to like re-refine your meal prep routine,

04:17I hope that this episode provides you with some practical tips to making meal prepping easy and more efficient. And guys, if I'm stumbling on my words, I'm coming up. It's 5.45 p.m. in the afternoon on Thursday. And I'm coming up with on the end of my day after already recording the intuitive eating podcast earlier and then going through five different meetings. And then kind of all in and out of all different types of energy throughout the day.

04:48So I'm wrapping up this. I was like, what's a good topic that I can still bring to them that's super easy and I could just jam on, you know, for the next 30 minutes and that meal prep came to my mind. So I hope, you know, this serves you guys in a way that may be helpful or beneficial or one way or another. And like I said, if you're in your journey and you already know meal prep, maybe peel something out of here that will help make it more efficient. It may get faster for you. Anyway, let's talk about why meal prepping is so important, especially when it comes to achieving your goals.

05:19Guys, meal prepping isn't just about having food ready for the week. It's not just about having food in your fridge ready for tomorrow or the next day. It's about taking control of your food. It's about taking control of your nutrition. When you meal prep, you eliminate the guesswork. You don't have to scramble to find something healthy when you're too busy or you're too tired. And you avoid those last minute decisions that often lead to unhealthy choices and unhealthy behavior and unhealthy takeout, unhealthy snacking.

05:54Right. Like you when you meal prep, you are in control of you deciding what you are going to be eating the next day rather than. I remember the beginning of my journey when I wasn't so like honed in on meal prep yet. I would be at Wawa, the convenience store, the gas station I talk about a couple of times on the podcast. And I'd be in Wawa trying to scramble to try and find like a protein bar or something that looked healthy. But like in reality, it's not really healthy and it's like an unhealthy snacking. Or at the end of the day, if I'm too tired, like I'll just resort to making a last minute decision, which is like, oh, I'm going to, you know, order takeout tonight.

06:31Right. So meal prepping gives you the so many aspects. There's so many aspects that are beneficial to meal prepping. One being consistency. So meal prepping allows you to stay consistent with your nutrition, which is so critical for you seeing results, whether it be that you're in a fat loss phase or building phase or a maintenance phase. It doesn't matter if you are meal prepping and you're meal prepping consistently. It allows you to be consistent with your nutrition, which is so important to you seeing the results that you want to see along your journey.

07:05Number two, it allows you to have portion control. So by prepping your meals ahead of time, you can make sure that your portion sizes align with your macronutrient goals. You're less you're much far less likely. Wow. You're much far less likely. You're much less likely to overeat when your meals are already pre portioned. Right. The beginning of my journey, I loved this aspect of meal prep because I would meal prep all of my meals.

07:35I weigh out all of my meals and I would put it in their own respective like I would have three different Tupperwares that consisted of three different meals. And I would put it into the fridge and the next day I would be able to take out that and I'd already have a pre portioned. It's already logged inside my fitness pal. And I would just take that with me to work. And that allowed me to be so much more successful on my journey, which allowed me to be consistent, which allowed me to see results. And another huge benefit of meal prepping, which I don't think a lot of people take into account or think about this one so much.

08:09Maybe you do. Maybe you don't. I don't know. But it saves time and it saves money. So even though you think that it takes a lot of time and maybe grocery bills run up, it's you're saving the time by taking 30 minutes to an hour out of your day on a Sunday to prep all of these things. Rather than like last minute thinking and thought processes and what am I going to eat and spending so much time in the thought process and like, oh, you're back and forth because your friend doesn't agree on what you want to eat. And then you're stuck in this limbo of like, where are we going to go for lunch?

08:39Or, you know, at the end of the day, you're like, honey, you know, what do we want to have for dinner? Where that's time. You're thinking about what you're going to eat. But meal prep is like, oh, it's already done. So it saves time. And the money, it saves you money. Even in the grocery bill looks like, you know, a lot. It's because you're paying in lump sum for your meals across the day and the week. And I remember I broke this down, I think, let's say per individual. Let's just break it down and say that, like, I think my grocery bills and I'm an individual and I know that there's families.

09:12And moms listening to this episode, too, as well. So take this with like, you know, I'm just breaking it down individually. You can break it down, you know, for your family, too, by doubling what I say here or tripling it or whatever and how many heads you have to feed. But I think like, I think roughly my grocery bills are anywhere between $100 and $130. So let's just go $115 for the week divided by seven days. That's $16 in a day divided by me eating, let's just say four meals. That's $4 per meal.

09:44I think a per meal right now with where we're at, with how much things are, has got to be around $10, right? Or like maybe even more, $15. I don't know because all I focus on is either meal prep or I use just meats. By the way, it's a little like drop in here. I'm not affiliated with them. I don't have an ad for them. This isn't an ad. It's just something that I personally do and I freaking love them. And I've been using them for the last three months. I got away.

10:14I don't know if I've talked about trifecta in the episodes prior. I got away from using them because they changed their whole way of the product was made. It was just interesting to me. Not a fan of it anymore. So I use just meats. Now, just meats is just protein. But you know how easy it is? I grab mashed potatoes or rice or some type of carb. It's super easy to like heat up or make. And I just combine the two. But yeah, so $16 a day. I mean, again, if you're eating four meals, it's $4 a meal. $16 usually gets you one meal.

10:45So it saves you so much time. If you bulk your food, it saves you time. And if you bulk your ingredients and you bulk all of this, it all reduces you and your overall expenses and time is what I'm trying to say. And it avoids the temptation of you spending too much out to dinner. Or, you know, let's say you don't have meal prep, then you go to takeout and you're spending them 50 bucks right there for takeout.

11:17So all in all to say that sounds time consuming, but it's not really when you break it down, look at it realistically. And then you think it's a lot of money, but it's not really when you break down, look at it realistically. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned

11:50muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results and results that last. Look, don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation. That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. How would you get started with meal prep?

12:22So I want to break down just some simple steps. If you're newer to the game, kind of going to go through these super fast because I think majority of you guys are, I don't know, I think majority of you guys are. I'm not sure to be quite honest, but I want to be able to help you guys make it easy to integrate it into your weekly routine so you don't feel so daunted to getting into meal prep. And I, you know, my intuition is like, no, there's so many, a lot of people listen to this and know they have to do a meal prep, but they don't do it because of what you're saying, it takes too much time. Okay, look, so let's get started with meal prep. That's what I want to break it down into.

12:52And just three simple, easy steps. The way you can get started is planning meals. So the first, the first aspect to meal prepping is planning. Decide what your, what your meals are going to be and you can prep them ahead of time. So it's, it's often helpful to focus on meals that are the hardest to fit into your schedule. So for example, I know for me, when I was working in the emergency room back in the day, one of the hardest things for me to fit into my schedule was lunch because I work seven to

13:26three or seven to seven. And so, and it was, it was easy for me to be at home. And I think a lot of you guys, majority, it's easier for you guys if you're at home early in the morning to like prep your breakfast and make your breakfast. But then it's up to you to figure out like, okay, what am I going to do for lunch? And then what am I going to do for a snack? And that's usually where I found what I was stumbling the most. So it helped me to not only have a plan, but then to be able from that plan, move in to,

13:57actually, hold on. So I would, lunch was the, lunch was the one that was hard for me to plan. So I would say to you guys as a takeaway, that's why I wanted to backtrack. So you had a takeaway to be able to, okay, this is what I'm starting with. This is what I need to do. Your first step is a planning meal. So look at your weekly schedule and decide how many meals you need to prep. Do you have busy work days? Do you have nights where you might not have enough time to cook?

14:27And then planning ahead of, of, for those ensures that you're never caught without a healthy meal. So basically like for me, lunch was it. So I would look at my week and I would know that I'm working Monday through Thursday, seven to three. And so I would make sure that the ahead of, you know, on Sunday, I'd prep all my meals and then I would plan all of my meals and then I will put them in the Tupperware and then they would be ready to go for those four work days so that I can, you know, pull them

14:59out and make sure that I'm staying on track and I'm consistent. So think about that. So take a look at your weekly schedule, decide how many meals you have to prep. Then from there, once you've decided on your meals, you can make a grocery list. So you can write down everything that you need for your recipes, what proteins, what carbs, what fats, what vegetables. And then having that list helps you to stay organized and prevents you from buying unnecessary things, which can tack up the cost, but it helps you to buy from buying unnecessary things. And then from there, you're able to go to the grocery store and be able to choose things

15:36that are simple, but yet fun and healthy and nutritious and enjoyable. Because that's what I hear a lot of times is like, oh, well, you know, meal prepping is so bland and so boring. But if you think about these fun ideas of which you can plan meals, create a grocery list, and then you have it all written down and then think how fast you can navigate the grocery store with that too as well. And then from there, it's just about making fun things that are easy to make in bulk. So how I would navigate that is like, if you're looking with grilled chicken and roasted vegetables,

16:13you can do quinoa salads, you can do stir fries, you can do overnight oats for breakfast. Like keep it simple. No need to overcomplicate it. Because I think that's where when like, like I'm not the type of person that's going to be added in like paprika and parsley and X amount of this ingredient and that ingredient, all these different types of ingredients. I'm going to keep it silly, super simple, especially if I'm just starting out. So this is where if you're just starting out with meal prep, keep it silly, silly, stupid,

16:46simple to begin with. Don't overwhelm yourself. And then if you're like, okay, and I'm thinking about all the concerns and questions that are going to come out of this. Well, I have a family. Okay, well, for the time being, just try and navigate this for yourself and then make multiple quantities of the meals you're making for yourself for your family. And they may not like it because it's boring and it's whatever, but you can totally spice it up with like different sauces or switching up flavors or using different cooking methods.

17:18So it doesn't have to be overly boring, but you do have to make some type of change from where you're at right now to where you want to go in order to get results. So in order to do that, if you're the sole proprietor of making all the healthy or making all the food choices and cooking all the meals, you are the one that can say, hey squad, right now we're going to navigate this type of style for a little bit because mom's trying to do X, Y, and Z and I want everybody to be on board, but I'm going to try and make it as enjoyable as possible as I can for everybody. You're in the control of that. And then you get to make everybody be healthy along the way.

17:48Okay. So those are three simple, easy tips. If you're just starting out, plan your meals, create a grocery list, then keep it silly, stupid, simple. Now that you've planned all of your meals, you shop for all your groceries. Let's actually talk about the meal prep process. I want to give you like a step-by-step guide to make your meal prep so easy, quick, efficient, and stress-free, which by the way, on YouTube, if you go to Warrior Babes YouTube, you can see I did meal prep.

18:20It's pretty chaotic. I'm not going to lie. But I tried to challenge myself to do meal prep in 30 minutes or less. And I got it right on point for 30 minutes. So if I can do it, you guys can do it too. I'll say though, with that, the beginning of my journey, it took longer. But it's the same thing when I said in the last episode with macros. It's like, yeah, it's going to take longer than the beginning when you've never done something before. But if you keep doing it over and over and over again, it's going to get so much faster

18:50and so much quicker. And that's why I can do it nowadays in 30 minutes or less. So anyway, some tips for you guys for the actual meal prep process. Number one, set aside time. Dedicate, and I say this to everybody I've ever coached in my entire life, dedicate a specific day of the week and time to meal prep. So for me, an example that I've used already is Sundays, our popular choice. And they are popular for me too as well. But it depends on your schedule. What I would recommend is on Sunday or whatever day of the week works best for you, set aside

19:21one to two hours to get everything done. And at the same time, so that it's not daunting or overwhelming or boring or whatever associated feeling you associate with meal prep, make it fun. So put on a podcast, put on some music that you can dance to, put on your favorite show in the background. Think about if it's like a Zen time for you that you can focus on putting, you know, one or two hours of meal prep together. And then think about the outcome, vision, the outcome of which is going to help you be so successful because that's what's going to make it a little bit more enjoyable.

19:51This one, the second tip, if you don't do this more seasoned veterans that are listening to this, do it because it's going to absolutely change the game for the way that you meal prep. Cook in bulk. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss,

20:25Warrior Babe is here for you. At Warrior Babe, we've helped over 18,000 women just like you lose body fat, build toned muscle, and understand their bodies better with personalized plans based on hormone and thyroid testing and more. Imagine knowing exactly what your body needs to see real results and results that last. Look, don't wait anymore. Take charge of your health and join our community of strong, empowered women. Visit warriorbabe.com forward slash apply today to start your transformation.

20:57That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. Focus on cooking proteins with proteins, carbs with carbs, and vegetables with vegetables in bulk. So you can grill it, you can bake it, you can do it several different ways. But cook a batch of rice, a batch of quinoa, a batch of chicken, a batch of vegetables. And that way you can mix all of the ingredients throughout the week to create different types

21:30of meals. But you do this all at once. Not like some people like to change, like to do two days of meal prepping, and that's totally fine. Find what interests you the most or how you want to jam on this. Some people do Sundays and Wednesdays. Um, but cook all of these things in bulk and at the same time cook them all like protein on the stove or not protein on the stove. Um, protein in the oven. You can bake the protein while at the same time you got vegetables on the stove and you

22:03got sweet potatoes in the air fryer and you got rice on the stove because you can do it while the air fryer is being taken up. You know, do it, try and multitask. And if you're a mom, you can multitask no problem. So this should be no problem. Not only are you cooking in bulk, but you're also multitasking with the different things that you are cooking at the same time. Then, and this is the third tip, uh, once your food is all cooked, portion it out into

22:36individual containers. So if some people can portion it out and do portion control is the third tip, or what I would say is like, okay, all of your protein is in one container. All of your carbs are in one container. All of your vegetables are in one container. And that's how I specifically do it. And then when you're ready to pull it out and do portions of for your day, then you would obviously use a food scale and you could track your macros. You can do all of that and then portion it out to specifically what the meals need to look like. But this step is so critical for making sure that your meals align with your macro goals

23:09and it helps to prevent you from overeating. So two step, you can portion out all your protein, fats, and carbs into its own containers. And then from there, portion out your meals, or you can portion out all of your meals. Or you can do both. I would portion out all of the protein in its own thing in the next, for the next day, start portioning out all of my meals. And then at the end of my days, I would portion out all of my meals for the next day from the bigger overall protein, carbs, and vegetable, and fats, you know, containers.

23:40So that's like a two or three and four step. Then obviously you're putting all of these containers and putting them away in your fridge. So set aside time. Set a specific day and time to meal prep. Cook your items in bulk, but also cook your items all at the same time. And like what I, so how to navigate that to another trick that just came to my mind. Like, okay, well, protein takes longer. So protein is going to go in first into the oven. And then I'm going to start on the rice.

24:10And then I'm going to start on the sweet potatoes. And I'm going to start, finish out the vegetables because it's pretty quick. Or you can even put the vegetables in the oven too at the same time. You know what I mean? So think about that. You got to really strategize it to make it go quick, efficient, and stress-free. Yeah, this is all clicking. I hope this is all clicking for you guys. And then I know like meal prepping can, like I kind of touched on this a little bit. Some concerns that when it comes to meal prepping is it can be boring or I'm eating the same things

24:41every single time, but it doesn't have to be that way. So like how I used to switch up, because when I'm, what I would recommend for people that are just starting out their journey, like to keep it silly, stupid, simple, you'd pretty much be eating the same meals for like two weeks. And after that, it can get kind of boring, right? So use different seasonings, use different herbs, use different spices, use different flavors that can, you know, spice up your most basic, you know, food types. So for example, grilled chicken can be seasoned with Italian herbs one week and then turn it

25:14around to like, into like a spicy fajita bowl the next week. You know what I mean? So like you told it, you could totally switch it up. Use different cookie methods. You can do grilling, you can do baking, you can do roasting, you know, all those type of different things. And that can give you a little bit of a different flavor when you're eating the meals. My favorite thing to do was doing sauces and dressings. So and healthy sauces and dressings that can transform the most simple basic meal into like the next level meal.

25:45And then rotate some of your recipes. So like, I would say for anyone starting out, you keep the same lunch and dinners for the two weeks, you could have different breakfasts on daily basis, different snacks. And then after those two weeks are up, or even weeks are up, you switch out the lunch and the breakfast or the lunch and the dinner. So just rotating your recipes. I hope you guys are finding this super helpful because like, as I'm talking out loud, like, this is like, even like nice little refreshers to my brain on like meal prepping tactics.

26:17So as we wrap up with this entire podcast, I mean, there's ways of which you can get started with meal prepping that I talked about ways that once you have all of those like basic starter things down, then how to actually be successful in the meal prep process. Um, but before we wrap up, I do want to talk about challenges people do face and how to overcome them. So one being the time constraints, I just want to like talk about this because I know that some people are like, it's a concern.

26:48Um, and it takes too much time and I don't have the time or I'm too busy. You just focus. If you, if that is a concern and you like, literally, I want to just nail this excuse out the door. If that, if time is a concern to you, then still being successful for you, you can focus on prepping just one or two meals ahead of time. So you don't have to meal prep for every single day of the week, but you can start small. And as you get more comfortable, you can increase the number of meals that you are prepping for.

27:21So just prep some chicken and some ground beef for tomorrow, tonight. You see what I mean? So you don't have to overwhelm yourself with getting eight chicken breasts and two pounds of ground beef and prepping all of that. You can just, if time truly is a constraint for you, just focus on going to the grocery store after work tonight, grabbing, um, a chicken breast and a pound of ground beef and meal prepping that for your meals tomorrow.

27:52And then once you're like, ah, I can do this. See, it's just about starting small because once you do that, then you believe in yourself a little bit more and you feel more confident and feel more comfortable. And then you can increase the numbers of what you're meal prepping for. Um, same thing goes with the portion controls. Like I told you, you can feel not like you're, you're doing the same thing over and over and again. So mix, match different veggies, different sauces, um, different carbs, different proteins. And I feel like that would just keep your meals more exciting.

28:22And those are ways that you kind of like just overcome some common challenges. If you have them one time being one or portion fatigue and getting boring, swap it out, move things around, change it up, you know, eliminate those excuses from your, from your brain. And then just know that these, like this aspect can be successful for you if you are willing to figure it out essentially. Because what I did with my journey at the beginning, meal prepping, I felt all the things that you guys feel when you're first starting out your journey.

28:54Or even if like you're fatigued, like halfway through and you're still like, oh, how can I make meal prepping more enjoyable? Um, I had to figure some things out that works for me. So like while I'm giving you all these tips and these tricks and these strategies and processes to make it easier and more time efficient and all the things, you also have to like take this, but also figure out what works best for you. So at the end of the day though, like meal prepping is one of the most effective tool strategies to stay on track with your nutrition, to reach your goals on a weekly, on a daily basis,

29:27on a monthly basis. You just got to put in a little bit of planning and preparation. And when you do that, you save time, you can stay consistent with your macros and you can avoid the temptation of making unhealthy food choices, uh, throughout the week and like staying on track. Like I always say plan to fail, fail to plan. Like if you plan to fail with your meal prep, then you're be, be prepared to, if you plan to fail, be prepared to, no, I'm saying that backwards, fail to plan.

29:59So if you're failing to plan with your meal prep, then plan to fail with the goals you have set for yourself in your journey. Because meal prep is a big, as I said, beginning of the podcast, it is a game changer for you to staying on, on track with your nutrition, but most importantly, like being successful with, uh, staying on track with your nutrition. So, and remember, it's not all about perfection as well. It's about progress moving forward. So just start small, experiment with different things, find a meal prep routine that works

30:33for you and adjust it as you go. So like if you're, if you're in the middle of it and you're, you know, hopefully you found some takeaways for just like spicing up your routine, but you'll just, no matter what, you'll notice how much easier it is to stick to your nutrition plan and make healthier choices at the end of the day. All right. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Hope you enjoyed this podcast. Hope there were some takeaways, share this episode with somebody else that may be struggling with the meal prep aspect of it. And hopefully I just, hopefully this was, uh, you guys were all able to take this something

31:05from it and be able to go apply it into your day to day. That's all I hope out of these episodes. All right, guys, catch you on the flip side. See you in the next episode. Peace out. Hey guys, real quick. If you're interested in taking your body to the next level, lose body fat, build more muscle, feel more confident. Do it alongside one of our 30 plus professional coaches. Work one-on-one with her to eliminate all of the guesswork that you may have. And all you need to do is just do the work that she tells you to do to get to those goals

31:37of yours. And to learn more, click the link below this podcast and apply to our VIP program right now.

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.