Sunday Food Prep

Food prepping is a great way to set yourself up for the week ahead. I like having all of my food prepared in advance so I don't have to worry about what I'm going to be eating each day or have to save extra time to get my lunches together. I only really prepare my snacks and lunches, and I'll cut up vegetables in case I need them for anything. These pictures are from the food prep I did last week. 

The main things you need are: a strainer, cutting board, ziploc bags and tupperware. You don't need to use a food scale but if you're counting calories, it's super helpful. They're inexpensive and definitely worth it.

Before I do anything, I turn on the oven and get whatever meat or fish I'm cooking ready to go. That way, I can start portioning other food while that cooks. I usually only cook fish (I'm not a huge fish person so I make tilapia because it's very mild) and sometimes chicken. 

Once the fish or chicken is in the oven, I start with the fruit. Take whichever fruit you're portioning and rinse it well, and then just separate it into however many bags you think you'll need. I portioned the grapes at roughly 200g a bag, so that's about 138 calories/bag, which is enough for a snack. I try to use ziploc bags whenever I can because it's easy and requires less dishwashing. :D

BUY ORGANIC STRAWBERRIES!!!! I know buying organic can be expensive but if you're going to buy ANYTHING, make it strawberries, butter, or coffee beans. One thing I learned from GLPTI is that strawberries and coffee beans are the most heavily sprayed with pesticides. And organic butter is actually GOOD for you! Non-organic butter is loaded with the bad, artery clogging fats, but organic butter is loaded with a ton of good things that will make your body happy. (I'll post a link at the bottom of this for more info on butter.) 

Now for the berries. Usually I'll also have blueberries but the grocery store was sold out of them this week. Blackberries are great to add in there too. I don't weigh the berries because of the fixed size of the tupperware containers, so already I know how much is going in each.

And that's about it for fruit to be prepped. Anything else (apples, bananas, oranges) you can just grab to go. Sometimes I get kiwis but I'm not sure how long they'd stay good for after you peel and slice them. I'll have to find out. 

So I kind of forgot to take pictures of veg prep but you get the idea. The only thing I use kale for is smoothies, so I just washed it and put it in a large container. I did the same thing with spinach. I didn't have a lot of vegetables to prepare this week because I switched it up and made a huge batch of rice with vegetables instead of portioning vegetables by themselves.

The end result!!! 

• Mixed berries, grapes and carrots (hiding behind the grapes) for snacks
• Tilapia with rice and vegetables for lunch
• Kale and spinach washed and put aside to add to smoothie. I also put the leftover berries in a bigger container for smoothies. 
• Cut up red peppers and mushrooms to quickly add to any salad or omelette 
• Diced cucumber to quickly throw in salads 

If you want more variety, you can cook different kinds of meat and vegetables to have for a meal. Usually I prep green beans, broccoli and peas to have for lunch. I leave them raw until I'm ready to eat them. I also have salads some days for lunch, but that's easy to put together in the morning. 

So yes, that's kind of what my food prep looks like. I'll switch a few things up every week but most of it stays the same. I have a really limited diet and these foods are just what work the best for me. If you decide to food prep, let me know how it goes! 

And here's that link on butter. 

http://bodyecology.com/articles/benefits_of_real_butter.php#.VB-UhSiIVvA