A major part of fitness and wellness is the food that we put into our bodies. Food is essentially the fuel that our bodies run off of, it also provides certain properties that can benefit us such as vitamins and proteins. The right foods can provide energy, give us healthy skin and hair, and make our bodies function properly. Just like there are good foods, there are also bad foods that make us tired, contain a lot of fats and oils, and simply does nothing positive for the body.

With everyone being so busy during the week it’s hard to always find the time to make healthy choices. When you’re on the go you’re not thinking about eating a healthy meal or making sure that your body has enough fuel to function, you’re just trying to find something to stop your stomach from making those funny noises. That’s how fast food restaurants get us and diets are consistently broken, fortunately, a solution to this problem is meal preparation. Taking time to prepare healthy choices for a whole week makes a world of difference, and it takes away the daily pressure of deciding what to eat when you don’t think you have many options.

Sunday is probably the best day to carry out meal prep, a lot of people use Sunday to prepare for their busy week in general so it fits in perfectly. The purpose of food prep is to make sure that you have healthy choices ready to go instead of relying on convenience foods that are not beneficial for your body. You want to assemble 8-10 complete meals in containers, also it’s good to go ahead and complete the prep work for possible meals such as having vegetables diced.

Starting off with the meats, chicken breast, salmon, and halibut are the best way to go. Bake the halibut and grill the salmon, place them into glass sealed containers to be eaten within 48 hours. Grill several chicken breasts to use throughout the week, chop a few up for salads or a stir fry, and freeze the rest. Remember to buy chicken that is hormone free. Place the chopped chicken into containers and the whole pieces into single baggies for quick meals.  Freeze the half of the whole chicken breasts that way you always have cooked chicken and all you have to do is heat it up, instead of waiting for it to cook.

You can also have five days worth of salads prepped. Only use dry ingredients, because moisture is not your friend. While preparing the salad ingredients you can also have celery, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, and carrots chopped and diced for other meals; also steam some broccoli and cauliflower. This decreases the overall amount of time that it takes to make your lunch or cook your dinner.

Once all the meats and vegetables are prepared make some brown rice to also be paired with some of your meals. Go ahead and use some of the cooked ingredients to create whole meals in your containers. You can either make a lot of the meals the same or use variations combinations so that you never get tired of what you’re eating.

If all goes well, you should have enough food prepared to last throughout the week. Your refrigerator and freezer are now stocked with fully prepared meals, ingredients for quick meals, salads and healthy snacks. Now there’s no need to put too much thought into what you’re eating because most of the work has already been done for you. Simply pick a meal, put it together or heat it up, and say “Bon Appetit!”