3 Tips For Sustainable Meal Prep

Meal prepping is the best thing you can do for your nutritional success. 

It is also the most difficult thing to accomplish if you overcomplicate it. 
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Spending all day on Sunday preparing meals for the next 7 days is not only stressful but very time-consuming. I often find that most people I work with can, if they are lucky, sustain this for 2-3 weeks. 

This often leads to feelings of failure, lack of interest in the food you prepare, and inevitably wasting more food than you consume. 

If we want to find success with preparing meals we need to simplify our preparation and align it with our time and energy. 

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Prep Protein
​Preparing your protein is an essential component of your meal prep. Protein is the most time-consuming aspect of cooking and if we are short on time is the least likely macronutrient we will prioritize. 

Fruits, vegetables, dairy, and other whole foods are simple to grab and go. Oftentimes they require no prep at all. However, protein done well needs to be thawed, seasoned, and cooked slowly. This can take hours especially if you are new to cooking meats. 

For these reasons, in our home, we prioritize preparing protein over other foods and have found that everything else falls into place when we can fall back on the fresh-cooked meat we have. 

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Schedule Two Prep Days Each Week
My second tip is to schedule 2 days a week to prepare your meals. The method that works best for me is to bulk-cook my food on Sunday and Wednesday.

Preparing meals on Sunday allows me to have food to take to work Monday through Wednesday. Wednesday I will be able to make meals for Thursday and Friday. I have found this prep schedule works best for the following reasons :

1. Less waste
2. Ability to change the food if you need something different
3. Less time consuming
4. Most prepped food should be consumed within 3 days of being cooked

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Only Prep Out Of The House Meals

My final tip is to, in the beginning, only prepare your out-of-the-house meals. One of the biggest mistakes I see is when clients try to make all of their meals for breakfast lunch and dinner Monday through Friday.

This is difficult to sustain week after week. Most of the derailment in nutritional choices comes from not having food when we are out of our homes.

I suggest starting with lunches or any meals that you know you won't be at home to prepare. This is the best way to avoid eating out or skipping meals.

If you can nail down these tips over time you will be able to expand how you prep your foods and add more meals to your prep or create more elaborate meals. In the beginning, it is essential to master the basics! ​

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Andrew Cataldo, CSCS OPEX CCP
Director - Performance Division 
​E: [email protected]

Email Andrew at [email protected] with any questions about the information above.

Leave a comment below with your thoughts and questions!