Top Meal Prep Ideas for Healthy Eating: Easy Recipes and Tips | Free Willy Fitness

One of the hardest things to do when you choose to meal prep is to find meals that consistently work well for you, ESPECIALLY if you’re tracking calories. One of the biggest things I struggled with when I was tracking my food super consistently was figuring out what meals I could make that didn’t take up my whole day, and that I knew I would enjoy throughout the week without getting bored of eating.

 

Unfortunately, we get so comfortable doing things that we already know how to do, and when it comes to cooking, you can quickly get tired of eating the same thing over and over. Below I have provided you with three sample meals that I have taken from my own stockpile of recipes that not only were easy to cook in bulk, but I thoroughly enjoyed. I wanted to provide you with one recipe for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each since I know certain meals are sometimes harder to prep for. I have also provided ideas of ways you can vary the recipes to fit your nutrient needs in case you are eating, for instance, low fat versus high fat, higher protein, or even just overall less calories.

 

When tracking your calories, I recommend you weigh the meats out after cooking, and other foods I would track before you cook them.  Even if you don’t follow these instructions, just stay consistent with how you are tracking and cooking your meals! Consistency matters more than accuracy in this case.

 

Breakfast: Overnight Protein Oats (shoutout to my friend and client Gladys, stole the idea from her originally).  I love this one for a simple breakfast

-       2 servings of Quaker Oats (or your preferred brand)

-       1 cup of Organic Whole Milk

-       1 scoop of Whey Protein

-       1 cup of Mixed Berries

-       Combine and stir together, leave in fridge overnight.

Macro Breakdown

-       Total Calories – 620kcal

-       Protein – 41g

-       Carbs – 85g

-       Fat – 14.5g

-       Fiber – 11g

Variation:

-       To decrease the amount of fat as well as total calories, you can substitute the whole milk for something like cashew milk which is much lower in both fat and calories.

-       You can also double up on protein powder here to increase the protein content. I like Legion vanilla whey protein for this recipe specifically

 

Lunch: Burrito Bowl - I would start by setting up your rice to cook. I tend to use a rice cooker, as it’s super simple. I tend to follow the 1:1.5 ratio of rice to water. So with 1 cup of rice, you would use 1.5 cups of water. After you do this, get to cooking your ground beef. After the rice and ground beef are cooked throw all the ingredients together and put them into your storage containers.

-       6 oz 85/15 Ground Beef

-       1 – 2 cups of Shredded Iceberg Lettuce

-       ½ cup of Pace Medium Salsa

-       ½ cup of White Rice

-       ½ cup of Black Beans

-       Hot Sauce (I go with the 0 calorie ones)

-       ¼ of a Avocado

Macro Breakdown

-       Total Calories – 878 kcal

-       Protein – 47g

-       Carbs – 105g

-       Fat – 31g

-       Fiber – 12g

Variation:

-       You can easily substitute some ground turkey in instead of ground beef to decrease the amount of fat and total calories in this meal

-       You can also add peppers and such for a slight increase in calories and boost in flavor and heat!

 

Dinner: Chicken Alfredo Pasta - Start by defrosting your chicken (if you bought it frozen) and by cooking your pasta. Bring the water to a boil, toss your dry and weighed out pasta into the boiling water and wait until it becomes soft. As your pasta is cooking, cut up your chicken into bite sized pieces and toss them into a pan. IF YOU USE OIL, BE SURE TO TRACK THE AMOUNT OF OIL YOU USE. Oil is high in calories and fat so measure it ahead of time! Season the chicken as you cook it, and once it reaches 165° internally take it off the stove. Toss your veggies into the same pan you just used for the chicken, and bring it to a medium heat to cook the veggies. After they are all cooked, strain your pasta, combine with your other ingredients and serve!

-       1 serving Whole Wheat Pasta

-       6 oz Cooked Skinless Chicken Thigh

-       1 cup mixed veggies

-       ½ cup Newman’s Alfredo Sauce

Macro Breakdown

-       Total Calories – 625 calories

-       Protein – 40g

-       Carbs – 61g

-       Fat – 24g

-       Fiber – 8g

Variation:

-       For less fat, you can use less Alfredo sauce, substitute chicken breasts for the thighs, or both

-       Another easy substitute is to increase the amount of mixed veggies and decrease the amount of pasta

Each of these meals, and variations of each, made staying on track with my diet in both my previous bulking and cutting protocols that took up the better part of 2018/2019. If you are tracking your calories, which I HIGHLY recommend doing, you can do things like make recipes to make tracking this stuff easy when you cook it in bulk. Simple shortcuts built into these apps can really make the hard part of tracking nutrition much easier. In my next article I will be running through the ways you can use calorie tracking apps, specifically My Fitness Pal, to make tracking and planning much easier.

 

Happy Meal Prepping!

Author: Chris whalen

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