Meal Prep Monday!

Meal Prep Monday

Happy Monday (!!!) 

Hopefully, everyone had such a good weekend! I got to travel home this weekend and witness my little brother and his team win their 10th state title in a ROW. How cool?! Very proud sister moment, HAHA. Anywho! Who doesn’t love to get their week started off right? Mondays can be SO daunting, but your motives can change if you look at it as a fresh start to your week.

I love to start my week off right by meal prepping on Mondays because 1. It allows for healthy lunches and dinners in the midst of my busy schedule and 2. It only takes about an hour or so to have 7 meals ready to go for the whole week! 

This week on the menu for me is: 

• 93% lean, 7% fat ground beef 
  • benefits → high in protein which is good for building & repairing muscles, high protein can also help with weight loss, and it is rich in iron.
• Jasmine Rice (I love rice, could eat it with anything!!!) 
  • benefits  → good source of energy because it is a carbohydrate (the body’s main source of energy), jasmine rice is also rich in vitamins and minerals like thiamin, niacin and vitamin B6. And even better… it’s gluten free.
• Green peppers 
  • benefits → these are high in vitamin C which is helpful for immune function, skin health & wound healing. Also, it is helpful for digestion.
• Red Onions 
  • benefits → high in antioxidants that can be helpful for inflammation and beneficial to keep your heart healthy, they also have been proven to help regulate blood sugar levels. 

I like to put a little seasoning on all of these and I will either use a little salt and pepper, or lemon pepper seasoning. You really don’t have to do anything major with the seasonings, but if you’re like me, you like a little extra flavor added in. Then, I will top it with some sort of hot sauce to complete the meal!

Making these meals is SERIOUSLY so easy and you can make them in so many different ways. I try to change up my weeks with different proteins, but I have found that chicken and lean ground beef tends to last the longest. Each week I try to mix it up, but I ALWAYS have a protein, veggie and a carbohydrate! Some alternative proteins include shrimp, chicken, salmon, steak, or even ground turkey. A substitute for different veggies include carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, or leafy greens (the greener the better). For carbohydrates, some weeks I like to mix in red skin potato wedges! 

Benefits of Meal Preps…  

• The biggest time saver → it saves me SO much time throughout the week. Currently, I have such a busy schedule, but I do want to maintain what I am consuming and I find that meal-prepping allows for much healthier eating. 

• Saves money → groceries these days cost a fortune, and I often hear myself and others talking about how they can go to the grocery store and spend a 100 dollars and get almost nothing out of it, but I have learned that if I have a specific list of things I need for meal prepping I will refrain from going out of my budget and buying groceries that will go bad or are not necessary. 

• Helpful for healthy eating → planning and preparing meals for the week allows for you to be able to maintain a healthy diet and allows for you to meet all nutritional needs. 

• Stress Reducer → I mean our lives revolve around food, and if you are trying to eat a more balanced diet it can be super stressful to try and figure out what you are eating next, but meal prepping can relieve all this stress.

• It’s fun! → Each week, for me, it is so fun to figure out new ways to make my meals each week, and it allows for a Monday afternoon of cooking and then a solid week of nutritious foods. 

Overall, this adventure of meal prepping has been such a fun journey for me, and with time, I have conquered different ways to incorporate variations of foods so that I don’t get sick of what I am eating. I challenge you guys to incorporate Meal Prep Monday into your week to have a strong & nutritional start to your week!