Being on a weight loss journey can often feel equal parts triumphant, frustrating, confusing, and altogether time-consuming. It’s a mixed bag of emotions. It can be hard to know how to prepare healthy meals that bring you closer to your goals, but it doesn’t have to be. Our Registered Dietitian, Sam, is going to share her tips below for meal prepping for weight loss.
What should I include in my weight loss meal prep?
The answer to this definitely depends on your unique situation and health history, but let’s talk about some basic guidelines. We wrote another blog post if you’d like to learn more about building a more healthy and balanced meal.
When it comes to weight loss, the advice is usually just to eat less and move more. I’m here to tell you that that adage is well-intentioned but completely misguided. Instead of intense caloric restriction and long cardio workouts, weight loss is more about nourishing your body with the healthy foods that work best for you.
Which usually means plenty of vegetables and some fruit. Think about filling half your plate with lots of colors, from red to green to orange. Make a game for yourself of how many colors you can incorporate at one meal. Differently colored veggies contain different nutrients, antioxidants, and potential benefits. Micronutrient deficiencies can be a weight loss roadblock, so work to eat the rainbow.
Another key to feeling satisfied and losing weight? Adequate protein intake! If I had to pick one trend across all of the clients I’ve worked with, it’s undereating protein. Not only is a protein the most satiating macronutrient when compared to fat and carbohydrates, but it also takes energy to digest and absorb. This is called the thermic effect of food. It takes about 20-35% of the energy you consume from protein for your body to utilize that protein properly. Pretty cool, huh?
Protein also helps you maintain muscle as you age, and muscle burns more than fat at rest. It also reduces ghrelin, a hormone that makes you feel hungry, and increases other hormones that signal fullness. Are you sold on the benefits of protein for weight loss yet? I don’t know about you, but I’m all for feeling full and preventing cravings throughout the day. Aim for protein sources like seafood, eggs, beef, chicken, pork, or wild game. If you opt for vegetarian sources of protein like beans, organic tofu, or other legumes, just be mindful of your portion size since some of these contain more carbohydrates than protein.
Another vital component in your weight loss meal prep should be healthy fats. You may be wondering how it’s possible to lose fat if you’re eating fat, but fat is crucial to keeping our body and mind healthy and happy. Fat is essential for brain function and body hormone health, and it also helps balance blood sugar, another essential piece of the weight loss puzzle. Healthy fat sources include extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, olives, avocados, nuts and seeds, coconut oil, grass-fed butter or ghee, or coconut.
How and when should I meal prep?
To some degree, this can depend a lot on your schedule, but I love doing a little prep over the weekend or on one or two weeknights when I don’t have too much going on. While a marathon meal prep session is excellent, you can just as easily also do a few mini prep sessions throughout the week instead.
There are a few different meal prep approaches. My personal favorite is a component meal prep, where I make multiple different proteins and multiple veggie types that I can mix-and-match throughout the week with various sauces, dressings, and seasonings. Alternatively, you can prep full recipes that you can then just heat and eat throughout the week.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our Snap Kitchen meals, which you can heat and eat in 3 minutes or less. They’re pre-portioned and perfectly balanced with perfectly calculated calorie counts, meaning you can skip the prep and still hit your health and weight goals. And they’re curated by dietitians, like me, to ensure you’re getting the nutrients you need to thrive. Click here to view our extensive prepared meal selection.
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