is meal prep worth it?

You know how I used to think about meal prep? I used to imagine the perfect meal prep being those perfect boxes of food (the ones that looked so pretty) that you prepare all in one day for the week so you don’t have to worry about single meal throughout the week and be super on point with your diet. I’ve tried that multiple times. Every single time I’d run into hurdles that just wasn’t as pretty as the end product on the magazines and articles I used to read.

First of all the grocery shopping for it I absolutely dreaded. I’m the kind of grocery shopper that likes to visit the market multiple times in a week. It just felt less heavy (both physically & mentally) and if I ever forget to buy something I could just buy it the next time I go there. For meal prepping a whole week the grocery list is huge! What always tilted me was finding out that I forgot to buy certain ingredients after I’ve reached home. It felt like I completely messed up the meal prep and had to waste time making another trip to the market.

Then I would have completely underestimated the chore it is to cook 21 meals at once. The prep, the cooking, the dishes to wash. Doing meal prep this way made me feel like one whole day is gone dedicated to meal prepping. I really didn’t enjoy it one bit.

After that comes the food. In most cases the food for first 2-3 days is fine, as expected. As it gets to day 5-7 it starts to not taste that great and in some circumstances maybe borderline “maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that”.

Every time I tried that method I’d quit after week 1. I think I tried at least 5-6 times in this lifetime, each time never made it to week 2. Those pretty boxes of food just wasn’t worth the trouble and overall it caused me way more stress than make the diet process simple as it was supposed to.

For the longest time I thought that was what meal prep was. I thought that was the only way to prep for food. Dedicate one day to cook, cook for a whole week, and rinse and repeat.

It’s not. Meal prep isn’t about pretty boxes at all.

Meal prep is really just about making some preparations beforehand that can help you stick to your diet consistently. It could be as simple as buying some fruits and yogurt the night before so your next day’s breakfast is set and you don’t have to impromptu grab a donut at the nearby bakery as you’re rushing to work. It could be cutting up fruits and keeping it in boxes in the fridge so when you got some cravings or hunger to deal with you have the option to reach out for that instead of grabbing a bag of chips or a chocolate bar.

Meal prep is really just making preparations so your chances of success in your diet become higher.

Do you have to meal prep to lose weight?

Absolutely not, you could hit your goals not making any meal preps at all and living meal to meal through impromptu decisions. If that’s how you prefer to go about your diet, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But if you’re super swamped in life & work and tend to fall into the trap of making the “easy choice” for meals (such as fast food for convenience) then taking some time and prepping your meals could beneficial and help your diet. Meal prep doesn’t exactly mean you have to cook your own meals, it just means you gotta plan ahead.

Say you have KFC nearby where you work, and always end up eating it cos it’s just the closest most convenient option. You could always make plans in advance to order food or travel a bit further somewhere else to have a meal that suits your diet more. That’s meal prep. Planning ahead is meal prep.

For me, all the way up to 2020 I was doing a lot of home cooking and meal prepping. If you’ve been here for a while you’ve likely already heard about my 3 boxes meal prep plan. Basically I prep a box of protein (chicken/fish/beef), a box of carbs (rice/bread/potatoes), and a box of veggies every 2-3 days so I always have easy access to it and can eat my meal according to how my day is going.

Over 2021 I ended up cooking a lot less cos of how convenient delivery services were becoming over here. I could order the foods I wanted cooked in the exact way I wanted and have it by my doorstep within an 30min to an hour. That saves me the 1-2hrs I spend every 2-3 days in the kitchen allowing me to do dedicate to other stuff in life. So these days the only thing I prep at home is my carbs cos there are times where I just want plain rice, bread, or potatoes in smaller quantities and there still isn’t a place where I could just order those alone reliably. That’s how I prep my meals these days. Still thought of and planned in advance, but way way less time spent in the kitchen.

If you really think about it, losing weight is really no different that budgeting and saving money. The difference is the currency. Saving money you’re planning ahead in terms of your local dollar. Losing weight you’re planning ahead in terms of calories. The effort required is similar. It’s a constantly ongoing thing. It’s a lot less about one mere decision you made, and a lot more about the sum of the decisions you’re making as a whole in the long run.

Meal prep isn’t a make or break deal in terms of weight loss. It can definitely be helpful, but is not a necessity either. I hope today’s little ramble on it gives you a clearer picture and maybe sparks some ideas that you could incorporate into your life. Small things like buying a bunch of coke zeros and storing them at home so when you feel like a soda you reach out for that instead of regular coke (instant 150kcal saved) they go a long way, especially if you keep it up consistently for months and years.

Don’t look at the way someone else preps their meals and try to copy it exactly. I mean sure take inspiration from it, try to incorporate elements of it that looks interesting to you into your diet, but copying it exactly is often a recipe for failure as someone else’s prep that’s working for them works because it’s catered to their lifestyle, their goals, their preferences.

Hope this helps!

We’re living through wild times these days, wishing you and all your loved ones are well and safe!

Till the next one~

—Po.