Hey, hey ladies. Happy December 29th. This is the last episode of 2021, you all. You guys. I am so proud of this podcast, we are 18 episodes and we've now been running for a solid three plus months. And I am so excited about the 2022 episode lineup. It's so good. What do you guys have planned for new year's this year? I know with COVID and with the new variants, we are kind of having a chill new year. And I want to offer you an activity and I want you to sit down. And write down everything you achieved this year, everything you're grateful for this year and everything you'd like to do with 2022. I also have a bonus episode coming out. You guys, later today. Called a year of you. It's not a bonus episode,iIt's just a bonus podcast. Where I tell you about an activity I'm doing in my Facebook group in 2022, that I'm so excited about. So good. Okay.
You guys. Let's get into episode 18, meal prep ladies. This podcast.is your golden ticket to results. Meal prep is one of the most important things you can do, if you want to achieve your goals, whether it be weight loss or muscle development. Let's talk about what meal prep is first, what is meal prep. What I mean by meal prep is, you take one day a week, maybe two and you go buy all your groceries. And you spend a couple of hours in the kitchen, prepping your food. All of your food for the week. You put everything into tupperware containers, when you open the fridge, it looks like a tupperware bomb went off but all the work is done. Now, this is way easier to do as a single person or even like myself and my husband, we do a lot of meal prep. I know if you have a full family, Meal prep can be more difficult, but there absolutely are ways that you can utilize meal prep to fit your lifestyle. So I'm going to, we're going to go through some stuff today.
We're going to talk about different ways you can incorporate meal prep, different ways I incorporate meal prep And why meal prep is your golden ticket. So what meal prep does, is it forces us to use our prefrontal cortex, right. Meal prep completely eliminates your limbic system, primitive brain. It involves you having to sit down and look at your week ahead and make a plan, what do you want to eat this week And you're doing that from a place ahead of time. Remember when we use our prefrontal cortex, when we use our smart human brain ahead of time, we truly have our best interests at heart. So when you make a meal plan ahead of time, you're going to set yourself up for success, you're going to set yourself up to achieve the results that you desire. So you're creating this meal plan with your best intentions at heart. Now, you want to make sure that you're designing a meal plan that has enough calories.
For my weight loss clients out there, ;less is not always better my friends, you want to make sure you're hitting those minimum macro numbers. Now, what meal prep can do for those people who are busy, for those people who find that they don't eat often enough and for my women out there, who are struggling with weight loss, what setting up that meal plan ahead of time does, is it really ensures that you're going to get enough calories throughout the day, right? So you're setting up your meal plan with your exact macro spread with your exact food you want, foods you like, all of that stuff. Then you're going to go get your grocery shopping done. And you're going to go into the grocery store with a plan, with a list. You're not going to be wandering through the aisles, grabbing whatever looks good. Not quite sure how it's all gonna come together. You're gonna have a very specific plan. This really brings down the costs of our groceries. This really brings down the time we spend in the grocery store, too. Right. And then you're going to go home. I don't even put my groceries away. I just pulled them all out of the bags, put them on the counter and go right into meal prep. So this is something I usually spend Sunday afternoon doing. I'll sit down, I'll create my protocol for the week, I'll hit the grocery store around 10:00 AM and head home and then I do my meal prep from noon to two, and it's done by two o'clock. I was talking to my sister-in-law about this podcast just a few days ago, shouts out to Danica.
And we're talking about why meal prep is such an important part of achieving results. And I had mentioned that it definitely saves time through the week, you don't have to think about cooking, you don't have to think about prep, you don't have to think about grocery shopping or picking up that one thing you forgot. And I also mentioned that it saves brain power, decision making power. You don't go through the week going, what should I have for lunch? What should I have for dinner? Everything is planned out. Everything's already made, which is awesome. We're going to talk more about that in just a minute. But Danica also mentioned to me that she finds that setting up a meal plan is really cost-effective. And it allows you to make a budget. And this is something I hadn't really thought about hard before. And after we got off the call. I actually spoke with a couple other clients. I have, who also mentioned this? So if you're somebody who thinks that eating healthy is more expensive. You might just need a really thought out meal plan. Now, meal prep doesn't just make sure that you're eating enough and make sure that you're eating it consistently throughout the day. One of the things I find that meal prep does so well, for me personally is it makes healthy thought out purposeful food convenient. Do you guys see this? When it's lunchtime for me or dinner time, or it's been a few hours since I've eaten my limbic system, my brain, my primitive hungry brain. He wants whatever is readily available, whatever is fastest, whatever's in front of me. So if I haven't prepared a meal prepped for the week, it's really easy for my limbic system to talk me into stopping and grabbing something fast and convenient or going to the fridge and grabbing whatever is the fastest to prepare. However, if I've done meal prep for the week and there is a salad chopped up and ready to go. 99% of the time, my limbic system will relax and my brain will be like, oh, there's a solid, ready to go, perfect. Let's grab that. And it's not even a negotiation. I've noticed for me. It's the biggest thing. Having those meals ready set go convenient. If I'm heading home after being out. And there's nothing ready to go at home. It's so easy to stop and grab something. However, if I have chicken pre cooked in the fridge, if I have something ready to go. That all I have to do is heat it up or just throw it into a pan really quickly. It's very easy for me to talk my brain into being healthy. I have a regular brain to you guys, my brain loves french fries. My brain will always think the french fries or pizza is a good idea. But I know that I feel better when I eat a high protein. When I eat a protein and a veg. Right, we all do or a salad for lunch. We all do, I know I'm going to feel better on a salad than I would on a burger and fries. So if there's a salad, prepped and ready to go, it's so easy. This is also something to keep in mind on days, you don't have meal prep done. There are really good solid options that are convenient to. Just saying, I have a meal plan for when I'm traveling, for when I don't have meal prep ready.
I'm going to talk to you guys a little bit about my meal plans and just a second, but I just want to quickly reiterate. So having your meal plan and pre prepping, it is going to save you money and time. I can't even emphasize this enough. And really important, decision-making brain power. You're going to find that you have way more energy mentally to make other decisions throughout the day when you're not making food decisions all day long. It's amazing. Seriously, you guys, golden ticket. And if you're one of those people that tends to not think about food throughout the day, and then you overeat at night. Meal prep can be your golden ticket to making sure that you're eating more throughout the day. Making sure that that's ready to go for you and convenient for your busy lifestyle when you need it throughout the day. And for my convenience people out there, meal prep will fix this,I promise. Okay.
So just a couple of quick tips for meal prep, some of the things I do. Batch cook, whenever possible. And what I mean by batch cook is when you can cook a lot of something at the same time, do it. So I patch cooked chicken and what the chicken breasts or chicken thighs or whatever chicken I'm cooking. Chicken is one of the proteins that I find is easiest to batch cook. So, what I do is I actually will cook like 20 chicken breasts. I oven roast my chicken breasts. I put them on a baking sheet in the oven at four 20 for 20 minutes. And I'll cook like 20 chicken breasts at the same time. And then what I do is, I pull them out. And I chop them up and put them into Ziploc bags in four or six or eight ounce service sizes or whatever we need. And I'll freeze a bunch. I'll leave like four or five out, whatever I need for that week, whatever my husband needs for that week. And then I'll freeze the rest and then they're ready to go. And then they're there. So even if you are worried about your food lasting for four or five days, if you can make food that is re-freezable after you've prepped it. I do this too. Like with stews or soups or chilis, protein casseroles, those kinds of things, I'll cook them all, divide them up into portion sizes, and then freeze them. So I can have a quick grab, go. Easy convenient, super healthy meal, highly recommend you to that batch cook your protein bars, your balls, your cookies. And then freeze a bunch of pull up whatever you need for the week throughout four or five servings. I love doing this because if I leave all of them out, I will eat all of them. But if I only leave four or five out, I have exactly what I need for the week. I might pull some out for my husband too, or else he'll eat mine. But then having them in the freezer and ready to go. It's really easy, if you don't have time to meal prep for a couple of days, or if you don't have time to meal prep the next week, I love scrounging through my freezer and finding all of this meal prep that's already done for me. It's already been done by my past self that I can utilize on a busier week. Some of my busy, busy clients too will there's meal prep companies. You guys will do all of the work for you. If you want, if that's what floats your boat. I like to do my own cooking. I don't know why. I just really do. I like to know exactly what's in my food. I like to know what spices are. And yeah, I like to do my own meal prep. I also pre-portioned out nuts. And sometimes protein powders. So what this might look like is if I buy a big bag of almonds, when I get home, I'll take out the quarter cup measuring cup and I'll ration it out into snack size, ziploc bags. For like, oh, ration out the entire bag. So I might make 20 or 30 servings and then put those in the drawer or in the fridge, and then they're ready to go rationed out. And then I'm not dipping into a big bag of nuts when I'm hungry and maybe overindulging more than I should be. With protein powder, I like it putting a few scoops into separate ziploc bags, because then it's a really easy grab and go if I'm heading out the door and I realize, oh my goodness, I haven't eaten. I can grab a ziploc bag of protein powder and a ziploc bag and nuts and away I go and I'm sat for my afternoon snack. Right. Sometimes I throw a protein powder into my coffee. Sometimes I'll just deskey. This is like a Lylas hack. I'm going to give props to a friend of mine from Manitoba. He is a beekeeper named Michael. He gave me this idea way back when. And I've used it so many times in my life. I've handed it off to so many of my athletes. You guys might think it's ridiculous. I think it is a time saver. When you have a ziploc bag with a scoop of protein in it, just put water in this plot bag, add one to one and a half cups of water to the ziploc bag. Reseal it, shake it up, not too violently. You don't want to explode the bag, shake it up until all the protein powder is moist. Do you have a good protein shake blend? And then what you want to do is put the ziploc side down and bite off one of the bottom corners of the bag. And then you literally shotgun the protein shake. Like a bear. You guys. Now you all. If people who are listening to this don't know me, you now think I'm a little crazy, but this hack has saved me so many times when I don't have a shaker. So many times when I just need to get a meal down between clients, when I need to get something down and I'm out running around. When you just need to get 20 to 25 grams of protein in, this is such an awesome trick. It's something I'll do before I head out to a meal with friends. If I know that the options aren't going to be great, we're going to a pub that kind of thing that might, I know most of my protein is in and whatever I choose is just on top of that. Right. If I know I'm going to be having a meal that doesn't have enough protein in it, also a great hack. Okay, so batch cook whenever possible, batch cook chicken, for sure. I don't love pre cooking steak or salmon. Those are the kind of meats that I prefer to cook on the fly, right before dinner. So those are the meats that I tend to put into my protocol on nights where I know I'm going to be home. I know I have a bit more time. But chicken is kind of one of my go-tos when it comes to meal prepping. I also lean heavily on dry curd, cottage cheese. So this is like cottage cheese, you find it in the cottage cheese section of your grocery store. But it's unsalted, and it's dry. So it's more of the consistency of like a feta cheese or styrofoam. So my clients say it tastes like styrofoam. But what I love about dry curd cottage cheese because she's, it doesn't have a flavor. So it takes on whatever flavor you're cooking with. I put it into soups to add protein. The thing with dry curd cottage cheese is it's 20 grams of protein per half a cup. So I put it into soups, I put it on top of vegetables, I put it on top of salads, I'll bake it into casseroles, I use it for pancakes, protein pancakes. I can put this stuff into anything, and it just kind of molds in to whatever it is we're eating. So for instance, my protocol for this week, which I'm going to take you guys right through, has greek salad for lunch. And so I use a little bit of feta cheese, but then I'll use a half cup of dry curd cottage cheese which instantly bumps up the protein by 20 grounds and it just tastes like more feta cheese on my gray solid. It's amazing.
So let's talk about my current protocol. I'm going to take you through it. So my current protocol includes a post-workout shake in the morning, and I do a shot of tart cherry juice. Oats and egg whites as a mid morning snack. My greek salad as lunch, pan fried nuts in my afternoon snack. Salmon and veg with yams is my dinner and then curd cottage cheese and blueberries before bed. This is what I've been eating all week. So what I would do to meal prep, this just to kind of take you through it. I like to have my protein shake at the gym, like I'm leaving. So I put one scoop of protein powder into seven ziploc bags. I know it's not ideal for the environment to go through lots of ziploc bags. You can also use reusable tupperware containers, you can reuse the bags, I reuse the bags, if I'm not using them for a protein shake, shotgun. But do whatever works best for you. And then, because I'm doing the shot of tart cherry juice. I actually wait till I get home. I'm usually home within 10 minutes or so of finishing my workout. So I have that shot when I get home, but if I wasn't, if I was heading to the office or heading out, I might just take a mandarin orange or a piece of fruit with me to have that protein shake. The oats and egg whites, I definitely always meal prep, my oats and egg whites. What I love about oats and egg whites is the oats actually absorb the egg whites as they sit. So you end up with more of an oat cake. So I'll do it. I think right now I'm doing a third, a cup of oats with one cup of egg whites. And then I throw in a little bit of cinnamon. Tiny bit of stevia and some walnuts for omega three years. So I'll put all of those ingredients into a tupperware container and then I'll put it in the fridge and let it sit. And by the time I go to cook it, you can either just throw it into a frying pan and cook it like an omelet or you can pop it in the microwave and new kit for two minutes. And it turns into like an Oak cake because the oats have absorbed all of the egg whites. I way prefer oats and egg whites that have sat for a few days than if I were to build it right before I'm going to eat it. So the greek salads, like I was talking about, I like to pre prep. This I was actually talking to a client about this, just this past week, she was telling me that she made a salad for the day off, but she didn't have the energy that day to make it for all week. And I was like, oh, I find it so much easier if I'm going to pull it, the cutting board and the knife and all of the things I might as well, just make four salads, like to me, that seems so much easier than making them one at a time.
So how I would go about meal prepping any salad. is I plot all the ingredients or you know, if I've just done my grocery shopping, I'll have all of the ingredients out there. Put a cutting board polit at the knife. I'll chop everything up. I'll pull out like five tupperware containers. I usually buy pre-washed lettuce. So I'll pop a handful of lettuce and he will teach him the containers from my greek salads. I use baby tomatoes, because that's how lazy I am. I'll wash the baby tomatoes, but I won't cut them up. I just throw 10 into each container. And then I'll chop up a cucumber. I put a third of a cucumber into each container. I'll chop up red pepper. I'll put half a red pepper into each container. And then a little bit of fed cheese, some olives, some Greek seasoning. Maybe the dry curd, cottage cheese as well. If I'm doing chicken or meat with my salad, I don't, I put that separately in the fridge until I'm going to eat it because I do like to heat my meat. So if let's say I'm doing a chicken and Greek salad, I would keep the chicken separate so I could heat it and then add it to the salad. I also don't add my salad dressings until I'm going to eat. So I'd put some olive oil just over top of my Greek salad, maybe with some apple cider vinegar or a little bit of like a balsamic reduction. Mm, delicious, making myself hungry. You guys. It's almost lunchtime for me. Okay. Pan fried nuts, this is a recipe that you can find. I'm pretty sure it's in the kitchen. It went out and Friday Coach Treats a number of months ago, but it's super simple. I literally throw a couple cups of nuts into a pan. It's already heated up and has some coconut oil, some Stevia, some cinnamon, some cayenne and some salt in the pan, and then I just roast the nuts. So I just make sure that they take in all those flavors and it ends up being like a sweet and spicy sweet and salty nut. I love them, I love putting them on cottage cheese. I love putting them on my salads. I love eating them just as a snack. It's kind of like a fat bomb, but a really nice, healthy fat bomb. So I've been having this in the afternoons as kind of like my sweet afternoon pick me up with a cup of coffee. So, I premake those. I also premake these, when I'm traveling, I like to take at least a couple of cups of them with me. They're a great kind of on the go snack. So I'll definitely meal prep. Those. And then my salmon yam and veg meal. This is one of the meals that I haven't been meal prepping.
And I'll tell you why it's a really easy meal for me to cook, but I'm also at home in the evenings. So, depending on what. Your schedule is like, if you're someone who arrives home from work at five o'clock, I'm going to suggest that you meal prep your dinner. The reason for this is because when you're driving home at five o'clock, after a full day of work, It is so easy for your limbic system to talk you into pulling into a drive through. Right. If you're one of those people that struggles to get home and want to make a meal. If you find yourself ordering, skip the dishes. If you find yourself picking up a frozen pizza meal, prepping your dinner is going to be a huge part of your success. So for me, I pan fry salmon. It takes about five minutes. I do it with coconut oil and then I throw my vegetables and my yams. I buy pre-cut pre-washed vegetables. I know I'm lazy. It's not, it is laziness. I can't, I can't even walk around it. I just throw everything into the flash fire. I have one of those insta fries that you just throw a little bit of olive oil in, and it takes 10 to 15 minutes and it cooks up beautifully. And well, my vegetables are cooking in the insta fryer. I cook my salmon and then it's hot and ready to go and fresh. But if I'm in competition prep or if I've got a really specific goal in mind, there's a pretty good chance. I'm going to be meal, prepping my dinners as well. And what that might look like is just a different source of meat. So if I'm meal prepping dinners, I'd probably go with a chicken thigh over salmon. Or I might like a scallop and shrimp curry, something that I love batch cooking curry. When I make curry, I make like a 15 portion, huge pot of curry. And then I freeze a ton of it because my husband doesn't love the way it smells when I prep it. So I try not to cook it very often. So when I cook it, I make a lot. Okay. Um, and then the cottage, cheese and blueberries. So what I do with cottage cheese and blueberries, I also do this with yogurt, when I buy yogurt or cottage cheese in a big, like six serving size container. When I get home, I pull out tupperware and I ration it out because I don't know if you're like me. If I don't do that, when I go to make my cottage cheese and blueberries at night, my eyeballs are always bigger than what my meal plan says. I should have. And I ended up eating too much. So I ended up doing like double that cottage cheese I should eat. So I like to pre ration it all out. I do like adding frozen blueberries to my cottage cheese. So I often won't add the fruit in. Until I'm ready to eat it, but I keep a half cup measuring cup in my blueberries. So that it's really easy to just pop a half cup in and away I go.
Another trick for yogurt is buying your yogurt in pre rationed out containers. However, most of my clients eat more than a third of a cup of yogurt in one sitting and those pre rationed yogurts are really tiny but they're great for traveling or if you are going to be running around a ton, or if you find that you do overdo it and you want yogurt almost as like a dessert treat. Those pre rationed yogurts can be a great option. Greek yogurt, always choose Greek, you guys. Just has more protein. It's just a little thicker. It's delicious. Okay. That sums up what I have for you guys for meal prep. I can't emphasize enough how much meal prep will change your life. If you guys are struggling to get the results you want and you haven't been meal prepping, I want you to make time for this. I'm a big fan of Sundays. But if Sundays don't work in your schedule, pick another day, take three to four hours, plan three to four hours. You can get your kids to help you. You can get your husband on board, It's fine. Even if you meal prep. All of your meals except for dinner. And then you have like a family dinner schedule, like taco Tuesdays and, you know, meatless Mondays or whatever it is you do. But if you can meal prep, every other meal that you need on a daily basis. It means that you're way more likely to comply with your plan, to stay compliant to your plan. It's way more likely for you to outsmart your limbic system with that prefrontal smart human brain. Okay. Ladies. So going into January, two days away. I want you guys this weekend. Make a plan, grocery shop, meal prep. If you go to my Facebook group. We actually did a meal prep challenge back in February of 2021, it was called foodie February. It was a four-part series. And there are some tools and tricks. There's like a meal prep plan worksheet, there's lots of different ways. I think I actually even show a video of me doing meal prep in that. It's at one of the Facebook guides in the transformation house.
So you can check that out. I'll put a link to the transformation house in the show notes, you guys. Have the best new years ever. Sit down and spend some time reflecting on what an amazing 2021 you had, even if you feel like it, wasn't amazing. I want you to find ways that it was focused on all the good things. And then I want you to sit down and plan all the amazing things that you're going to do with 2022. Love it. All right, you guys. I'll see you next week. Bye for now.
