How Meal Prep Will Help You Bounce Back This Year

It’s a little hard to believe, but it’s already November! Just like every year, many of us made firm commitments to ourselves last December that 2020 was going to be our year. We were going to get fit, eat healthy, and live our best lives. Unfortunately …. 2020 happened.  If you’ve been feeling like yet another year is going to pass without you accomplishing your health goals, you aren’t alone – and this is your sign that it’s time to get back into gear right now.  

Think back to early January. Long before COVID-19 shut everything down, what were you doing to make sure you were staying in shape?  Were you hitting the gym with a buddy? Cooking healthy meals every day? Cutting back on the alcohol? 

If you’re feeling like you’ve fallen into a rut since March, don’t worry. It’s a pattern that most people fall into after the first couple months of the year – and that’s without a global pandemic to worry about.  With summer slowly drawing to a close, now is as good a time as any to reevaluate and get back into those habits you were starting at the beginning of the year – and what better place to start than with your food? 

Even when life feels disrupted from the constant stresses of living during a pandemic, you still need to have a good routine in place so that you can take care of yourself properly. Having your meals prepped will ensure that you can spend less time worrying about what you’re going to eat today and more time focusing on the tasks you have at hand. 

Prepping your meals (or even better, taking advantage of a meal prep service) will help you reach your goals because: 

• You’ll spend less time counting calories and more time enjoying your life. Most of your health and fitness goals come down to a numbers game. How many calories are in that meal? Is there enough protein here to help my body recover from that workout? Spending time at the beginning of the week to properly portion out your meals will mean that you won’t have to second-guess the nutrition facts of a bunch of different meals every day; rather, you can keep it relatively simple and just have a broad overview of the nutrition of all of your meals for the week. Even better, opting into a meal prep delivery service will mean that they do all of that work for you, so you won’t have to bust out a calculator at all – the only thing you need to do is make sure you’re eating! 
• You’ll have more time for physical activity. One of the best parts about committing to meal prep is that it’ll give you back hours in your day. No longer will you have to spend an hour or more cooking healthy meals for you family during an already busy week. Being able to prepare your meals in minutes instead of hours will give you time to take that afternoon walk or hit the gym in the morning instead! 
• You’ll keep yourself accountable. Feeling like your routine has been a little thrown off in the past couple months? Getting back into a routine is key in reaching any goals, including the physical ones. If you get yourself (and even your family) in a strict meal prep schedule, then you’ll be committing time and money towards your goals and will be more accountable to reaching them than if you were to simply wing it every day. 
• No more excuses! Take a minute to think about the things that have been holding you back from reaching your goals this year. Is it a busy schedule? Money? Social events? Establishing a meal prep routine will mean that you: 
• Will always have healthy food in the fridge to grab, no matter how short on time you are 
• Will save money by making the most of your grocery shopping trips and not waste your cash by always eating out  
• Won’t be as tempted to eat out if your stomach is already full and you have plenty of healthy options at home 

It’s been a rough year for many of us, but now is as good a time as any to buckle up and reach your goals. Take back the reins in your life – a lot of things are out of our control right now, but that does not mean that your self-care and wellbeing have to go to the wayside. Get into the meal prep game and use the last couple of months of 2020 to work on your best self!