21 Day Fix Approved...Meal Prep Made Easy

If you are like me then you are busy and it's tough to find a lot of time to meal prep. My kids may look older because they are tall but a 2 year old and a 3 year old take up most of my time...mainly separating them so they stop fighting....but still my focus can't be in the kitchen non-stop to prep food. Especially when you add a husband and a household to keep going on top of my kids. There just aren't enough hours in the day! So I have had to come up with some ways to make meal prep super easy yet 21 Day Fix approved.

My challengers have asked me to share some of those meal prep ideas with them but I also wanted to share with all of you. 

Okay, you can meal prep a BUNCH of chicken at once and it's a throw it in and forget about it kind of thing. I like to buy a whole chicken and put it in the crock-pot. You just sprinkle some seasoning (I use: 1 teaspoons paprika, 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon dried onion, 1 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon chili flakes. You mix all those spices together in a bowl then coat the whole chicken with olive oil then sprinkle the spice mixture on top of it.) I like to cut some sweet potatoes and throw in some baby carrots in the bottom, pour some organic veggie broth to cover the veggies and then place the chicken on top then cook it on low for 6 hours. Afterwards you shred the chicken and then you have quite a few meals ready to go. They make for great lunches at work...just ask my hubby. You can also skip the veggies and just cook the chicken (no need for the veggie broth if it's just chicken) and then you have a bunch of chicken prepared for salads or tacos...really anything! You can also get 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts and put them in the crock-pot. You cover them with a jar of organic salsa (or even homemade salsa which you can find the recipe to in the new Fixate cookbook) and then turn the crockpot on low for 6 hours. When it's done you shred up the chicken and you have plenty of meat for whatever you choose. Then of course if you live in Belgium then there are the Markets in each town on certain days. They have GREAT rotisserie chicken that you could buy and shred to use during the week. If you are looking to do something similar but live in the US then I suggest finding a place that uses good, no antibiotic chicken. Places like Wal-Mart do not use good chicken so please try to avoid that stuff! 

I don't typically do elaborate snacks so my prep is super easy. I make sure I cut up all my fruits and portion them out right away. You can put them in Ziploc bags to store them. However, I like to portion my snacks out with my lunch as seen in the picture below. I also boil enough eggs for the week which is super easy and quick. Honestly, the best thing you can do for your snacks is make them super simple so all your prep should be is cutting fruit or boiling the eggs. So many times people over complicate the process. 

(The pic above shows my snacks in one container and then in the bottom portion you see my salads for lunch. I use these containers but there are plenty of options to choose from.)

Don't be afraid to eat the same thing each day for most your meals! I do it! I use my dinners as my "new meal" of the day. You can even plan more portions when you cook your dinner so that you have leftovers for lunch the next day. That alleviates the pressure to prep for lunches. 

I personally do not prep my dinner items because I work from home and can cook dinner when I need to. If you are busy and work outside the home then you can always try to cook Monday night's dinner on Sunday, then you can stay a day ahead and only have to reheat the items. I do like to pre-cut my veggies if I can sneak that in at nap time or on Sunday's during meal prep. I have also used meal prep Sunday to cut and roast a week's worth of veggies using this recipe. That means all I am making for dinner is the meat and warming up the veggies. Another go to quick and easy option for prepping dinner is making a big pot of spaghetti sauce. It's easily freezable and you can make an abundance of it so then all you have to do for dinner (or even lunch) is boil up some noodles. Again, the Fixate cookbook has awesome options on using the sauce in multiple ways so that's it's fresh and new. 

I hope that these options help you to get some meal prep done in a quick way. I know that your time is precious and that when you first start out, meal prepping can take hours. I have been there! That's why I try to stick to the crock-pot for chicken, I cut my veggies and fruits, boil some eggs and portion out my salad items. 



As always, if you have questions then please don't hesitate to ask! I am here to help! If you are interested in joining one of my fitness challenges then fill the below form out and we can get you started on your journey. XoXo

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21 Day Fix Meal Planning....MADE EASY!

The 21 Day Fix is an amazing program and so many people have seen amazing results because of it (myself included). However, the meal planning portion can make you feel overwhelmed. That feeling can cause you to stop, or not even start, the program. That is NOT what I want for you so I decided to share with you how I meal plan each week based on the 21 Day Fix program. 

The most important step to meal planning for the 21 Day Fix is to gather all of your items needed.  

 I also make sure to have my Fixate cookbook as well as my nutrition guide.

I use a meal planner sheet now that I recently got from a fellow coach.

In these pictures you will see the 21 Day Fix Extreme nutrition guide. I mainly follow that guide (pretty much the same thing except a few food items are either taken away or added plus no wine or chocolate substitutes). The meal planning process is the same thing regardless if you are using the original or the extreme version.

 Now once I have all that gathered I start to fill in the dinner portion of my meal plan. That might seem a little weird to you but since your day is based on so many number of containers, I make sure that I plan dinner first so that I am not running out of containers and can no longer figure out dinner. This way, I take away whatever containers I need for dinner and then the rest can be used for the other meals. 

After dinners are planned then I automatically fill in breakfast and my morning snack. I am a creature of habit and I know what I like to have in the mornings so it's always Shakeology and fruit for breakfast and then my snack is scrambled eggs and a toasted English Muffin. Depending on the day, I can flip flop these as well. If I am able to get an early workout in then I might have my scrambled eggs following that since I am typically pretty hungry after a workout. 

Next is planning lunch! Well if you are like me, I have a hard time getting my green containers (veggies) in first thing in the morning. I don't want to pack all my veggies in at night either because I know that my body needs them to stay fueled. So I like to have salads for lunch. It says grilled chicken salad but you can bake your chicken, or even cook a whole chicken in the crockpot then shred it and use that meat for your salads. It's such an easy way to get 2 (maybe 3) green containers in for the day. I use 1 green container of spinach as my bed of "lettuce" and then 1 green container that's a mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers sauteed mushrooms and carrots. The blue container is my feta cheese then of course an orange container of Fix Dressing. 

The last step is planning my afternoon snack. I always save this for last because it allows me to tailor it to whatever containers I have left for the day. See....there is a method to the madness LOL. Okay so before planning my snack, I go through each day and figure out what containers I need to finish off my day's requirements. This is an example of this week's afternoon snack planning. 

Based on what containers I have left, I fill out my afternoon snack. I have certain go to snacks when I have specific containers left. Such as, if I have 1 purple, 1 yellow and 1 tsp left then my snack is a peanut butter & banana quesadilla. Super easy to just spread a tsp of peanut butter onto a taco shell, slice up half a banana and put it on top of the peanut butter and enjoy. Peanut butter is my go to tsp with an apple or celery. 

Here is my final  meal plan for this week:

 

The meal planning process can seem overwhelming at first but getting a system down will really help you succeed. Don't be afraid to plan out of order! Heck, I start with dinner and then plan the rest of my meals. Hopefully this will help you to plan a little easier. If you have questions the please feel free to email me or comment on this post so I can help you. Also, if you are interested in joining one of my challenge groups to help you drop those pounds (or inches) and stay motivated doing so then send fill the form below out. XoXo

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