Meal prepping can be difficult to any beginner out there that is willing to change their ways and live a new life style, but a lot of people fail and give up because they do not know the proper steps or knowledge to have in order to effectively meal prep. But we have compiled a list of steps that any beginner can use in the early stage of they fitness journey. So here are our 8 steps for successful meal prepping.
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1) Total Calories Burned
First of all, with time and research it is important to know how many calories you are burning in a 24 hour period. The reason why you should know this number is so you can effectively calculate and plan your calorie consumption based on your physical information and your fitness goals. By knowing your TCB (total calorie burned) you can calculate your daily total calorie consumption accurately.
2) Total Calories Consumption
Second of all, total calorie consumption aka TCC is how much calories you are consuming in a 24 hour period. Or in other terms, it simply it means what you are eating from morning to night.
In order to achieve your fitness goals you must calculate how much calories you need to consume everyday based on your physical information. Depending on your fitness goals, either you need to stay in a calorie deficit or calorie surplus. For example if you are trying to lose weight/burn fat you need to stay in a calorie deficit. Basically just eat less than what you burn on the daily bases. Or if you are trying to gain lean muscle mass, you need stay in a calorie surplus or eat more than you burn on the daily basis.
3) Macronutrients
Now that you know how much calories you need to consume on the daily basis, you need to know the sources of where you are getting these calories from.
What are macronutrients?
They are simply protein, carbohydrates, and fats.
For example, you can find protein in steak, fish, beef, chicken, and even pork. You can find carbs in pasta, rice, and potatoes. You can find fats in oils, butter, and nuts.
For achieving your fitness goals, based on your physical information and your fitness goals you need to distribute your calories perfectly between these sources of protein, carbs, and fats.
It is important to know that one gram of carbs has 4 calories. One gram of protein has 4 calories. And one gram of fat has 9 calories.
For example, if your goal is to burn fat and you’re burning 1,500 calories/day = TCB, and your target total calorie consumption (TCC) is 1,300 calories. You will be in a caloric deficit of 200 calories which will push you to lose weight. But if you consume all of your calories from carbohydrates you will not burn fat/lose weight.
Why?
Because your main goal is to burn fat and by consuming all of your calories from carbs which is your body’s main source of energy, you will not let your body tap into your second preferred source of energy which is fat. So by knowing this example, you should know why consuming the right amount of protein, carbs, and fats based on your physical information and your fitness goals will determine wether you will get the results from your nutrition and training or not.
4) Ingredients
Now that you know the importance of your macros and you know your numbers. Do not forget that consuming your macros/calories from the right ingredients is just as equally as important.
Here is an example, if you want to build lean muscle mass and your’e trying to consume 30g of carbohydrates for lunch. It will provide you with energy for your afternoon training session. Now should you eat brown rice or white rice? Or should you eat quinoa or potatoes?
Let me give you another example, do you think its better to consume your protein from chicken breast or steak? Your answer is probably chicken breast because you might have heard that chicken breast is a leaner meat or you’ll choose chicken breast because you know by consuming the same portions of both chicken and steak , your body will get more protein and less fat.
You may be completely wrong, why? Because if you’re trying to accelerate the growth of more lean muscle mass then steak is the preferred source of protein in certain parts of the day due to the type of amino acids that are found steak.
At the end of the day, we don’t tell you what to choose, we just want to remind you that each ingredient can have a huge affect on your fitness goals.
5) Time
Time is the component where you need to be the most skilled in terms of meal planning to manipulate your body to achieve what you want. Knowing what time you should be consuming your macros is a major key to you achieving your fitness goals. For example, if your goal is to burn fat then that means you can trick your body to burn fat more than usual.
Since carbohydrates are the main source of energy that is burned in your body, it would be better to avoid carbohydrates in the morning completely when you wake up and eat breakfast. It would be better to eat more fatty foods, thus triggering your body to burn more fat because it is now using it as it’s main source of energy.
Now imagine how many different calculated ways you can manipulate your body to lose weight or gain lean muscle mass!
6) Workout
Workouts can be separated into two groups, which is cardiovascular training and weight training. Your work outs should be calculated and in sync with how much calories you are burning on the daily bases. And all of that should be synced the type of fitness goals you have.
Let me give you another example to clear everything up for you.
Your workouts must feed the purpose of your fitness goals. With that said, if your’e trying to burn fat your main purpose from your training is to boost your TCB (total calories burned) and metabolism. Now, if you try only heavy weight training such as low reps and heavy weight with long rest periods, the amount of your TCB will be dramatically less compared to HIIT (high intensity interval training).
7) Shopping List
This one might be different form the others but one important step to do is to have a shopping list when you are out grocery shopping for protein, carbohydrates, vegetables, and seasoning that you need for your meal preps. This is key because this is to help give you better focus on what you have to do and what you need when you are out shopping for your ingredients. When at the store you should just go in and buy your ingredients and leave. If you don’t have a list, you are more prone to waste your time in the store. You will also be more prone to buy things you do not need. This is to help you be more disciplined and save more money and time.
You should be able to meal preps, shopping, cooking, and cleaning in a time frame where you can commit to this life style in the long term.
8) Process
Before you start cooking, you need to have a plan. You need to know what you need to do first in order to be as efficient as possible. Do you want to marinate your meat or not? Do you want to blanch your veggies or bake them? This goes hand in hand with the shopping list. This all depends on the recipe of the meals you’re cooking, but one important advice. Always start with the ingredients you know it’ll take the longest to cook, and finish with the ingredients that you know will take the least amount of time to prepare.
Last but not least, you need to make sure all of your meals are packaged and and store in the room temperature and each meal should be consumed between 2 to 3 three days after they are packaged to avoid bacteria growth.
In Conclusion
Achieving your fitness goals is a mathematical scientific process. Not just hard work and healthy eating. And without having all of that information, you can waste a lot of your time and money make you give up on your fitness goals. If you’re trying to achieve your fitness goals in a calculated way, we highly suggest you either do extensive research before doing any meal planning or weight training. Or let us get a chance to serve you! We will accurately calculate your Total Calories Burned and Target Calorie Consumption based on your physical information such as age, gender, and weight.
Based on your fitness goals, our advanced algorithm will calculate your target macronutrients, ingredients you should consume them from, and the time you should consume each of them. And with our synced 90-days work out plan, we will not leave any of your questions unanswered and will push you towards getting scientifically calculated results for your fitness goals.
If you are interested in us to serve you, please click on the link or picture below to learn more about our service!
