Name that song, without trusty Google. Seriously. If you can, MASSIVE KUDOS to you!! Meal prep. Yeah, that’s what you just stumbled upon, not a trip down memory hip-hop lane. #sorry
Today I’m walking through my meal prep process and menu for the week (and most other weeks, as well). I’m a creature of habit, and if I like what I’m eating and it doesn’t take me half of my weekend to prepare it all, then I’ll continue on until I just can’t stomach it anymore. So, for the last few weeks this is what’s been my go-to meals for snacks and lunches. The snacks pretty much never change, but the lunches I switch up every week to two weeks. I’ll also make a quick mention of what I’ve been preparing for dinner most weeks.
I just want to preface this post by saying that I am NOT a nutritional expert by any means. I’m still working on what fuels my body for the long, sometimes grueling, days and what I’m about to share is what works best for me. I am vegetarian. For the most part, I avoid certain nuts and all dairy Monday – Friday. I know what makes my body feel like crap, and I avoid those things. Dairy is 100% one of them. Why only Monday – Friday? #cheese Like I said, my food intake is a constant work in progress, and I don’t know even a fraction of what all I could to fuel my body that much better. But, this is what it looks like for now. Snacks
Snacks
I’m skipping right over breakfast because if you read my Go-To Breakfast Smoothie post, you already know what that looks like. I prepare two snacks for each day: one for mid-morning and one for mid-afternoon. I drink my smoothie so early in the morning that the mid-morning snack helps keep my energy levels up, and the mid-afternoon helps keep me from starving by the time I do my second workout after work, pick up the kid from school, and get dinner cooked.
My mid-morning snack consists of Gala apples (my fave), some sort of seed/nut butter, one hard-boiled egg, and blueberries. Almond butter used to be my go-to choice of nut butter, but I felt like it was making me feel a little crummy so I switched to sunflower seed butter. It took me a few days to get used to the new taste, but I enjoy it with apples. I definitely won’t be eating it on its own though.
My mid-afternoon snack consists of blackberries, orange peppers, and hummus. I used to not be picky about the type of peppers I used, but I’ve recently preferred orange over the others. I think it’s a bit sweeter, and has a better crunch.
Lunch
If you follow me on Insta, you saw me post the below photo of my lunch prep a few weeks ago.
I loathe salads. This is why I get a serving (or two) of greens in my smoothie each morning. I have never been a salad person unless it’s drenched in Ranch or Honey Mustard dressing, which kind of defeats the purpose of eating a salad, doesn’t it? I came across this recipe that called for parsley as its “leaf”, and I thought that would be perfect: not too much chomping, but just enough crunch. I loved it. Roasted cauliflower with red onions seasoned with avocado oil, salt and pepper, and garlic powder. Fresh parsley. Roasted chickpeas seasoned with avocado oil, salt and pepper, garlic powder, cayenne, and chili pepper. Lemon tahini dressing with avocado oil, lemon juice, tahini, salt and pepper. It was so simple and so filling. Other lunches on rotation are black bean and quinoa “burgers” with cilantro lemon green lentils and quinoa sweet potato bowls.
Dinner
This is hit and miss at times. Depending on the week, we’ll eat cereal two days in a row. When I do my best to plan ahead and am not completely run down by the end of the day, dinner looks a lot like the Vegan Avocado Jackfruit Pasta from a few posts back, roasted veggies with quinoa, zucchini/corn/bean “salad”, and I recently discovered an amazing vegan gluten free “alfredo” pasta. I’m a pasta lover, what can I say? And if I can find a healthy version that satisfies my carb craving? Win. Also just to note, I do not make my son follow my person dietary restrictions, and therefore he is not vegetarian. So I’m usually adding some sort of meat-based protein to his portions of our dinners.
There you have it. My meal prep and menu for most weeks. When I’m the best version of myself, I’m grocery shopping on Saturday morning and then meal prepping during nap time on Sundays. It’s when I cram those two horrible things in one day that I tend to not do so great on Sunday evenings and just eat out instead of cook. I try to avoid that.
Hope this gives you some inspiration for your next menu!
Until next time…
