If you are trying to consistently lose fat then here are some meal prep tips that can help you achieve your goals. These meal prep tips will also work if you are in your bulking cycle as well. Counting calories isn’t for everyone. Lots of people want to change their lifestyle and look leaner, get stronger, etc. But they are a little confused on how to approach the calorie counting part of the diet.
Today I will be sharing some meal prep tips on how I approach this. Just remember if you aren’t tracking your calories, then you may not get the results that you are looking for. There are no ‘fat burning foods’. If you want to lose weight, simply put yourself in a caloric deficit and make sure that you are getting an adequate amount of protein. Such as 1 gram of protein per lb of body weight.
But this post isn’t about how to count calories. If you want to know how to do that then I recommend to start reading articles on muscleforlife. This is about how ‘I’ personally approach meal prep. It also gives me a chance to practice my food photography skills.
I’m going to be sharing how I approach preparing meals for the week. I have gone with this approach for almost two years and I am consistently able to change my body composition with great success. I am not a gourmet chef. I am not here to teach you how to cook. But here to teach you some meal prep tips that will get you going on the right path to meet your weight loss goals.
Here are the ingredients and tools I will be using. Food weight scale, measuring cup, sharp knives, cutting board, pen and paper. Chicken breast, long grain rice, canned black beans, extra virgin olive oil, seasoning and hot sauce.
I shouldn’t have to explain how to cut chicken breast. But what I will explain is that you should weigh the chicken breast before it is cooked. This is essential to know exactly how much you are putting into your body. Just because the package says 3 lbs doesn’t mean you are going to be cooking 3 pounds. This is especially true if you are cutting off the skin and fat from the chicken breast. For instance the package said over 3lbs of chicken breast. After cutting and weighing the chicken with my food scale I came up with 2lbs 11.5 oz of chicken breast. I will then record this number.
Next I use a seasoning shaker container to season the chicken. 2 Tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil with Sriracha seasoning.
Shake that shit up and this is what I get. All nice and evenly seasoned chicken breast.
I like to bake my chicken breast in a glass oven safe pan. It keeps the juices in from my experience and always cooks evenly when I do it this way.
Heat the oven to 375* and bake for 30 minutes. Again I am not a professional chef. You can bake your chicken however the hell you want. These are just my own personal meal prep tips that have worked for me to achieve my body composition goals.
While the chicken is baking I will then prep the rice. 1/4 of a cup of dry rice equals 1 serving. So I add 1.5 cups of rice to the pot, since I am meal prepping for 6 days. Rice is very easy to cook and I’m not going to explain it in this article. One pro-tip is that you don’t need to stir that shit, at all. I usually have it timed to where the rice is don’t right before the chicken is finished cooking.
So here’s the finished meal. Black beans, white rice and chicken breast. Now I have 6 servings of rice, 6 servings of beans, and 2lbs 11.5 ounces of chicken breast. I know my total number for the entire meal that I cooked. I will then grab 6 food storage containers and split the food up evenly. There’s no need to weigh the food at this point in my opinion. You now what your total calories are. You are going to be consuming those calories within a week. Just do the best you can to eyeball it as even as possible and you will be ok.
Here’s the meal prepped. In the past I used to go more than 6 servings and would prep 12 of the same thing and then freeze the rest. The problem with that is the meals taste like shit once frozen and reheated. Not only that eating the same thing gets boring and your body will hate you. This is how I cook every week. Not always the same thing. One week may be Lean ground beef, Quinoa and kidney beans. I mix it up a lot. But primarily I am always eating every day either chicken breast, turkey breast, or lean ground beef.
A couple more meal prep tips is to track what you cook. I use myfitnesspal. So the picture above, once punched into MyFitnessPal, has the following macros.
Calories: 3,186
Carbs: 356 grams
Fat: 55 grams
Protein: 295 grams
Once I save that meal in MyFitnessPal, I can plug it in to my daily diary. Since I made 6 servings, I need to divide that number by 6. Or just put in .1666 of (1) serving. There are other ways to do this as well but this is just how I’ve always done it. So each meal has the following macros.
Calories: 510
Carbs: 57 grams
Fat: 8 grams
Protein: 48 grams
The meal here cost me about $11 for 6 dinners. If you use higher grade chicken it’s going to be a little bit more. Some people by the chicken whole which can save you money. Some people cook their beans and don’t use canned beans, which can also save you money.
All photographs (not screenshots) we created using a tripod, Nikon D610 and the Nikkor 35-70mm 2.8 macro lens. As well as a Glow softbox, and Flashpoint 1220m strobe. Here is a picture taken by my daughter, of me taking a picture of these meal prep tips while practicing my food photography.
