Preparing meals

[BluEyes]

Yo

How do you guys prepare your meals? When eating 6-8 meals a day, of clean homemade food, you either have to live in the kitchen, or prepare food ahead of time.

Do any of you cook meals a week in advance? I'm always hesitant to cook chicken/eggs/vegetables days ahead because it tends to go bad and rot.

Preparing fresh, healthy food for a lifter's diet is a very time consuming task, it would be cool if we could all throw some ideas around, tip-style, to help eachother out.

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What I did is buy buttloads of tupperware containers, 3 for each day of the week. I put my midday meals in them that morning and cook the food up for breakfast(chicken breast for lunch). For midmorning/midafternoon its usually tuna + raw veggies. For lunch it's right now chicken/raw veggies/oatmeal. It's very time consuming to make all this stuff.

I also prepare my pre/post workout shakes on the spot.

Breakfast is cooked in the morning.

Dinner is cooked in the evening.

What I'm having trouble with sort of is the midday meals. Right now it's just very time consuming and I spend far too much time thinking about/preparing food. I'd like to minimize prep by possibly cooking/prepping several days in advance, but I don't have any good strategies for that yet.
I find this is a very overlooked part of nutrition, is food preparation and some good timesaving tactics.

Thanks for the input, lets get some ideas in here guys.

 

[organizedconfusion]

here are some great tips

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/3158/gu15uu6.jpg

 

[SamoJednom]

^ Ban please.

-SamoJednom

 

[Skilla_Staz]

Hm. So much for people following your routine now OG.

 

[organizedconfusion]

Hm. So much for people following your routine now OG.

you're right,that was uncalled for..here's the real link- promise :wave:

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/5102/jenkinscv9.jpg




nice!

 

[Omen]

Yes, and the thing is that you can find things to eat in the day that dont require you to really cook. Now if you want them prepared and ready to eat, that is a different story.

Things that dont take much prep work are...

Natural Peanut Butter
Bananas
Almonds
Apples
Cottage Cheese
Whole Grain Bread
Protein Bar
Shake
Craisins
Pudding
Yogurt
Milk

For instance say its time to get something down. Eat a PB sandwich on WHOLE wheat bread. About 120cal per slice plus 2Tbsp PB and your at 240cal for the bread and then 190cal on the PB. 430cal right there. Eat some sliced apples and your 500cal.

When you cook for instance chicken in advanced, marinate it, and then when you nuke it, it wont be so dry. You can buy the marinated packets or sauce or make your own. Soak it for about 30min then grill 2.5lbs. That's what the recipe calls for.

Cook bunches of rice as well.

I cooked chicken on Monday I believe and it is still good to eat, and so is the rice.

Sometimes, cooking for a whole week or for so many days is required, or at least preparing your food.

Steel cut oats take so long to cook, and cook right, I do them the night before, so i'm not waiting 15min for them to cook. If you want to go a step further, cook them in a crock pot in bulk.

Your right, it is time consuming, and you have to do it, but do it right, and it can be OK. It will never be a breeze, but sometimes there is no option.

Its like I told Crazy Asian in his post about how inconvenient putting water in a shaker cup is NOT. If that is too inconvenient, you need a new sport.

You seem to have it pretty much down, and doesn't look like you need much tweaking.

Some things you may have to take in a cooler if you can. I am at home a lot, so I dont have to worry too much about a cooler. But when I work and I cant really EAT for my shift, I take the snack things, like protein bar, fruits, almonds and craisins, etc etc. Things I can snack on that will still be clean foods.

Another GREAT option, especially to get your carbs up is a carb drink. Buy 50lbs of maltodextrin powder, and when you fill up a 32oz container with water, flavor it, and add 1C powder and when you drink your water, you'll also get carbs/calories in as well. 380cal and 94g carbs.

I do that quite a bit to get extra calories in. I figure... This 32oz of water is going down, so might as well add calories to it too.

BTW... The new Muscle And Fitness Magazine has an article about what this post is about, and preparing meals, what you need, and all that stuff. You might want to go read it, if you dont have a subscription.

 

[simon]

94g of maltodextrin? That would make me crash so badly.

 

[Omen]

94g of maltodextrin? That would make me crash so badly.

This is why you sip it over an hour or 2+, and at the same time during those hours, your still eating complex carbs, fat and protein, so it isn't an issue unless you just slam it down, and dont eat for hours, then it would be a problem.

I've never had an issue with it because i'm also eating through out the day.