Meal prep hacks for a busy lifestyle!

If I didn't meal prep I would not be eating healthy meals every day. We are all busy, I know I am. I work around 50 hours a week and still have to fit in my own workouts, family time and a social life not to mention chores and errands. So if I was just grabbing what I could get my hands on then it would be a disaster.

There is a misconception that meal prep takes hours. But it doesn't have to. I set aside a couple hours max a week to prep my main meals. Don't forget a lot of meals you might prep and freeze can be left to cook while you get on with other things so it's not as time consuming as you might think. For example I did a slow cook pulled pork dish recently, it took about 10 mins to prep it all. The cooking time was a few hours but I was doing other things while it was cooking. It made me 4 good portions that I could then freeze.

I do this with all my meals. Cook a batch and freeze some then all I need to do is defrost and heat up. Sometimes I freeze whatever side dishes I am having with it and sometimes I cook them in the moment. Rice and veg don't take long to cook at all so I only freeze them with it if I need to take the meal to work with me.

For me breakfast is fruit and toast, super quick and easy and my favourite. If you want to have overnight oats that will be even quicker, just throw it all together the night before. Buying lunch on the go will get very expensive. Even a meal deal a day would be around £5, that would be £25 a week just for Monday to Friday!!. So I make a sandwich. You can pack it with protein like eggs or tuna and maybe some salad etc. It will cost less than £5 for the whole week!. If I need to eat at work I need something I can heat up quickly.

Doing this saves a ton of time and money and will also be much healthier. A slow cooked chicken casserole can be packed with potato and veg and much cheaper than buying a ready meal, these days they are getting expensive. I batch cooked a chicken curry recently, I included chicken, various veg and rice and got 8 portions for less than a £1 per portion.! I recently did a beef stew, packed it with veg and added rice. Super tasty and so easy. I always need some snacks, fruit is easy and I make my own oat bars, much cheaper and I control what goes in them. Takes me about 5 mins to throw in the blender then I bake and cut up and freeze in bags for when I need them! Then just grab it all to take with me when I leave for work.

I can do a weekly shop for myself for less than £20 so long as I plan well and shop wisely. So don't use time or convenience as a reason for not eating well. You can do it!