Let's Talk About: meal prepping and what a week's worth of food might look like..

Okay, so maybe not a week's worth, but almost!

Sunday nights for me are pretty centered around making my week go as smoothly as possible.  Part of this means cleaning my apartment so I feel like I'm getting a fresh start on Monday, and the other part (very important) is food prep.

So, one of the negative things about living in Bushwick is that I don't have a big organic super market where I can get everything I need for the week in one stop, but what my neighborhood lacks in Wholefood's convenience, it makes up for in the fact that we have some pretty great butcher shops and an awesome food co-op.  So my Sunday afternoons usually include a short bike ride to The Meat Hook where they de-bone and skin three or four chicken breasts for me (around a pound and a half will yield five 4oz servings when cooked), and then a trip to the Bushwick Food Co-op to buy pretty much everything else.  And when all else fails, I can usually go to our little grocery store Brooklyn Natural and pay a little more if I really need something.

Here's what a typical week looks like for me:

I tend to buy the same thing every week when it comes to breakfasts and lunches, and then change it up depending on how I'm feeling for dinner.  My entire food haul today was $55, however, nearly a third of that is for the chicken.  At $15 a pound it's a high price to pay, but oh man, it is the best damn chicken you will ever have.  That being said, if I have time to stop on my ride home from work, or I'm visiting my parents and have access to a market that sells less expensive chicken, I stock up.  It might not be the best chicken ever, but $6.99 a pound for some Murray's chicken cutlets hurts a little less.  Also, you probably can't tell from my photo but some of my produce isn't as pristine as what you might buy at your local market.  This is one of the great things about shopping at the food co-op: produce that is a little less than pretty can be found in the half off bin.  I'll usually turn to the half off bin for things that I know I'm going to use right away, for example, the onion and the peppers I bought today were probably on their way out, but I didn't mind since they were going straight into tonight's dinner as soon as I got home.  I'll definitely be going more in depth about food co-op shopping in a few weeks because it really is a money saver when you eat organic (not to mention more environmentally friendly), and most co-ops have so much more than just produce (like cleaning supplies, grains, nuts, flours, etc, from the bulk bins that you can bring your own jars and shop for a way discounted price by not needing fancy packaging).

My day usually goes something like this:

Breakfast = meusli (not pictured because I keep it at the office) with almond milk and berries
Lunch = salad: romaine lettuce, green onion, cherry tomatoes, feta, grilled chicken, and Annie's Light Goddess dressing
Snacks = two hard boiled eggs, an apple, and then something sweet after dinner like a few pieces of dark chocolate.  There's a chocolate company called Fine & Raw a few blocks from my apartment who have been my go for when I want something sweet but don't feel like making anything (bonus points for the fact that you get to see them making it all right there, and it smells like heaven).
Dinner = some kind of protein and roasted or sauteed vegetables.  Lately, there's been a whole lot of kale and sweet potatoes going on.  Tonight was shrimp fajitas (shrimp, onions, poblano and sweet yellow peppers, sauteed with some butter and salt and pepper) with pico de gallo.
Also not pictured: my morning latte, and my afternoon coffee.. or two.
Also also not pictured: the various snacks the people at my office bring in in an attempt at derailing this lovely healthy food train I'm on.

Okay, so there you have it.  Like I said in the beginning of the post, it's not quite a weeks worth, I do end up stopping at the store here and there during the week for things I end up needing for specific recipes.  Also this does not include the things I already have in my pantry and freezer that go into my weekly meals, but it should give you a decent idea of what to buy!

Let's Talk About: The 80/20 Rule

Basically my diet rule is this: I try my best most of the time.

I used to swear that the only thing that “worked” for me was elimination diets.  Some past diets include somewhat militant veganism, the Atkins diet, the Candida cleanse, Nutrisystem (dude, gross), gluten free (I was “intolerant”), intermittent fasting, completely swearing off sugar (including fruit!), and in my junior high years, what some might consider straight up anorexia.  Yes, all of the above did “work” for me at some point in my life, but none of them were sustainable, and I eventually gained back every pound and then some.  Each time I found a new food group to cut out, I would lose about ten to fifteen pounds, only to have it all come back (in what seemed like a matter of minutes) as soon as I got frustrated and fell off the wagon.  True story: I once gained 20 pounds over a winter… I wish I was kidding about that!

I now eat a fairly conservative 1,300-1,500 calorie a day diet (depending on how active/hungry I am that day), most of which is fairly high in protein and low in carbs and sugar.  I meal prep, I measure, and I log it all into My Fitness Pal.  About five days a week I eat only my own cooking.  This way I can be sure exactly what I am eating and know that if I go off the rails a little bit (I work in an office, sometimes there’s cookies) it’s not that big of a deal.  That being said, I really love junk food, and on the weekends I come undone.  Friday nights are for Roberta’s.  Having what some (including myself) would call the best pizza ever a block away from your house is dangerous.  It’s gotten to the point where I walk in and they know what I’m going to order.  I also appreciate a glass of wine, or a vodka soda (or four) on Friday nights.  And then there’s burritos, that’s usually my Saturday thing.. “What about Sunday morning?” you ask: everything bagel toasted with butter.  When in weekend garbage person mode I try to keep my other meals as healthy as possible (if there are any … for some reason on the weekends I tend to only eat one meal a day, which is probably terrible, but it just happens that way).  I basically spread what most people would call their cheat day into three meals over three days.  This actually works for me.  With this system I keep myself mostly in check and in enough of a calorie deficit to lose most weeks, or at the very least maintain my weight on inactive weeks, and I don’t go crazy, and most importantly, I don’t undo all of my hard work in a matter of months!  80% healthy, 20% fried things covered with cheese.

Okay, so how do you do this?  I highly recommend My Fitness Pal, or some kind of app based food log, I honestly don’t think I would have been as consistent with my diet if it were not for logging my food every day.  Also, when you first sign up, it will help you figure out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): this is the general amount of calories you need to consume in order to maintain your weight.  It will then ask you how much weight you want to lose per week and tell you what caloric deficit you need to maintain in order to achieve that weight loss.  For example, if it tells you that your BMR is 2,000 calories, and you want to lose 1 pound a week, you need a deficit of roughly 500 calories a day, so that means you should be eating around 1,500 calories a day.  I recommend erring on the low side of that and putting your calorie goal at a couple hundred calories under, this way you have a built in safety net of knowing that if you sneak a cookie or a handful of chocolate chips, you are not going over your goal.  Try to stick to this to the best of your ability most of the time, and you’re golden!  Like I said before, I base my calories on how active I am that day, so base your calorie goal to work with your inactive days, and add on if you're feeling hungry on active days.  Don't be afraid to mess around with your intake and see what works best for you, while in the short term you might think that eating 1,200 calories a day is going to make you lose the most weight, you might find that your body responds better to 1,500 a day (or more if you're not a cubicle dweller), you won't know until you test it out.  I find that 1,200-1,500 is what works for me.

fitness pal keeps always looks on the bright side!

That being said, I do have one rule with my “cheat meals”: don’t be an asshole.  While I wholeheartedly recommend indulging in a cheeseburger or a piece of cake every once in a while, don’t completely go to town.  Eat the burger but maybe don’t top it with bacon and onion rings, get a beer with it, and eat all the fries, practice a little restraint (maybe take home half if the thought of leaving something on the plate is too much for you to handle).  Oh, and never eat at the Cheesecake Factory.  Seriously, look it up, a single meal there is more than any one person should eat in an entire day . . . that is not a cheat meal, that's a “she don’t love herself” meal.

Measuring and prepping everything you eat definitely takes time and discipline, but it’s something you get used to.  You find your go to meals fairly quickly (I will be posting some of mine very soon), and then you turn into a meal prep machine (as I type this I am making enough hard boiled eggs and chicken cutlets to last me all week).  It becomes second nature, and something that I actually miss on weeks when I don’t have the time.

One more thing: don’t wait until Monday.  If you wait until Monday you’ll end up having what my brother and I call a “last hurrah”.  Basically you’ll give yourself license to eat like complete shit for the rest of the week and that’s not really the point of this whole thing now is it?

Okay, now go forth and meal prep!