Meal prep routine

New life, new meal prep

If there is something you will learn pretty fast after the surgery is that you eat literally like a bird. Next to nothing. And the second thing is that no one in the family wants to eat what you eat. So you will have to make your separate meals for yourself. It all seems fine until you realize that you are cooking one potato and half of chicken breast. You don’t want to do this every day.

The next step is you cook in batch. So you prepare everything, you cook it… and holly Molly, you find yourself eating the same thing the whole week. How annoying! I forgot to mention that you prepared everything in tiny food containers and you have maybe 50 of them all over the fridge. And no, it is not only you who is upset about stumbling upon them all the time.

Feeling desperate

It seems that the situation can’t be won over. Or is there a way of dealing with this? You have found yourself in a situation completely new to you and you certainly have no idea how to solve it. Each of us was there.

So how to deal with this and maintain the rest of your mental health? First of all, it will require some planning. You will have to make sure you know what you want to eat, when, and how much. Take s sheet of paper and put there everything you want to eat in a week. Snacks included. You will be surprised how little it is when put together.

My tip is to plan your meals directly in your calorie counter app so that you make sure you meet your protein goal. This is my Achilles heel. My head would love to eat things but they usually have little protein. So this is not the way to go. I have to be careful here. The good part is that the app never lies and I know right away where I stand for the day.

Make it easy and versatile

It is a good idea to plan things that are easy to prepare and you can make more and freeze the rest. Yes, having a big freezer is very handy. I have a half freezer and half fridge and it is great. Everything fits. Yes, it takes up space in the kitchen, but I can live with it. It saves a lot of time and effort long term.

I like versatile things. Rotisserie chicken. You can use the meat in many different ways and you never get tired of it. I always have some beans and soups, frozen veggies and fruit, yogurt, and cottage cheese. Also, wholegrain tortillas are great as you can fill them with anything. Even leftovers are good to go 😀 you will find yourself what your go-to things are and you will always restock them so that you never run out of them.

Special meal prep day

So when I buy it all, I call it food day, it is usually Friday afternoon. On my way from work, I do the grocery shopping and in the evening I cook it all, put it in the containers in required quantities, and stuff my fridge and freezer with everything that is left. Like this, I have everything prepared for the week and I do not have to worry about what I will eat, when and how I will cook it, if I will have time for it, and so on. It is all there, waiting for me. What a relief.

It might sound funny but I realized that this is a great system. First of all, you don’t overspend because you go to the store with a list of everything you will need. Like this, there is no space for grabbing this and that and then eating it in front of the TV just because it is at home. If you don’t have it at hand, you won’t eat it. It is not available. Problem solved. Also, why would you buy something you know you don’t have a “calorie budget” to eat? It would only poke you. Nobody needs this.

https://bariradka.com/en/2024/08/15/try-new-healthy-recipes/

Time-saving activity

Cooking everything and preparing it all at the same time is also a very useful way of dealing with this. You cook only once and you mess up all the kitchen only once. Then you keep putting empty containers in the dishwasher and stack them clean for the next week. Logistics at its best. In, out, put away. Done.

And the extra things are waiting for you prepared in the freezer. So you can easily take them out for the next week or when you feel like it. It is already cooked and packed, so you only use it. Another time-saving activity. You don’t have to eat all the time the same. Things like meatballs, and some veggies with chunks of meat, are perfect to wait frozen. And in case something happens and you don’t have time to restock, you always have your meals prepared for a few days (or more). No need to improvise, all is under control.

Cooking for others at home

The thing can be a little more difficult if you are not alone and you have to keep cooking for everyone else. What helped me a lot was storing “my food” apart. Special shelf, special cabinet. Just somewhere apart. And let everybody know that this is yours and if they touch it… you know, Godzilla in action 😀 It is good for you because you don’t have to keep watching the chips of your teenage kids 5 times a day and keep thinking that you would love to eat them.

Things like these, those super processed or full of sugar things, should be stored somewhere… or maybe start cutting them down. They are not good for anyone anyway. So why keep poisoning your beloved daily, right? Maybe put them in an extra cabinet, a drawer in your freezer, somewhere down where they will have to bend and won’t want to do it.

https://bariradka.com/en/2024/07/21/cook-from-scratch-is-an-asset/

Have fun around food

I am not saying to be a slave of your calorie counter app. At all. Enjoy, play with new recipes, and try new food and new cuisines. Why not? Just on a day-to-day basis, it is a good idea to have things prepared and under control. We are all busy, sometimes upset, sometimes we don’t have time, things happen, kids get sick, and life has a million ways of testing us all the time.

That is why when the containers are in the fridge patiently waiting for you, you are very likely to go, take them away, and eat what is inside. No need to explore the whole fridge and start taking out random things and eating them all. This is exactly how things get out of hand, how we start cutting corners, and how it is almost ensured that will gain some unwanted weight.

https://bariradka.com/en/2024/07/20/slow-eating/

Let’s be prepared

I know that it is annoying to spend one afternoon in the kitchen and stuff food into containers. But it is a very wisely inverted time. If you do that, you have all week under control. Nobody wants to throw away food, at least in my household, so we eat what is prepared and in the fridge. No excuses. It is another way of making you eat what you should.

Eating out

We sometimes go out at the weekend and we eat out. In my case, I don’t like it very much, it is stressful for me. I have some strong allergies, so I have to be careful what is in the meal, if there is no cross contamination and things like these. For me, it is better to eat at home and know what I put in it. No need to call me an ambulance. It happened to me once. That is why so many precautions.

After the surgery, our meal time becomes very long and our actual consumption is very small. It doesn’t mean that we don’t enjoy food. Well, yes, I remember, we have to wait for this stage quite a lot of time, but it will come. Maybe in months, but it will. That is why it is a good idea to do things around food right and not take it lightly.

Actually, it was exactly the food that brought us to the surgery theatre. We can’t say: I will never eat again. That is the problem. We have to eat to be able to live. If we manage to keep it this way, all will be fine and we will manage to have things under control. But never forget that once upon a time, it was: we lived to eat. Memento mori!