Meal Prepping vs. Fresh Cooking

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To meal prep or not to meal prep. That is the question at hand. Do you prefer meal prepping in advance of the start of the week or fresh cooking every day?

I used to meal prep religiously every Sunday afternoon or night from around 2009 until 2020. That is 11 years of meal prepping. And then all of a sudden, my husband and I started cooking everything fresh. I’ve started really thinking about what’s best for someone living with an autoimmune disease and I don’t have the be-all-end-all solution for you. However, I’ll share the pros and cons and you can decide what works for you depending on your daily/weekly routine.

Meal Prepping

Meal prepping, means preparing all your food for the week ahead of time. In the past, for me, this included breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as organizing snacks for the week. This worked really well for me because I was working in an office and I would eat breakfast and lunch at my desk and then dinner immediately when I got home or after the gym. I was well nourished and I didn’t end up ordering food too often out of fatigue or laziness.

A Sunday Meal Prep Picture From Year’s Ago

I loved meal prepping. It gave me control, and organization and I was setting myself up for success each day. Meal prepping comes with the need to meal plan. And while I do not currently meal prepping once a week, meal planning hasn’t changed for me. It’s still very key to leading a nourished life.

Many years ago, I discovered a tool called Real Plans and it made meal planning so much simpler. To this day I still use the platform to plan out our meals. The way we prep our meals has just changed. So when did it change and why?

Cooking Fresh

Along came 2020 and like many of you, our routines changed. I was pregnant with our twins, we had just moved across the country and there was a pandemic with lockdowns. When my husband and I moved to Vancouver Island in 2020, we started cooking fresh instead of meal-prepping. I had arrived in Port Alberni at the beginning of January 2020, my husband then drove across the country and landed the day Canada basically went into lockdown in March of 2020. My husband really stepped into the role of chef during this time and would cook our dinners fresh every night. I barely had any energy at the end of a workday to stand up with the weight of the twins in my belly. Leftovers would then become my lunch the next day. And I only really need to prepare a few breakfast meals a week.

There is just something about a freshly cooked meal instead of heating it up in the microwave. Of course, the whole topic of using microwaves is a loaded one. But even just heating up a meal on a stovetop is sometimes less than ideal. I also definitely noticed that in our shift to cooking fresh that we wasted less food. We weren’t throwing out as much food at the end of the week due to spoilage.

Pros And Cons of Meal Prep vs. Cooking Fresh

Here are my pros and cons to meal prepping or cooking fresh…

	Pros	Cons
Meal Prepping	– Order Out Less – Save Time & Energy During The Week	– Food Can Spoil If You Don’t Eat It – Doesn’t Always Taste Fresh
Cooking Fresh	– Fresh Food – Flavourful	– Need Time & Energy Daily – End Up Ordering Out When Tired

I remember when I shared my meal-prepping ways on social media one of the many questions I would get over and over again was “Is it safe to eat meat at the end of the week?” I never had an issue but some might.

Regardless of whether your meal prepping or cooking fresh the meal planning part is still an integral part of setting yourself up for success. That way you know what you’re eating every single day and don’t have to take time or energy each day to figure that out.

What Meal Prep Looks Like For Us These Days

We moved back to Ontario in April of 2021 and have found a new routine in our house and as twin parents. I still sit down on Saturday or Sunday to meal plan for the week. I place an online pickup order at our local grocery store and my husband grabs the groceries on Monday morning. While my husband still cooks dinners every night, I’ve also started meal-prepping a few key meals for us. On Monday, I’ll make a key breakfast meal like Maple Sage Breakfast Patties that will last us a few days. Then on Tuesday, I’ll make an Instant Pot soup like AIP Instant Pot Cauliflower Soup that will last us for a few lunches that week. So while I’m still meal prepping, it’s no longer being done on Sunday afternoons or evenings just throughout the week as my work schedule allows.

Do you like meal planning?

Are you busy on Wednesday, October 12th? I’m hosting a Meal Planning Masterclass at 8 pm ET if you’d like to see how I use Real Plans to meal plan.

Healthy Habit Time Savers

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I’m all about taking the time to integrate healthy habits into your life. But sometimes you just need that time saver to save your life and give you back some precious time that can be spent with your family or building a life that you love.

In no particular order, here are the top 5 things I do to save time while incorporating healthy habits in my life.

Click and Collect with Loblaws

The first time you set up your online shopping through Loblaws it takes a bit of time. But the amazing part about consistently shopping at Loblaws is that they save your preferences and past orders. I’ve only used the service twice but it saved my last online order and because I’m a PC Plus member it has all my in-store shopping saved as well. I’m ok with a big brother-like entity knowing what I eat on a weekly basis 🙂 I set up the grocery shop on Friday evening, and picked the morning time slot on Sunday. Drove to Loblaws after a morning workout, called the number on the sign, let them know I had cloth bags in my car and approved a switch from organic blackberries to regular ones and they charged my credit card on file, put the bags in my car and within 5 mins I was outta there. The delivery pick-up charge was $5 which is definitely worth my time.

So while Mike and I do enjoy grocery shopping together. Last week on Snapchat you would’ve seen that we made it a competition of who could finish their half of the shopping first. I took the produce and he took meat, sometimes we just need to save our time and spend that extra $5 for a pickup.

Real Plans

I’ve talked about my meal-prepping ways on the blog before. You can go here for an archive of some meal prep posts and then here for my write-up on this meal planning platform that I adore to plan out my weekly meals.

BBQ Chicken

I’m all for cooking from scratch. I believe it’s necessary so we know exactly what goes into our food from the sauces to the spices used. But sometimes the thought of cooking an entire chicken is exhausting in itself. I love that I can get the “Free From” brand of BBQ Chicken at Loblaws and can at least assure myself that the Chicken is free from antibiotics and hormones.

Pill Containers

I’ve figured out that the best way for me to stay compliant with taking supplements is to pack up my breakfast and lunch supplements and bring a pill container with me to work. I placed the container on the right in the picture below on my desk in plain sight so I’m visually cued to see them and take them throughout the day. The other box is my nighttime supplements that sit on my kitchen counter. This saves me time from routing around in countless containers daily.

Juice Companies

While I love making fresh juice each week from my cookbooks when in a pinch it really is so easy to pick up ready-made juices now in the grocery store. I love that one of my favourite brands Cedar Juice is readily available at my Loblaws.

Save some time on your quest to be healthy. It’s so worth it.

Affiliate Disclosure: The links to pill boxes on Amazon are affiliate links and I will be compensated slightly by sharing this amazing resource with you that will help you get healthy or stay healthy.

Auto Immune Paleo Meal Planning

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links and a product review where I received the product at no cost. A girl’s gotta pay the grocery bills!

In my MS journey I believe my nutrition is one of the main foundations to stay healthy. After my diagnosis in Dec 2014, the Wahl’s Protocol was shared with me so I largely subscribe to this way of eating after researching it. Adopting this meal plan has helped immensely with my health. I feel energetic, satiated and my digestion problems have been slowly healing. This post doesn’t go into the why of my meal plan but the how practicalities of planning, grocery shopping & prepping.

I then found the Auto-Immune Paleo site full of research & recipes. I’ve been trying out different recipes here and there in my weekly meal planning. Several people on social media asked me to break down what I eat on a weekly basis so here is a long over due post on how I use Real Plans to plan out my AIP weekly meal plan for myself and my boyfriend.

If you’d like more information on Real Plans you can CLICK HERE to read more.

Ok here’s how meal planning goes down in our household. On Saturday or Sunday morning, I log onto my computer and pull up the Real Plans website. In the Plan tab I can schedule out all of my food to visually see what I’m going to eat. I’m a creature of habit and simplicity. We eat all the same food on Monday, Wednesday & Friday and then the same meals on Tuesday & Thursday. This allows for variety but less ingredients and thus less shopping.

Here is a snapshot of what is on the plan for this week…

Breakfast is usually a combination of protein & fat. This week it’s Breakfast Sausages and 1/2 an avocado. On other days it’s a protein & carb. I’ll do this especially on heavier training days. This week I brought the Coconut Porridge back into our bellies and it’s amazing. We’ve tried it before and loved it. Not as easy as making overnight oats but still pretty simple to make.

Once you’ve laid out all the meals you click over to Shopping List. I check off ingredients I already have in the fridge or pantry and then voila my shopping list is complete.

Meal Planning When Tired

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I haven’t done a meal planning post in a bit so here is how I meal prep with my boyfriend when we’re both exhausted from a great week & weekend.

This weekend, Mike had to work at OCR Academy and it was the end of week one with the puppy so needless to say we were a bit exhausted come Sunday. I usually take time to plan out our meals for the coming week, make a grocery list and then grocery shop when he’s done work and meal prep in the evening. However sometimes life throws you fun.

I spent Sunday morning at Le Nordik with an old friend (we used to lifeguard together in high school!) and spent the morning in the baths and then got a much-needed massage for a body that continues to have problems. After X Man Toronto my neck decided to seize up and I haven’t been able to turn it to the right lately. After the most amazing deep tissue and facial stretch appointment, I was on cloud nine happy and raced home to grab a late lunch with Mike. We decided to go straight to grocery shopping after that and wing it. When we wing it this is how I shop.

Decide on what meat we want for lunches and dinners.
Grab enough green vegetables for the sides
Grab a couple of carb options for Mike (as I don’t really touch carbs)
Grab ingredients for fresh juices throughout the week
Grab 2 treats (popcorn & coconut ice cream – 1 bag & 1 container each)

Here is what my meals look like today!

We settled on 3 different kinds of sausages (honey garlic, mild Italian and Oktoberfest – all freshly made by the Loblaws butcher), a BBQ chicken (free from Loblaws brand), bacon & turkey bacon and in the freezer at home we have ribs, steak & chicken. I choose Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Avocados & Snow Peas for our veggies and we grabbed a to-go container of Basmati Rice for a carb option for Mike.

Juice this week is my favourite recipe from Crazy Sexy Juice which includes Grapefruit, Oranges, Ginger & Turmeric and our weekly smoothies include homemade almond milk, frozen raspberries, banana and Magnum Quattro Plain & Simple Protein Powder.

Here’s how we prepped. Mike BBQed the sausages while I made maple syrup, sea salt & lemon juice glaze for the sprouts, prepped the cauliflower & broccoli w/ curry & marjoram & pre-heated the oven to 400 F and steamed the snow peas. The sprouts & cauliflower/broccolli mix went into the oven at the same time for 30 mins total. After the sausages were done Mike started cooking the bacon on the George Foreman and shredded the BBQ Chicken off the bone into a Tupperware while I made fresh juice for the week.

We packaged everything off into containers for the week and the only thing I had to make fresh this morning was the smoothies & coffee 🙂

Happy Meal Prepping!

Sunday Meal Prep

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Food prep Sunday night was exciting. I prepped my menu planning board on Saturday night and hit up the grocery store Sunday night after spending the day relaxing at Body Blitz.

First step was to place 4 chicken breasts in my crock pot with organic chicken broth & Mrs. Dash Montreal chicken spice. I cook them overnight on low.

I cooked boiled lentils in a separate pot, shredded sweet potato and then chopped up some sweet onion. Throw it in a frying pan and boom.