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Common Meal-Prep Mistakes

Meal-Prep is supposed to help you eat healthier and lose weight, right? Well, not if you make these mistakes — you could actually gain! Whether you’re new to the meal prep life or you’ve been meal prepping and not seeing results, make sure you avoid these mistakes.

1. Not Following the Correct Formula – Each meal you prep needs to have healthy carbs, fats and protein. While it may be quick and easy to prep an enormous dish of baked lasagna, you don’t want to just eat carbs for lunch. Same with mason jar salads While veggies are low in calories and high in fibre, you need to include healthy fats and protein to make your salad filling enough so afternoon cravings don’t drive you to hit the local bakery. Well-balanced meals are the key to weight loss.
2. Huge Containers – Having the right-size containers will guide your portion sizes, so make sure you have different containers on hand. A 24-ounce mason jar would be great for a salad, but that would be four portions of soup!
3. Not Prepping Enough – While one piece of grilled salmon with a little rice and a few steamed broccoli florets may be enough for one person, it might leave you famished an hour later and reaching for three granola bars from the staff kitchen. Know your body and what fills you up so you can prep an appropriate size meal that will satisfy your hunger without going overboard on calories.
4. Prepping Too Much – Slow cookers are a meal prepper’s best friend, but you’ll want to adjust your recipes to guide how many meals you’re planning ahead for. There’s no need to make a child recipe that serves eight if you only need lunch for five days. If you do, freeze the extras — don’t spread out eight servings into five containers!
5. Making it Too Strict or Too Healthy – Prepping meals and snacks that keep your macros and calories in check all week will definitely yield the results you’re after, but if you feel depressed about how strict your diet is, it could drive you to break down and give up. When meal prepping, leave a small amount of wiggle room. So say you’ve planned to have lentil soup on Tuesday, but you don’t feel like it; you can just grab Wednesday’s prepped ingredients for burritos instead. It’s also important to prep some treats, because indulging a little each day can give you that little taste you’re craving so you don’t feel like you’re missing out