🌱 Healthy Meal Prep for the Week 🌱

• Ground Turkey Taco Bowls: Seasoned turkey, spanish brown rice, & a dollop of Greek yogurt. • Salmon & Green Beans: Simple Go-To • Grilled Chicken, Sweet Potato & GreenBeans • Jerk Black Beans with Cauliflower Coconut Rice & Mango Salsa: A flavorful plant-based option. • Grilled Chicken Purple Sweet Potatoes & Broccoli • Whole Wheat Spaghetti w/ ground turkey • Smothered Okra with Chicken Andouille Sausage & Shrimp 🍤 Breakfast - yogurt/overnight oats/chia

meal prep template

Weekly Meal Plan

Monday:

Lunch: Parmesan Zucchini, Tomato & Chicken Spaghetti (loaded with extra veggies)

Dinner: Slow Cooker Pot Roast*, Fresh Salad, Rhodes Rolls, Seasonal Veggies & Fruit

Tuesday:

Lunch: Leftover Parmesan Zucchini, Tomato & Chicken Spaghetti

Dinner: Classic Spaghetti Night with Salad, Garlic Breadsticks, Fresh Fruits & Veggies

Wednesday:

Lunch: Leftover Spaghetti

Dinner: Chicken Bacon Ranch Tacos* with Rice, Beans, and a side of Fruits & Veggies

Thursday:

Lunch: Chicken Bacon Ranch Wraps (made from leftovers), Broccoli & Cheese

Dinner: Sub Sandwiches or Grilled Cheese, Crispy Chips, Fresh Veggies & Fruit, Cottage Cheese

Friday – Last Day of School!

Lunch: Special Lunch Out with the Kids

Dinner: Ultimate French Bread Pizzas with a Fresh Salad & Fruit

Would you use an app if one was available? Here is how it works: Enter your dietary restriction - vegan, keto etc; macros goal per meal, cuisine preference etc. Also enter any particular ingredients you want to avoid Enter your cooking experience/skill level, and the active time you want to spend cooking each meal Number of different recipes you want for breakfast and for dinner It will generate as many recipes you requested, and you can look at each one and decide if you want to replace that particular one. Tell the tool what you want different and it will give you a replacement recipe.

It generates an ingredients list with quantities, which you review and check off what you already have, Once done, you can download a shopping list.

In addition to the individual recipes, it also give you weekend prep and store instructions that you can follow to have everything ready for the weekday. You can download them all separately.

What are your thoughts? I appreciate any feedback you can give me so I can try and incorporate it before launch.

Have you tried “Intent”? From my experience with it, it has the capacity to do everything you’ve mentioned except for the community portion. It also composes your grocery list and allows you to export the ingredients you don’t already have to most major grocery ordering/delivery apps.

The Body Coach App does this more or less

I was just looking at the latest version of My Net Diary after a few years away from it. They are offering an AI driven planner now that might do what you want? It’s in premium and I haven’t decided if I want to make the app switch yet so haven’t tested it, but it could be worth a look

Hi! I believe chatgpt might be the best option. As far as I know?

Not exactly the same what you're looking for but maybe close - the Lose It! app has a feature where you can adjust your meal budget by percentage. (Note this might be a paid feature?)

https://i.imgur.com/DiYviaQ.png Here's my current setup for a light lunch and big dinner. The budget total calories is set my by goal and the percentages divvy this up per meal.

If I overeat/undereat on a meal, it subtracts/adds calories from the others in that hierarchy. For example, if I only eat 100 calories for breakfast, it adds the difference to the other meals. If I overeat on lunch, it subtracts.

Lose It! also lets you make meal plans, recipes, etc. I'm not an ad for them haha, but it does have a lot of great features you might be looking for.

Last thing, I have my FitBit synced to the app so it can detect activity and, if you want, subtract calories burned.

Honestly I eat mostly the same thing every day. It’s tasty and it stops me being overwhelmed from having to plan, shop, etc.

Breakfast:100g yoghurt (a mix of 50/50 unsweetened lite and vanilla), a quarter cup of rolled oats, 20g of macadamia nuts and 2 prunes.

Lunch: roast meat, 1/2 a cup of rice and a sachet of frozen veges.

Dinner: steak or salmon, dry-fried. 1/2 a cup of rice and a sachet of frozen veges.

That’s around 1200 calories. I can add a snack if I want.

Obviously I can mix it up if I feel like cooking—I recently did a beef and mushroom ragu for pasta sauce, but the above menu is easy, requires almost no prep, and I can do it when I’m exhausted.

dont let it be complicated. as long as you are consistent in your approach, it doesnt matter (and is actually impossible) to be very precise with tracking.

if there are common meals you make, yes, its worth taking the time to make a recipe in whatever app you use. but ive been doing this for 4-5 years and have a grand total of 9 recipes saved, 3 of which are variations of the same common lunch I usually have and 2 of which are protein shake variations. The point is, perfectly logged and tracked recipes are not necessary.

For a normal meal, I just log the main protein, the main carb, and any oil/butter/dairy. Often its an estimate. If something was cooked in "a little" oil, its a teaspoon. "A lot" of oil, tablespoon, etc. It shouldn't take more than 30 seconds to log a meal that you didn't plan at all. ​I do this more or less every day with dinner.

Many people on here advocate imaginary precision in tracking because of the common issue of folks tracking badly and eating more than they think and posting that theyre "not losing weight in a deficit." The way around this is to pay attention to what your body weight does and adjust. Lets say my tdee is 3000 and I want to lose 1 lb per week. I should eat 2500 calories a day to do this. Lets say my tracking sucks and I think im eating 2500 but im actually eating 3000. After a couple weeks ill know that the scale isnt moving, therefore whatever im doing im at maintenance. So ill subtract 500 more. I'll think im eating 2000 at that point and my tdee is 2500. But in reality im eating 2500 and my tdee is 3000 because of my poor oil estimation strategy or whatever. In the end the "real" numbers dont matter. It just matters that you get the delta between your tdee and chosen rate of change correct. And if you are consistent in your approach, the errors wash out over time. In this way, logging should be a low stress guestimation exercise.

I meal prep every Sunday. When I started, I used an app to keep all the ingredients and shopping list in one place, and to track my calories since I was in a deficit. After a couple of months, I learned what to buy and what to eat by heart :) Still, I think this app could help you a lot , it’s called Fitia and it has tons of recipes if you love cooking (I do!), and after a few weeks you’ll know them by memory. Hope this helps!

You don't have to get that detailed. Like just make lunch and dinner mostly vegtables of some kind, don't cook with too much oil, and avoid sugar unless it's an intentional treat you track. Track your food as you eat it and see what you have left for the day. 

If you start the day with a big cinnamon roll, it might be protien and veggies for the rest of it. If you have extra at the end, cool, room for a little ice cream. 

You don't need a big complicated plan. Just to be aware and make conscious choices in the moment. Eat what you want, but want to lose weight. 

When I got started this time, I was really struggling to cook or plan, so I relied heavily on pre-made or pre-portioned stuff. Frozen meals, frozen chicken, canned veggies, pre-bagged salads, etc. Oftentimes, the frozen stuff is just as good as fresh, and it can make it feel more manageable until you get into the swing of calorie-counting.

That sounds like a great app. I’m looking forward to seeing if someone can find that please post any updates thanks.

Not an app but Chipotle catering is great way to do meal prep.

I like My Fitness Pal

Noom

I really like this website https://www.eatthismuch.com

Lots of great apps out there that can be tailored for your preferences, I personally use FatSecret daily and depend on it. You can scan labels, add your own products or foods.

I can’t say enough about it.

I have liked Meal Board. It’s $3.99, not free, but it’s a one-time price and there are no ads on it. It works well for importing recipes from most websites, and it also lets you import ingredients from the recipes you have planned into a grocery list. I haven’t really used the pantry feature, but it is to track what ingredients you already have at home.

I use Paprika: https://www.reddit.com/r/MealPrepSunday/comments/rvbcwp/have_you_used_the_paprika_app

Anylist is pretty great! They have an app and a website, there's a button to import recipes and easily organize them, and you can easily add everything you need to a shopping list. I guess there's an iphone part that can automatically add things to Kroger (I think) but I don't have access to it.

Paprika does everything you want. It's been out for over a decade, at least that's how long I've been using it and it's a great app.

Whisk

I use an app called Plan to Eat. It has a browser add-on you can use when on a recipe page to click and import it to the app. You can also schedule it then and there, or add it to your queue to remember to plan with it later.

It does have the function where it will add it all to a shopping list for you, or it will even add it all to a Woolies order for you - but I never use that because I find Coles more affordable.

My fitness pal is still my gold standard. You can do barcode scan to create recipes, has a meal planner, export info, and import whole recipes from websites URLs. Plus it’s free

You can try Saffie AI - it's like ChatGPT for meal planning and grocery shopping, but better because you can see a visual meal plan and it creates an organized grocery list you can check off. It also remembers your preferences over time.

I can tell you the best hack I’ve got. Salad + protein.

So I always have a bag of spinach in the fridge. Whatever produce I’ve got on hand goes in, then if there’s leftover meat that’s the protein (I had a meatloaf salad for lunch today 😆) otherwise I have tins of chicken, tuna, beans, or these things:

https://preview.redd.it/mpiji8bxuiye1.jpeg?width=292&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09b9075a4f04a10c7f1316dcb083f328f28df6c7

I have a bottle of Kewpie Roasted Sesame dressing but whatever you like would work.

General ingredients that aren’t perishable I use:

• Beetroot
• Corn
• Frozen Edamame
• Chickpeas

So yeah, just chuck whatever you’ve got in there and call it a day.

I also do this similarly with frittatas. Whatever + 6 eggs = frittata.

Not really a meal planning app, but I use MacroFactor to track my macros and it has the ability to add recipes etc. I also use ChatGPT to assist with macros for meals and coming up with recipe ideas.

MyFitnessPal lets you plan ahead (and/or track)

Can't you just use enter your meals on cronometer ahead of time? I don't think there is a better way of figuring out the micronutrients of your meals. MFP is quite inferior to cronometer IMO so i wouldn't recommend it.

Eat This Much

I've tried a few different services and MyFitnessPal has been the most helpful, even just the free version. I like that it's web-based or mobile capable as well. It has basic diary features for tracking and planning, but you can also save whole recipes or import them from different websites and track by serving size.

Edited for clarity.

Isn't cronometer awesome already?

3 things you need for weightloss.

1. MyFitnessPal - log everything
2. CICO - eat above BMR and below TDEE
3. Discipline

Do small changes that are sustainable to you right now. The real “miracle fix” everyone is trying to sell you is really just consistency. Once you’re consistent with your small changes, add more small changes and keep stock piling them. I agree with other comments about tracking though. Once you know the nutritional value of things, then you can go to the grocery store and find better options that will help you stay consistent.

The problem is that it's too person-specific: your weight, metabolism, activity levels, medical conditions. What I recommend is to download an app like MyFitnessPal and log EVERYTHING for a couple weeks. Every single bite of food, even the 3 M&Ms you swiped from your coworker's candy bowl. Don't do anything different with your eating, just log. Afterwards you can evaluate the data for areas that are suboptimal and craft a plan from there.

As far as cooking goes, don't try to cook every night right away. Commit to one homemade meal a week and make it simple. Use pre-bought sauces and rubs instead of making your own for now. The fewer ingredients, the more likely you'll succeed. Over time, you'll get better without burning out or feeling too overwhelmed.