Hiya folks!
January has been a crazy month….but there is hope and inspiration in the people that surround us. I believe in us. The politics of America have come crashing down around us. Hard. I am trying very hard to keep daily every day life more pleasant, because I honestly start feeling sick and dizzy looking at Facebook and news broadcasts. This doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention. Trust me, I am. But I also know that I can not let my every thought be consumed by everything that is going on. It’s nice to try to have happy more normalized moments to give your brain a break.

Remember how promising  your 2017 Resolutions looked 30 days ago? Now you find yourself on the last day of January reflecting a little on what you have accomplished. Honestly for me it has been a swing and a miss. I’m trying people! What I’ve been kinda working on is a combo of my # 1, 5, and 10 resolutions.
Be healthier, Be on time, and micro goals. I thought I found the perfect solution for these…
Meal Prep.

The basic description is preparing your lunch meals for the week ahead of time, usually on a Sunday if you have a standard Mon-Fri job. You cook/make all your lunches in one evening for the week, and you grab and go in the morning. Not only that, but it allows you to make healthy lunches for yourself.

So I thought why not?
Grab and go will allow me better time management, since I don’t have to worry about putting something together before I rush off to work. AND I can make healthy dishes! So why not try it for a couple weeks and see how it goes (mini goal!).

Week #1
This is the week I tried really hard. Maybe a little too hard…..
I made 2 dishes for the week. I thought I would do 2 so I could have options.

Recipe #1 Breakfast Burritos.
Diced ham, black beans, tomatoes, cheese, and a dollop of sour cream.

Recipe #2 Chicked Egg Salad
Chicken, hard boiled eggs, avocado, and cilantro, with a side salad of cucumber, tomato, and onion (with fake Tzatziki).

I was pumped guys! Six lunches in less than 40 minutes all ready to go!
Soooo…..here’s where I went wrong….the burritos were wrapped in flour tortillas and the chicken egg salad was in this wrap type thing.
And the first day of each of these were good! But as the week went by, I realized my BIG mistake. Tortillas and wraps get soggy and sweaty.

So eating these later in the week wasn’t too tasty with the texture. The burritos definitely held up better than the wraps. Maybe if I had frozen them, they would of been better preserved for the later part of the week.

Week #2
I got a little lazy…I only made 2 meals for the week and picked up lunch the other 2 days (was a 4 day week for me). Plus what I made wasn’t exactly healthy….

Kept it simple with lime and cilantro rice (I made extra while I was cooking some for dinner!), black beans, and a fried pork chop in one dish (Yep. NOT healthy.), some sauteed chicken in the other dish.

Week #3
This is this week so I have only had this dish Monday, yesterday.

Tasty and healthy Quinoa Salad!
Cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado, onion, and quinoa. I even took a tortilla in a separate container and made a burrito at work! Yay, no soggy tortilla!

CONS:

The biggest problems I’ve found with meal prepping so far:
-You cant’ make everything ahead of time (no soggy tortillas or wraps), pretty much pasta dishes,salads, or tons of sauteed veggies/meat over rice = good.
– Do you really want to eat the same thing every day?

PROS:

What I really got out of meal prep so far:
– Saves you time. It’s ready to go every morning and you don’t have to think or spend money on lunch.
-It’s cheaper. I spent $30 for about 2 weeks worth of lunches.
– It can be healthy if YOU make it healthy.

You can also just make extra of whatever you happen to be cooking for dinner! Meal prep definitely taught me that  I don’t have to make all my lunches on Sunday ahead of time, but just having a lunch prepped the day before saves me time!

I’m still in the process of figuring it out. I think maybe it can work if you mix it in with buying lunch. You can probably make sandwiches the night before but not a week ahead. Maybe a sandwich 1 day, 3 meal preps, and buying lunch…
The beauty is that you don’t have to commit. You can work a combo of lunches into your week, but it’s definitely an option to ease some stress and thought process of “what am I having for lunch?”

Love,
B