Meal Prep Tips For People Who Hate Meal Prep

maybe you won't, maybe you're not, you maybe have a life. Anyways, I did an episode like this a long time ago on meal prep Tips and Hacks, and it was one of my top episodes that you guys have listened to. And I think it's one of those things that you know, meal prep and like food in general, just takes up so much of our time and mental load. Like think about how many times, like a day, you literally are saying, like,

what are we having for dinner? And then you realize being an adult is literally asking what are we having for dinner? Every day for the rest of our life. And I'm someone that I just hate making those trivial decisions, like big scary business decision let's go. I don't know, I thrive, but when it comes to like do I want chicken or beef, or do I want an ice latte or not like things like that, I just can't. I just my brain just doesn't want to deal with it.

But I have evolved these meal prep tips and hacks, and I've even like gone on Reddit to see if there's anything else on there. But these are going to be the meal prep tips for people that hate meal prep. Now,

this episode is for you. If you're someone who you know you've tried meal prep before, you've done your meal plan and then it gets to Wednesday and you look at what you're meant to have and you hate it, and then you have uber eats, or maybe you try to pack lunches for the week and it lasts for two days. Now, these are all the things that are going to help you, because I am also someone that

I just really struggle to stick with things. And you know, I have done meal prep in that for a long time, but I have fallen out with it for a long time too. You know when I wrote the book and that I just ate Indian food all the time and it was delicious. I love a good butt of chicken. But you do need a kind of come back to reality. And also our health and my gut health was really really bad from you know, not making my own food as much as I should have. So these tips are

just going to like change the game for you. Please as always, I'd love to see you guys implement these or even just take a photo of you listening to the podcast and tag me on Instagram. It just makes me so so happy. But I'm not gonna blab on for too much longer. My life update is not really like a life I guess it's a life update, but it's more I'm going to be really vulnerable with you

guys and share an embarrassing moment. So the girls have started doing netball, which I'm so proud of them because I never did ball sports ever in my life and I suck and I always wanted the girls to get into ball sports. So for me, this is a really proud moment. I don't know the rules, I don't know what's happening, but I am on the sidelines cheering them on, so that's the main thing. So we were at netball

the other day. They did training. They both have different training days and It was one of the girls training days, and I had a pretty big deadline, which the girls knew, and they were doing like a break so it was not like they were playing and I was ignoring them anyway, So I was on my phone standard and I had to go back to the car to grab something. Anyway, I have been using a rental car for a while

because my car is getting fixed. So I got my like I'm literally staring at my phone, you know, zombie mode, looking down at my phone and walking to the car. Anyway, I must I think I was in the middle of writing an email or I was just writing, so I wasn't paying attention. I opened the door of the car and I kind of just stand there and I continue to write on my phone. And it's preb been a

couple of minutes by this point. Anyway, I finished writing what I'm doing, and I look up and there's this lady, this poor woman, sitting in the driver's seat who looked like I think she was having a nap, but now she was no longer asleep. She's just sitting there staring at me, this like woman who's just come And I've opened her passenger door because I was gonna get my bag.

I opened her passenger door, and I'd just been standing there for two minutes, just standing there on my phone, and she couldn't even see my face, like someone just come and open her door and stood there. I was. I was mortified. And then I was like, I'm so sorry, and I must have woke her up. I felt so embarrassed, and I do dumb shit all the time. Anyway, I finally went back to my car, got the thing I needed, and went back up and Ryan was just laughing his

head off at me. I don't know anyway, things like that happen pretty often. So that's my life update is I am still a mess. All right, Let's get into it. So now I'm going to take you through the systems that I actually use. This is not like a Pinterest board type setup. This is just real tips that are actually going to help. And also these tips are really flexible as well. So when I talk about meal planning, it's going to be flexible. You're not going to be

locked in. So let's get into it, and by the end of this episode, you were going to have a real proper meal planning system that you can set up in fifteen minutes. You can choose and chop and change what you want, but it's just going to make your life easier. Even if you do one of these things, it's going to make your life so much easier. First, I'm gonna give you like a little disclaimer, reality check.

You know, like I feel like so many of us, you're probably sitting there thinking like why when I try to do meal planning, why does it only last me two to three weeks if that? And you feel like you're the problem. You think, why can't I just stick to this? And it's the same with the gym or exercise or anything like, you're like, why can't I stick to this? You know, you go on pictures, you're scrolling, you find some recipes that look amazing, and they look

decent and healthy and easy enough. You go out and buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries. You come back and usually for me, I will stop there. I will let you know, I will stop there. I won't even make the thing, and then say you prep the food and then you know you've done that for that one day and you're exhausted and you've already given up. You know,

it's like week one motivated. Week two, you're okay. Week three you're like hating life and your kitchen is a mess, and you've got all these ingredients and like weird herbs that you're never going to use again because of interest, Like we're not doing that, Like, let's just do easy as you guys know, I did my Lazy Girl's Guide's Healthy Eating where I did reels. I need to do them again by the way of really really easy healthy recipes, and I have all those types of things. I've actually

got an ebook on Stepha's planners. I think I think it's still on there. I think it's like lunch Hacks or something, and I'm just all about easy recipes, Like that's what we want here. Now. This brings me to meal prep hack number one, and this is having ten meals on rotation. That is it. So my family, we probably don't even have ten at this point, but we like what we like. I like what I like, which means I am more than happy to be eating the same meal on the same day if I want, every

single week. And that works for us. And I know a lot of us try to, you know, spice it up, but it's not the bedroom. This is the kitchen, And I think when you are just you find meals you and your family, which is bloody hard in itself. If you find that golden meal, you keep that. So this is why having just ten meals, ten set dinners that you and your family eat on rotation, that is just

gonna help with decision fatigue. You're gonna stop buying hundreds of dollars worth of stupid herbs you found on pinches you're not gonna use, and you don't have to have that extra micro decisions and thinking every day what are we going to have for lunches and dinners this week. Examples of our ten meals we love is we have pesto pasta. We have make your own pizza. We have the burrito bowls which is my slow cooked Mexican beef. We have Sarte chicken, we have chicken snitzel. We have

steak and veg. We have salmon with like coconut yogurt. Sounds gross, but delicious. We have those types of meals and we have them every single week. And the good thing about having ten meals is like once you're rotating it, it doesn't feel as repetitive. So for me and our femi like, we're happy to have even the same four meals, but some people do like to mix it up a bit.

And the good number about ten, ten really is the magic number because usually out of those ten, people like your family will like at least seven of them, there's going to be someone there that's going to be pretty happy with what you've picked. And you know what ingredients you need. You know how often you go through those ingredients again, like herbs or sources that you might need.

You know how frequently you need to repurchase this. So then when it comes to grocery shopping, which is a whole other ballgame, you know what you're doing already because you've made these meal lots of times. And if you are sitting there thinking like, I don't know what these top ten meals are, just have a little think about. You know what you have been making. What are some things that you make that just seem easy to make?

But also the kids are happy to eat. And if you still don't know, you can sit down with your family and just bounce ideas off of each other. I know that kids are probably going to say koc. But besides those, just come up with your even seven to ten meals. And then you have it, and please, for the love of God, write them down. Write them down in your planner, write them down, print them off on the wall, because you will forget. We will forget. I

forget all the time. Like just then, I was like, I'm going to list all the meals we love, and I could only remember like five. And again, our brain is not meant to actually remember all the things. So pick your ten and then you're going to start rotating them. And this brings me to my meal prep hack number two. So this is having theme nights. Now. I talked about this in my weird ways, like to keep a cleanish house, and that's to have theme days with cleaning certain zones.

So Monday was Master and minis so they're the bedrooms, and then Tuesdays is tiled area Tuesdays. So everything has a theme. And this is the same. So I'm sure growing up, you guys would probably have heard of, like I know, meet free Mondays or like I remember our friends had take away Fridays or something, and I was like,

and you do it, you remember it? And I would remember I had dinner at my friend's house once and it was takeaway Friday or takeaway Tuesday, and I never forgot that that was the day they had takeaway, And it's something about maybe for me, I love alliterations, so I love if I can do you know, taco Tuesdays and things like that, You're going to remember it and that's going to take out the decision making as well. So he's a little example of what your theme nights

can look like. So Monday pasta or meat free Mondays, Tuesday could be taco Tuesday or chicken and stir fry. Wednesday is slow cooker, which slow cooker in itself is a hack that if you don't have a slow cooker you need to buy one. Thursdays could be Mexican or it could be you know, like meat and veg. And

then Friday could be fend for yourself Friday. So that's an example of what theme days look like for meal planning, because when you do that, you were going to take two seconds to actually do your meal plan which is my next tip for meal prep. Now, when I say meal planning, I think a lot of people do also get a bit overwhelmed because it's like you've decided this, you know, maybe on Sunday, you've sat down, you've planned your meals for the week ahead. You've decided on Tuesday,

we're having fratatas. I don't know why I decided tratatas, but that's what you're having. And then Tuesday comes and you really don't want that. You're like, no, you'll no, thank you. The thing is with meal planning, guys, is you don't It's not like a contract. It's a loose schedule. It's like a go with the flow one, but it's you have it in place so you get the right groceries for those meals. So for me, my meal plan I tend to not even like I as you guys know.

I've got the meal planning magnets that I make with SVP and having them on the fridge it just helps everyone know what's going on. And an extra tip I have with our meal planning magnets is in red. On in the red markers, I will write say the night before, if I have to take something out of the fridge to defrost, I will write it down. So say Wednesday, we're gonna have steak, but the steaks in the freezer

Tuesday night in red it will say defrost steak. And I know that means to take it out, and people know everyone, even Harper knows it means to take it out and put it in the fridge. So having that visual queue in your face so other people can see it too, is so so helpful. But what you need to know with meal planning is it's a guide, it's not a contract. If you want to mix it up, it doesn't matter because you're going to have the ingredients anyway.

The only issue here is if you say you buy salmon and it's in the fridge and salmon night was meant to be Monday, but now you want it Saturday, that's where it can get a bit messy. So I feel like if you just have you know, certain meats that you know you want to have within the first three days of the week, keep them in the fridge and you can mix a match and you don't have

to be stuck with that. And also they say with behavioral scientists, they say, if you have a default like fallback option, so say yeah, like you see the bill plan and you don't want to have frattatas if I say that, bit fancy, don't I frattata anyway? If you have a fall back option to say like, okay, oh yeah. Well, like say I don't want them, and I'm like, oh yeah, but we've got this for pesto pasta. I'll just whip

that up. Because you've got the fall back and the default option, you're then not going to resort to like getting takeaway. So you're still doing the habit, which is making your meals at home and eating healthy or whatever it is, and you're still following your meal plan. But you've got back up and that's fine. Now. My next meal prep hack is one that I will swear by

till the day I die. And it it is. And I know you guys would have seen, you know, on TikTok and things, you'll see people meal prepping so they actually prep a full meal, which you're like probably thinking, yes, Steph, isn't that while we're here in the first place, But no, I do this differently. I guess I could probably call my food prep. So you know, you'll see people online who they prep there literally they will literally make the actual meal, so it could be the pasta, which I

actually will do that. That one's an easy one to prep and I actually like that. But they will prep the meat with the veg and put it all together in the container. But for me, again, I like to have flexibility if I because I'm a walking contradiction, I need structure. But also if it's too rigid, I will run away. So that's why I'm also with these you know, different tips. I'm very much talking about being flexible and changing.

And it's not like so strict and rigid that you feel like you have to eat this on this night and make this on this day. So what I mean by this is instead of me prepping full meals, I will prep components of meals. So if you followed me for a while, you would know this and I and if you haven't, this is what I mean. Basically, every week I will prep Mexican beef. So I will just prep the protein component and that's it. And with that Mexican beef, I can make tacos. I can make burrito bowls.

I can make nachos. So you can see where I'm going with this. I will prep the one that's hardest, but it's ready to go. And usually yes, we will still always have burrito bowls, but I have the options to do other things. And also I'm not having to do the extra steps, and then it keeps it really nice and fresh. And it's the same down to like pulled chicken. So like chuck it in the slow cooker.

You've got your protein sauce ready to go. You can make that into sandwiches, wraps, you can make that into part star stir fries, anything you need, but the main thing is ready to go. And another way I do this, we'll say vegetables and fruit is I will pre chop them so certain veggies, like the hardier ones like capskin, and that that will last me nearly the whole week. I will pre chop them, and certain fruits I will pre chop them as well, and I will get into the

fridge storing stuff a bit later. But having them done and those extra steps made means when I go to make the kids lunches or quickly grab lunch or make snacks, they're already done. And also down to having the veggies pre chopped, they're ready to chuck next to the meat sauce I've made. So just prep components. Look, if you

want to prep full meals, go for it. But if you're like someone like me, or if you're just starting out with this, just take the pressure off and like just prep components, and that's going to get your flexibility back as well, even down to like say, I'll prep the chicken and then I'll so I'll double it, so I'll do a double batch, which means I can use that chicken for the night we do the stur fries, and I can also use it later in the week for when we do pasta, and then it's done for

both double where me and the thing is too. And actually there's actually, like I swear there's a study. Is there a study on this? Yes, I'm like I already written this down somewhere, so apparently, Like I don't know about you guys, but when something's reheated, I find it not satisfying at all. I just don't enjoy it as much.

But when it's like kind of prepared fresh, so like dinner and things, because you've only prepared the meat component, you're still assembling it fresh, so you're still getting the dopamine from that, and it's going to be more satisfying and taste better in my opinion, things like pasta that I think that's fine, and like some slow cooked meals, you can one hundred percent just make the whole thing

and chuck it in a container. But for me, it's really killing two birds of one star and you're getting the meal prep out of it, but you're also getting it fresh as well. All right, So my next meal prep hack is to do with storage. Now, there's two different parts to this tit or hack. Now, the first one is having something. So for example, if you want to be meal prepping, you want to be taking your

lunch places. So say you know, obviously going to work, you need to be able to take all your things, or if you're out and about with the kids all the time, you need to be able to have the food you've prepped to come with you. So this is where I actually created my lunch bags. Now, this was I came up with this because I was going to

the White House to pack planners every day. I had all these snacks I had made, I had my lunch, I had my drink bottle, I had like some supplements I got from my nature path, I had panatole, I had my phone, and I had all of these bags. And it was so frustrating and a lot of the time I would literally leave containers in my car with

fresh food that now I couldn't eat. So I started so like any of my good product ideas, I sat down with a piece of paper and a pen and I did the dodgiest drawing on the planet of my new lunch bags, and then you know, a year later they were born and it's this like and again this is one hundred percent. This is a shameless SPP plug, but it is life changing. And you don't have to

obviously use our lunch bags. You can use whatever nice lunch bag you find, but having something that is like, you know, aesthetic and pretty and just practical, you're going to want to use it. So my lunch bags is like the front pocket for your phone. I've got all these pouches inside, like it's got so much room in it, but it's so compact and it's really pretty. And we actually just bought out our new tan color which matches the lunch mice right my life pouch, and you guys

weren't crazy. It's so I'm obsessed with it. It's so pretty anyway, So it's like a vegan leather. It looks like it's this beautiful and we use it for like picnics with the kids. And even La so Ela actually works at SPP. She's my creative assistant. She's a legend. And she even said, and you know, she hasn't got kids or anything, and she said, I she's like actually started bringing her lunches when she started working with us, because she's like, I've got this beautiful bag and I

want to fill it up. I don't want to just chuck in a packet of chips. I actually want to put snacks. I want to put my lunch, I want to put my water, all of that stuff in there. And that really does It's given you dopamine for doing something healthy, like a healthy habit. So having something again to not have so much resistance to doing the thing. So if you're like trying to get a million containers and things and you're trying to carry it, that's extra

effort for you. But if you can just chuck things in a bag and go, you're more likely going to want to pack your own lunch, you know what I mean. Now, the other part of this is having it look aesthetically pleasing in your fridge. Now, I love fridge porn. We know this. I don't know if my fridge is not organized. I feel very stressed and overwhelmed. But this is down too out of sight, out of mind. So you know, you might see my fridge on Instagram and think, oh, like, oh,

that's just for like a Pinterest kind of thing. But the reason I do it is because again it's a visual cue. If you have fruit and vege and healthy options in clear containers in the fridge, you are going to want to eat them. The kids are going to want to eat them. But how many times I know

all of us have done this. When I don't have this and I got packets of things up the back of the fridge shoved at the back, I forget they're there and say, with veggies and stuff, think about how many times you bought bloody iceberg lettuce which I still struggle to use. And you buy these bloody lettuce and it sits in the fridge or two weeks and then you find it and you're like, that's disgusting, and no one touches it. So it's out of sight, out of mind. So this is a visual queue to be like, if

it's here, use it even so much. Down to like if you're prepping meal prep components and you're worried you might forget what day it goes off, Like just grab a bit of masking tape and get a texture and ride on it. Like you don't need pretty labels, just chuck some writing on it and then you will never forget it. So for my fridge storage, like you can

get these things called like green savers. There's like special containers for it, so like there's certain things for you know, storing your fruit and veg and it's got like like a little vent system. But it really does make your veggies and that last lot longer then if you just left it in the crispa. I swear to god it is the best and even down like in terms of like and really think about functionality too when you're setting up your fridge in your pantry. So for our girls,

they like to the little pouches of yogurt. I used to put them on the top shelf and they were never eating them, and it's because they can't reach them, and like unless I'm giving it to them obviously, but bringing things down to the level where you think it, like, it's like it makes sense. Like you know, when you're unloading the dishwasher and if you don't have like the forks and knives right next to it, it's really annoying

and it's the same. So like the kids, they can't eat things they can't reach unless it's me there, and that's more efforts. So just moving things around, try out the functionality and see what works best. Now, this hack is probably one of my favorites. And I actually kind of came across this when we had this on site van at this caravan park. So usually like every second weekend we would be, you know, getting our stuff and

going to stay at this van. But one of the things I was having issues with is what, like what foods do I need to get from the grocery store for when we go down there, because you know, you have to pack all your stuff up anything you need to go down there. Like obviously it's our van, so we're semi set up, but like food and stuff, you can't leave that there. So what I did is on like we get our stuff usually from Woolies, is online orders. They have lists, so when you order online, you can

actually make a list. Now what like and this is like what it's meant for, but people don't know about it is. All you have to do is like the normal groceries you always get, build it into a list into Woolies. So whenever you want to do your groceries, Like I have a weekly grocery list, I have a fortnightly one, and then I have like literally one that's

just for household cleaning and stuff. So all I have to do is click the list and everything I normally order will populate into my car and I just check out like it is life changing, and then even down to fortnightly, so I will just do my weekly, then I'll add the fortnightly as a top up, so anything that we know we don't go through that fast, that

goes in there and then you check out. So I did this with the van, so I had a van list of certain things because I knew we were having a lot more barbecues down there, so there was a lot more of like sausages and stuff, and I would just literally click on that and that was our thing and we'd pick it up on the way down. So it's just again having these these visual cues and list things already prepped. Even if you do go to the grocery store, have your list down, like even down to

the categories. I made my shopping list for SVP and it's in the category, so when you know you're in that section, you go to that part of the list, like it's about just making life easier. And now, I honestly could go on about this meal prep tips all day. So this is probably like a part one but my

last one for this. Now, you guys know, I said with the meal plan, it's not like a contract, which is true, But I honestly do recommend deciding what you want for dinner that night at nine o'clock in the morning, not at five pm. So if you're feeling like, oh like and again, look you can change this because you're gonna have this stuff ready, but say, if it's a slow cooker meal, you're gonna want to know that you need to pop that on in the morning, and your

brain is so much fresher in the morning. So just knowing like, okay, oh, like you know, maybe little Johnny Bloody Johnny's back. Johnny's not feeling great at the moment,

and I don't feel like he's gonna want sushi. But we had part We've got stuff a pasta for tomorrow at night, so let's make that instead, or we're going to do the slow cooker and even down to maybe you forgot to defrost something from the night before, even though it was on your meal planner magnet on the fridge, You're now going to know that's what you need to do, because the last thing you want is well, after school pickup or whatever you're doing, you don't want to have

to go back down to Woolworth. You don't want to have to be like, oh my god, what are we going to make now? But just having that kind of in your mind in the morning is the best way to go ahead. And so I actually no, I have a bonus tip here. So this is one thing I really love that we have in our pantry. It's called

the Grab and go TP. Now, this also we use for school lunches, and basically it's a tub in the pantry that has a bunch of ready to go snacks that are preapproved by me of course, that the girls know they can just go in and grab it and they don't have to annoy you for snacks, because let's be honest, we're just a bunch of snack bitches all day for our kids. And having this tub not only for like after school snacks, but also so for yourself, like I'll have a bunch of like protein bars and

just snacks. I know, I can grab. It allows you to be hitting you know, your protein goals and things like that and making sure you're actually eating. But also for the kids, so they're not having to like nag you, and it gives them some autonomy and it makes them feel confident as well, like empowers them to be like I can choose between this packet of chips or this

packet of chips, you know. And yeah, so in the morning, when like say, if you've forgotten to prep their lunches, like they have a tub, they know they can quickly grab a few things. You've got your veggies in that pre chopped, chuck that in a container and then hopefully you've prepped their wraps and things and they're in the freezer from the night before and you're ready to go. So it's just about having like a nice default fall back and tubs. Tubs just fix everything in my life.

I have tubs everywhere. Now. I know, I've just given you guys so many tips and tricks and I hope you guys love them. But even if you can just take one thing away from today is to go away and write down your ten meals that your family and yourself loves, that you can just have on rotation and stick it on your fridge. If you do one thing, just to do that, because it's going to make your life so much easier. And make sure you check out if you need any extra planning tools and stuff. Of course,

we have lots oft SPP because it's my jam. We've got obviously got the lunch bags, and we've got the meal planner magnets and all that jazz. But even if not, just write it down on a piece of paper, stick it on the wall, stick it on your forehead so everyone can see, and you're set. Anyways, I love you guys, and I'll be back in your ears on Monday. Bye.