Meal Prep

It’s a brand new week. We’ve reflected on the past week and planned for the next. Today I’m going to attempt to explain a little more in depth the slight changes in my meal prep from last week to this week. At first glance, you might look at both meal preps and not see much, if any difference. If you’ve listened to episode 12 of the Health N’ Hustle Podcast on iTunes or Soundcloud, you know that I do not measure anything, or track macros. I use basic mathematics and a little bit of practicality to make my meal preps as SIMPLE as possible.

So, let’s begin… this is last week’s prep.

Pictured above:

-10 avocados (1 with each meal, lunch and dinner)

-ground beef with mixed peppers (3 lb. divided by 5 containers = approximately 9.5 oz. each)

-cauliflower/sweet potato mix (2 bags divided by 5 containers)

-chicken breast (approximately 8-10 oz. each)

-broccoli (3 bags divided by 5 containers because that’s all I could fit)

-1 pineapple divided by 5 containers

-1 pack of strawberries divided by 5 containers

-5 bananas

I ate the ground beef with the caul/yam mix at lunch with an avocado. I ate the pineapple mid-afternoon as a snack; the chicken and broccoli for dinner with another avocado. I ate the bananas and strawberry before bed as a late snack.

All this food tasted amazing and did not leave me feeling hungry at all. But, there are some changes that I needed to make for this upcoming week.

On Monday, last week I woke up weighing 161. My goal was to weigh 157-158 on Friday morning. For those who don’t know I have been slowly cutting my weight back to get to my comfortable summer weight. Long story short, I started January 1, 2017 at a sloppy 178lbs and just happen to know from my own experiences that 157-158 is my ideal weight for strength, performance, look and feel. I am also getting married in June and figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to be in decent shape for all the upcoming festivities.

With that being said, I have kept my calories slightly lower than normal the past few months to bring my weight back down. This can be a very tricky task when all your training consists of heavy powerlifting and bodybuilding.

Well, it finally happened last week. My bodyweight hit 158… on Wednesday! So, you might say, “that’s great you hit your goal early!” …Not so fast, like I said when you are powerlifting and bodybuilding there is a very fine line you must walk when cutting calories. Although I was able to keep my strength up the entire week, I could feel the toll it was taking on my body. I ended up scrambling to eat more calories than I had initially prepped to keep my weight from dropping even further. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I ate an entire sweet potato and protein shake before bed in addition to the strawberry and banana. After weighing 158 on Wednesday and upping my calories the rest of the week I came into Friday morning still weighing 158, which I was pleased with.

Now that brings us to this week. I could keep my food and portions the same as last and continue to add in extra calories as needed, but that would leave me somewhat unprepared for the week. Not to mention I now can intentionally add in more calories each day and again learn how my body reacts to another week of pre-planned food.

So, what’s one big take-away we’ve came to at this point? Once you reach your goal weight, with all other factors considered (environment, activity level, training volume, etc.) you can begin to add more calories back into your diet.

Moving on to this week’s prep.

-ground beef with mixed peppers (3lb divided by 4 containers = approximately 12 oz. each)

-2 bags caul/yam mix added into the ground beef (2 bags divided by 4 containers)

-3 full bags of mixed veggies divided by 4 containers (didn’t exist at all last week)

-ground turkey (3lb divided by 4 containers = approximately 12 oz. each)

-2 bags caul/yam mix added into the turkey also (didn’t exist last week)

-1 full bag of broccoli x 4 containers (last week had 3 bags divided by 5 containers)

-1 pineapple divided by 4 containers (last week divided by 5 containers= slightly more this week)

-banana and avocado remains the same (1 per day)

The increase is not very big within each meal, but overall for the week will result in significantly more calories consumed. Some highlights are as follows. I used the same 3lb pack of ground beef, but only divided by 4 containers this week as opposed to 5. This will add approximately 3-4 more oz. of meat for each lunch. I also used the same amount of caul/yam mix, but again mixed in 4 containers as opposed to 5. A major addition to my total calories this week is adding in mixed veggies with each lunch. Although I don’t count or track my macros I do read nutrition labels; and this will add almost 200 total calories to my lunch each day.

For dinner, I used the same 3lb to 4 container ratio as lunch again resulting in a few more ounces of meat for dinner compared to last week. I also added in 2 more bags of caul/yam mix to my dinner, which did not exist at all last week. I increased the broccoli amount slightly by using 1 whole bag in each container compared to using only 3 bag divided by 5 containers last week. Although the added broccoli won’t contribute much to my caloric intake, I love the taste of it so this makes me happy.

There aren’t any strawberries this week and that is mostly because I’ve been eating a shit load of them and just wanted to take a break from them. I love pineapple and last week was the first week of my having it in a while so I wanted to have that again. Again, the slight increase in pineapple might not be much to increase my overall total, but I love the taste of them so this makes me happy!

Like I said before, now that my weight is where I want it I can begin to add in more calories. However, you might ask, if you add more calories wont my weight just go back up to where it was? This is where I’ll give you that dreaded answer that gets used all too often in the fitness industry “it depends”. If I wasn’t training my ass off, yes, it would. If my metabolism wasn’t on fire, yes, it would. If I began veering off the path of healthy nutrition, yes, it would. But, my training volume continues to increase, my metabolism is getting faster and faster, and my dedication to the process is getting get stronger and stronger. So, no, my weight will not begin to climb back up, at least not any sloppy weight.

Training and nutrition go hand-in-hand. You must understand one to get the most out of the other and vice versa.

Though I am confident this prep will give me just what I need this week. I will continue to weigh myself each morning and be mindful of how I feel each day. If needed, I will make some halftime adjustments and finish the week strong.

Hopefully this wasn’t too complicated to navigate and you were able to grab a few pointers to take along with you. As always, if you have any questions do not hesitate to email me at corcarpfit@gmail.com or hit me up on social media.

Thanks for your time, and have a great day!

-C