Sunday = Food Prep Day

When it comes to changing your nutrition, one of the best things you can do for yourself is prepare. This will mean different things for different people based on cooking skills, where you eat meals, and work schedules, but will help you resist the temptation of office snacks and holiday treats. Ditty and I don't have work schedules that allow us to eat breakfast at home, so it means preparing all breakfasts, snacks, and lunches for the work week. For dinners, we lay out what we are going to have each weeknight so that we can go food shopping, but the actual preparation usually happens the night of. It might take a few hours, but it is worth having prepared food that we like and know are better for us than fast food or office cafeteria options. It's also just time to spend together and rock out to music, listen to podcasts (Robb Wolf, Chris Kresser anyone?) or have something on TV in the background. Here's a peek at our Sunday routine in pictures.

Frying up sausage for my breakfasts to go with...

Sweet potatoes! I cut up 3 or 4 into tiny slices and roast them in ghee. These are divided up and eaten with the sausages.

Ditty likes 3 hardboiled eggs for breakfast, so we make 15-18 (a spare set is good for pre-WOD on weekends)

Also with breakfast, Ditty likes carrots and almond butter. Buying bulk and then splitting portions saves money!

snacks can be simple: pepperoni and salami divided up into snack bags.

Lunch is usually a crock pot meal. This time it's Chocolate Chili from The Clothes Make the Girl (Melissa Joulwan). I upped the servings so that we had enough for both of us for five work days. (2lbs. of meat to 3lbs.)

Some of you might think this is monotonous or boring. And then you might realize you've been eating the same cereal for 15 years. If this is overwhelming and you think "I could never do this/I don't have the time, etc" then just know that this has been an evolution of experimenting and figuring out what works for us. This is what you need to do. Maybe the best prep day is Tuesday night. Maybe you only prepare lunches because you can have breakfast at home. Maybe you're a night shift worker and need to prepare dinners. Maybe you don't have a microwave at work. My biggest advice is figure out your goals and tinker with different recipes and foods. And DON'T make excuses. Not all of you know how to cook, but if you can throw ingredients from a recipe into a slow cooker, then that's pretty darn good. And if you say you don't have any time, really examine how much time you spend watching TV, playing on Facebook, etc. If you have a family, make it a family event and get the kids involved. Nothing better than to prepare future generations for self-sustaining cooking!

Read on:

"Temptation Alley" - Ditty's Diary

"Diet Secrets of the Tupperware Man" - CrossFit Journal Article by Greg Amundson 
"Food for Kids" - Sarah Fragoso of Everyday Paleo

Do you prepare your food for the week? If so, what does it look like?