Use this food prep cheat sheet to decide which option matches your needs, lifestyle, preferences, and environmental demands best.

The old adage “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail” applies directly to your nutrition habits. However, that phrase has maybe lost some of its meaning over the years as more and more diets and nutritional methods enter the market touting themselves as the “only option”. As such, I wanted to bring back clarity to this mantra for you and give you actionable tools that work to fit your needs, lifestyle, preferences, and environmental demands.

Let’s start by defining the objectives.

Need;

• You need to eat.

• You need to feel satiated.

• You need to eat enough protein to support muscle growth maintenance.

• You need to eat enough carbohydrates to support performance/activity.

• You need to eat enough fat to support digestive, neurological, and hormonal health.

• You need to create a calorie deficit for weight loss, a surplus for weight gain, and a balance for weight maintenance.

There are certain needs that all food prep and planning must meet. These are most of the foundational ones.

Lifestyle;

• You want to be able to eat in accordance with your schedule, responsibilities, budgetary constraints, and social engagements.

These are 4 big components within themselves. Consideration for the type of food prep you will be best suited to will mean considering these aspects of your life.

Preferences;

• You benefit from enjoying what you are eating.

• You benefit from liking the taste of what you are eating.

• You benefit from selecting foods that match your values (vegetarian, organic, cost, etc.)

• You benefit from preparing foods in a way that you value (simplicity, culture, time-efficient).

People fail to adhere to dietary guidelines and nutrition behaviors when they fall outside of their preferences (you won’t see many ethically-minded vegans following the Atkins diet for example).

Environment;

I’m talking about your unique microenvironment. The personal universe that follows wherever you go. If you have kids, a partner, live alone, with friends, work night shifts, commute for work daily, or travel on planes weekly, these are your environments and they all provide stimulus and demands on your time and energy. It behooves you to consider these aspects when deciding how to prepare and/or source food that aligns with your nutritional goals.

Food prep option 1; Buy

• Have the ingredients needed to create a variety of meals as you feel you want to.

• Pros; This benefits those that work from home and have the time they save on a commute to cook a meal each night. Also useful for those who enjoy cooking, and those who value variety. It is also likely the most cost-effective option for those looking to be diligent with their grocery budget.

• Cons; Is the most time-consuming option. Every meal requires starting from scratch. Making decisions when stressed is harder to do. If meetings get hectic or a project blows up at work, that will start to bleed over into food prep time and food prep mental bandwidth. This option is the reason that bag of mixed salad greens is turning into luminescent slime in your fridge right now.

Food prep option 2; Batch

• Batching also needs buying (you can’t cook the food you don’t have). But batch cooking means picking 1-2 items from each of the following groups; protein, starchy veg/grain, vegetables and/or fruit, and a healthy fat source (perhaps you’ll kill 2 birds with one stone by choosing an oily fish as your protein and fat source or by cooking your veg in olive oil).

• Pros; This method benefits those that value simplicity but also need some variety/options in their diet. It also helps save time as once you have batch-cooked your items, you can pull from them for the upcoming days and only need to microwave your meals when it comes time to eat rather than starting from scratch every time.

• Cons; You need to be ok with eating food you cooked 2-3 days ago. If you aren’t then it might take some getting used to or a selection of foods that keep for longer. 3-day old broccoli smells like farts. You’ve been warned. You need to know how to cook or at least be willing to learn and refine your skills. This takes time (in my opinion it is worth it as cooking can be fun and will last you a lifetime).

Food prep option 3; Build

• Building meals requires both buying, batching, and then adding the extra step of portioning out meals there and then. 

• Pros; This method benefits those who value predictability over variety as once the meal is portioned out, you can’t really dismantle it again and use the ingredients for something else. If you make stir fry, you eat stir fry you know. It means you only cook and make food decisions once or twice per week. When it's mealtime, you go to the fridge and you grab the predictable meal you made, eat it, and go about your business.

• Cons; you have to be ok with eating the same meals for a few days in a row and you have to be ok eating food you made a few days ago.

Food prep option 4; Bring/buy-in

• There are now countless meal delivery services that range from providing you the ingredients for you to cook, to sending you a 2-minute microwave meal that is tailored to your desired calorie and macronutrient preferences. Here I am talking about the latter, the done for you 2-minute microwave option.

• Pros; This option benefits those that are time-poor but money rich. Though still relatively affordable, this is the most expensive of the food prep options available, however, what you spend on the service you save on time and that can be more valuable to some. It is also predictable and reliable. Huge benefits when you have work, kids, partners, and the alluring pull of your bed all vying for your time.

• Cons; it is more expensive. You are paying for marketing, labor, packaging, shipping, and a carbon footprint tax amongst other things with this service. It also requires some patience and trial and error. If you select and get sent the chicken piccata because you love the way your grandma makes it, when it arrives and it reminds you of that time in college you ate 10 pots of baby food for a dare, well then you’ll need to find an alternative for that week (and speak your therapist about the baby food incident).

Sidebar;

• If you are interested in this option, I personally have used and can vouch for 2 services in this category. Trifecta and Factor75. Both of these were equally tasty and competitively priced. They also offered decent variety and consideration for food preferences. Factor75 had more options for vegetarian and lower-calorie needs, whereas Trifecta had more customization options for those looking to eat more exact calorie amounts that matched their macronutrient needs and performance goals.

I hope you found this guide helpful.

If you would like more guidance on food prep options to match your needs, lifestyle, preferences, and environmental demands feel free to follow me on Instagram here and either drop me a DM there or reply to this article with any and all food prep questions you may have.