TWELVE | Meal Prep Bootcamp

Ready to stop guessing what to eat and start hitting your goals with less stress? We walk through a practical, no-drama meal prep system for beginners that actually fits your busy week. You’ll learn why prepping just one meal a day can flip your nutrition from chaotic to consistent, and how a few small tools well under $100 remove the friction that makes most people quit. This is the blueprint we use ourselves, built to save time, money, and decision fatigue.

We start with the essentials: a digital thermometer to keep chicken juicy and safe, a food scale for accuracy (or measuring cups if you’re on a tight budget), dependable containers, and a rice cooker or Instant Pot to make carbs push-button simple. Then we map out the plan. Choose one or two proteins, a go-to carb like rice or potatoes, and or veggies. Buy in bulk, estimate portions for the week, and decide whether you’ll prep once or split into two shorter sessions for peak freshness.

From there, we lay out a step-by-step cooking flow that compresses your total kitchen time. By the end, you’ll have a simple framework you can repeat every week: plan, batch, portion, flavor, and go. 

If you’ve tried meal prep before and burned out, this approach brings it back to basics so it sticks. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a reset, and tell us: which meal will you prep first this week?

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Goal: Why Meal Prep
• 2:35 Time And Money Myths
• 5:15 The Essential Tools Checklist
• 9:00 Planning Groceries And Portions
• 12:20 Batch Cooking Flow: Rice, Chicken, Beef
• 16:30 Portioning Without Stress
• 20:00 Veggies, Texture, And Storage Tips
• 24:30 Flavor Variety That Keeps You Consistent
• 28:00 Final Motivators And How To Start Today

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Fortis After Hours podcast. I'm your co-host, Nate, joined by my wife Liz.

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Hey.

SPEAKER_01: 0:07

And we have another awesome, whoa, have another awesome episode planned for you guys today. And today we're going to be talking about meal prep.

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

So fun.

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

My title for this one, because I couldn't really think of anything else, is going to be like meal prep boot camp. So meal prep 101, meal prep essentials, I don't know. But basically, what we're going to go over is what you need to get started on your meal prepping journey. Like the basics of like cooking, I don't know, common foods used in meal prep. And then how you can like stay consistent with this over a longer period of time. So if you're new to meal prepping, you've never done it before, I think this will be helpful if you have meal prep before, but maybe you're like, oh my gosh, it takes so long or my chicken's overdone. Yeah, it takes so long, my chicken's overdone. Uh, I don't know how to cook rice. We're gonna go over all that um and hopefully give you guys the tools you need to get started on your meal prep. This is probably the first of quite a few nutrition style things coming this year. Um, I don't know, just like entirely on the podcast, um, or it's gonna be video and podcast, but we will be doing a good chunk of nutrition style uh content, and I think this is a good place to start. Because without this, it's just poof. What am I doing? Poof. You're just talking about meal prep, but you don't know how to meal prep. Poof. Um, so that's what I wanted to start with today.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

Um, and we have also we have we're fresh off Liz doing meal prep last week. I did successfully.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

Yeah, it was all great.

SPEAKER_01: 1:48

Yeah. Um, and why this is significant is because Liz doesn't cook.

SPEAKER_00: 1:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:53

Uh so if you didn't know that, I am the cook in the household.

SPEAKER_00: 1:57

I bake bread.

SPEAKER_01: 1:58

Liz bakes bread. I cook. Um, she bakes cookies and other things like that as well. But yeah, I like cooking. I do all the cooking generally. But she did this last week, and this actually kind of inspired me. I'm like, oh, we really should like give this information to other people because for me, this is just second nature. I'm just like, yeah, this is easy. But then I was like, oh no, wait, maybe it's not second nature. Almost had a mic fall there.

SPEAKER_00: 2:20

I see that.

SPEAKER_01: 2:21

Whoa. Um, you know, maybe it's not second nature to people that don't know. So we're gonna break it down, give you the tools you need, and then hopefully at the end of this episode, in just 30 minutes, you're gonna be like, all right, I'm ready to go. I can start meal prepping today. Um, so first things first, why meal prep?

SPEAKER_00: 2:41

Because it keeps you on track with your nutrition to reach your goals. Because if you don't have meal prep food, I mean I'm not saying everyone. I understand some people's lives allow them to cook all of their meals, which is cool, I guess, but I feel like that's very rare. Um so meal prepping allows you to stay on track, especially if your life is busy, if life is crazy. Um, plus, if you have meals prepped already, you're more likely to eat them versus going out to eat.

SPEAKER_01: 3:11

You've already spent the money, you've spent the time. Yeah. So it's a lot more you're more into it versus like if you're like, oh, I'll just go here and get food.

SPEAKER_00: 3:17

Yes. So and it just helps keep you on track. Like, no matter what your goals are, gain weight, lose weight, maintain weight, get stronger, whatever it is. Um having your meals like prepped and ready and portioned and all of that good stuff just really allows you to make sure you're dialed in and staying on track with the goals.

SPEAKER_01: 3:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:36

Feeling good.

SPEAKER_01: 3:37

Yeah. Um, I think another reason uh like why people should meal prep is just like the time aspect and the simplicity aspect. Uh Liz kind of like touched on this. Like, you just, I mean, you are going to save time, period. Dot if you meal prep. I've done this, we've talked about this on the podcast. I've posted this, sorry, I've posted this before. Um, you're gonna be able to save time if you are meal prepping versus not. Uh, it's just what it is. You can divide that uh time that it takes to actually cook a bunch of meals versus like one at a time. Um, and it is really gonna make just your life a lot simpler. And meal prepping itself is pretty simple. I think a lot of people are intimidated by it and they're like, Oh, I can never do that. Or like, oh, like you're cooking so many meals. But really, like meal prepping is like the most simple way of cooking or like style of cooking.

SPEAKER_00: 4:26

Well, and I think as far as like so many meals, like that's gonna look different for each person, really. Like, yeah, we meal prep lunch and dinner. You meal prep, I don't know, second breakfast, lunch, and dinner for yourself, like three meals a day for you. Um, I really just have one meal right now because of my bonus snacks that I'm eating. Yep. Um, but either way, some people will want to prep like multiple meals, and then other people might just need to prep one meal. Like maybe they have time to make dinner every night or they want to make dinner with their family, or their family makes dinner for them every night, you know, something like that. Yeah. Um, and that's fine. So like you don't have to, I guess what before we start and explain all the things that we do, like you don't have to meal prep everything. So if you're only meal prepping one meal a day, this is gonna be even easier than if you're doing multiple meals a day for multiple people. So just something to like keep in mind too, like it doesn't have to be all of your meals. Um, and you also don't have to do it all in one day. Like we do all of ours in one day. Um, I have talked to people over the years, whatever, that they just their brainslash stomach can't handle eating meal-prepped food for more than like two or three days. Um I have no problem going with a whole week, or really it's like five or six days, maybe for us usually. Um, I have no problem with it just because it's what we've done. But there are some people that, like I said, have an issue with going more than like two or three days. So if that's the case, like you can just kind of like apply this, but in a smaller dose, and you just might have to do it like twice a week or something. Um but with that, like if that is what you need to do for yourself, um, you're going to want to make sure you have a plan for both days that you're going to meal prep, um, like set into your schedule so you know that those days are your meal prep days. So you know that you'll have food through the whole week, not just like, oh, I meal prep this weekend, cool. And then you start off the week really strong because this is what happens, and then halfway through the week, you don't have food anymore, and you didn't set aside time to meal prep, and life got busy, so now you have no food to eat, and now you're like back to not having anything prepared.

SPEAKER_01: 6:39

So uh no, that's that's a great point and a good thing to make. And I think like I think another thing is even if you're doing meal prep twice a week, if you're one of those people, that is still, just to be clear, going to be less time than not. Yeah, and it's still going to save money. That's the other thing. A lot of big misconception, cooking your own meals is somehow like more expensive than like eating out or eating like pre-prepared food. Now, could it be? Yes, absolutely. Like you, if you're going to Whole Foods or something like that, like it could definitely be expensive, be become pretty expensive pretty quick. However, if you are just trying to achieve certain goals with your fitness and your health, it does not need to be expensive. It can actually be very cheap. And I mean, you're saving like a lot of like hundreds of dollars. This is what I'm talking about, just for like one person. If you are just meal prepping with the basics, which is what we're gonna go over. Of course, like I said, there's levels, everything you can, but like just to be clear, me and Liz just do we just do the basics. Pretty basic, yeah. Um, and we have like some supplements that we take, like uh the AG1 greens I really like. I talked about taking fiber like metamucil, I like to take, but other than that, it's all just meal prep food, um, protein, creatine, and pre-workout if we're feeling it. So, all right. We're not talking about that today. Today, we're talking about meal prep. So we're ready to meal prep. It's a new year. How do we get started? I'm gonna like I said, this might seem very basic. So if you're not, look, if you already have all this stuff, maybe skip along. Um, hopefully, AI will chapter this and you can use a little thingy and go past it. Um, but anyways, um the first things you're gonna need is, and these are just some basic tools, so I I guess this will be a little bit of an investment early on, but you can get all this stuff for less than a hundred bucks. Okay. So, and you buy it once.

SPEAKER_00: 8:31

Way less than a hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_01: 8:32

I know, I'm just saying. You buy it one time, it'll definitely be way less. So I recommend getting a digital thermometer, not a like old school, I don't know, what's that? Mercury? The red thing, yeah, whatever that is. Um, not like the metal one, just like a digital thermometer, you can just pop in, it's gonna read it instantly. This is gonna be essential for chicken.

SPEAKER_00: 8:52

Um, I think you can get those uh, I mean, really any sort, but I know they're at Walmart. I'm gonna say maybe 10, yeah, 10 or 15 bucks, maybe. And maybe if you look on Amazon, you might even be able to find them cheaper.

SPEAKER_01: 9:03

So, like for the YouTube one, if I was better at editing, I could put this up here. Okay, digital thermometer, 15 bucks. Just pretend it's there.

SPEAKER_00: 9:10

Pretend it's edited.

SPEAKER_01: 9:11

Um maybe one day. Uh from there, you need a digital scale. So you need some sort of scale. You gotta be able to like weigh out your portions, things like this. Um, again, Walmart, 20 bucks, maybe 1520.

SPEAKER_00: 9:23

And a lot of people will be like, well, why can't I just use measuring cups? Because that's what people say. But it is it is truly different. So, like if you are that person, like, I don't know, go buy a scale and try it, and then um go return the scale if I'm if we're both wrong in this. But like we won't be wrong. Get a cup of rice with your cup, your cooked rice. Your cooked rice, get like scoop a cup of it, and then like measure actually how many grams it is, and it's going to be probably not actually a cup. Um no matter how long you've been doing it. Like, we still can't like I mean we can get close, but it's not perfect. And the same thing with meat, like you can guess, you can try to use, and then I it's just you're going to be more accurate. Now, I will say, if you're like, I literally cannot get a scale, using, I'm just saying, using like if someone just like cannot go buy a scale, they just can't afford it right now. Oh, like if you just can't don't if you don't have that extra money, like using measuring cups is better than nothing.

SPEAKER_01: 10:26

Yeah, agreed. So like thermometer key because you'll die if you have the chicken is undercooked.

SPEAKER_00: 10:34

If you don't want to cook chicken, then I guess you don't need one.

SPEAKER_01: 10:38

Yeah. But if you're cooking chicken, you need a thermometer.

SPEAKER_00: 10:41

Yeah. Um, but no, with the the food scale, like, yes, that would definitely be ideal, and you're going to see more accurate results and better progress with a scale because you're actually ensuring that you're getting the correct amounts. Yeah. But if you just like cannot afford it, or you're just like, you know what, I'm literally not taking the time to put and measure every gram. Because there are people like that too, that they're like, I just don't, I'm not gonna do it. Use a measuring cup. Like, it's not the end of the world. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. Not measure it. Um, so I mean, you can always just kind of like, if you know you have like a two pounds of ground beef that you're gonna spread out amongst the weak, put your containers, pop a little bit in. So you wouldn't have to, is just my my little caveat.

SPEAKER_01: 11:24

We're gonna go over that later.

SPEAKER_00: 11:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 11:25

Um, but yeah, I I would agree with Liz. You definitely need a thermometer, uh, scale would be ideal. Uh, and then you're definitely gonna need some sort of meal prep containers. So uh that you will need those you can buy. There's varying different like levels of expensiveness you can select. You can uh kind of select your uh poison, pick your poison there, excuse me. And um, you know, you can go with like super cheap, like they're basically disposable, but you can just use them as not disposable ones. We've done that for a while.

SPEAKER_00: 11:56

Yeah, and I will say, like, there is this is like a little bit of an or could be a little bit of an investment. Like if you buy the nicer level ones, whatever you want to call them, like we have glass ones, like it is more expensive than just the cheap plastic ones, but they last much longer than the plastic ones that I'll get you through, like a few, especially if you're microwaving in the plastic, which is also not really ideal, but you know, yeah, but we're talking about basics.

SPEAKER_01: 12:21

But we do. But yeah, I mean, if you do if you do the uh plastic ones, you can expect to probably replace those at least like probably two to three times a year. If you go with the glass, definitely a lot longer. Uh, but you're gonna need some meal prep containers. And then the last thing you're most likely gonna need, unless you're going for some sort of like keto carb-free, completely diet, you're probably gonna have some rice in your diet at some point. Um, and the reason being it's just a super like bioavailable food, very easy to digest for your body, uh, very simple to make for you, and a very just plain, wholesome source of carbs. So um, if you are gonna have rice in your diet, which is probably gonna be a good chunk of you, uh, you're gonna want to invest in a rice cooker. They're very cheap.

SPEAKER_00: 13:05

I mean, you can make rice just in like a pot.

SPEAKER_01: 13:07

It is so much worse. So But you can. You can, but every time I talk to someone and they say that, I'm like, they're like, yeah, just making it like here's the deal rice cooker, because this is all about efficiency, okay? And like adherence, making you hit the goal, making you continue to meal prep, not just meal prep once and feel good about yourself and be like, that was great, and then never meal prep again. So, like, look, a rice cooker is just gonna allow you to put the rice in, put the water in, click. It's like that old uh infomercial, set it and forget it.

SPEAKER_00: 13:38

Like, you literally just you love to use that infomercial.

SPEAKER_01: 13:40

That's a great one.

SPEAKER_00: 13:41

You love to use that. It's a good one. It's a good one. I don't remember what else you've used that for, multiple things probably over the years, but you love that infomercial.

SPEAKER_01: 13:48

I think there's actually a podcast that we have called Set It Forget it. Anyways, no, it's super nice though, because you just put the rice in, put the water in, click it down, good to go. And rice cookers, again, of course, range in price from like$20 to$200. But you can just get one at like Walmart or uh Target, or if you have an instant pot, which a lot of people have.

SPEAKER_00: 14:08

That's what we use.

SPEAKER_01: 14:09

That's a rice cooker. So that has rice cooker capabilities. Um, so yeah, so those are the essentials you need. So again, YouTube versions would be nice if I had graphic, but you're gonna need that uh thermometer for sure. You're probably gonna want to get a scale of some sort or measuring device, like Liz said. If you got you gotta go with measuring cups, or that's what you have, that's fine. But you do need some sort of measuring device. Um, meal prep containers, and then like I said, unless you're going completely carb-free, preferably a rice cooker, it's just gonna save a lot of time. Um so yeah. So those are the basics that you need. Can you think of anything else?

unknown: 14:48

No.

SPEAKER_01: 14:48

You don't really need meal preps.

SPEAKER_00: 14:50

I mean, I have meal preps.

SPEAKER_01: 14:52

You did last week. It was good. Um from there, let's talk about like actually cooking.

SPEAKER_00: 15:02

Well, I think first, before you actually cook, is you need to make sure you like plan what you're going to cook. Like, that sounds dumb, but like well, this is the basics, yeah. I mean, yeah, like whether you're like specifically tracking or just trying to come up with like plans of like what you want to prep for it.

SPEAKER_01: 15:20

Well, Liz is right. So I think this is something that will save you a ton of time. Um, I think something that's very important is to try and measure your meat or protein source in bulk, and then before you cook it, and then all you have to do is portion it out.

SPEAKER_00: 15:35

Um, I'm talking about even like grocery shopping, though, because you gotta go get all the groceries with a plan. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 15:41

But you gotta know how much oh, how much you need.

SPEAKER_00: 15:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:44

How much meat you need. So yeah. So yeah. So like Liz said, figure out what you want to eat, figure out how much you need. Um, that's not happening in this podcast today. That's not the intent of that, but we will cover that in the future. Um, different macros and things like that. But we're gonna assume you already have what you need to eat, um, like the amounts, and now you just gotta go get it from the store. So definitely make sure you, as far as the meats, I like to measure in like whole like sources and kind of get close to it. So, like I think I eat per week, it's like six pounds of chicken, five or six ish.

SPEAKER_00: 16:19

It's like four or five.

SPEAKER_01: 16:20

I think okay, yeah. So it's four or five. I think we buy like five or six, and then I trim it up, um, and then it's good to go for my portion. So that's some that's how you're gonna want to think versus like buying the chicken and be like, all right, and I'm gonna go home, and then like weigh the chicken individually. That takes a lot more time. So, like Liz said, kind of like find what you need, um, you know, get everything you need at the store, get all the portions. You can always buy a little more, specifically in the rice department, because you might need more later. Um, and then yeah, and then you're back home and you're ready to cook.

SPEAKER_00: 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:56

So how to get started, like actually cooking, um this is what I like to do. But I'm just gonna run you through it because that's that's the basics.

SPEAKER_00: 17:07

And we're just gonna note that it hurt my brain to do it like this. So it worked. Okay, but I'm just saying if you need to adjust slightly so your brain doesn't implode while everything is done at the same time, because that's what happened.

SPEAKER_01: 17:22

Um, I mean I'm gonna talk about the concepts, not necessarily specifically ours.

SPEAKER_00: 17:28

Because like Liz pointed out, everything was done at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:31

All of the things.

SPEAKER_01: 17:32

Yeah, like Liz pointed out though, we're cooking like almost 30 meals, so it's a little bit different. Most of you guys probably listening to this are not gonna be cooking 30 meals, but if you are, then this will be very helpful for you. Um so anyway, so you got your basics, you got your food, now we're moving on to actually cooking it. So, this is what I like to do first. I like to start the rice. This is why it's important to have a rice cooker, because you do not want to waste a second of time in the meal prep sphere because you want adherence, you want to come back next week. Okay, I can do that. Not like, oh my gosh, like these meals are amazing, and you look down on the clock, it was like five hours. Because that's the thing. If you're not good at cooking, it could take you a while. So we're gonna shorten that time down. So, step one, get the rice um cooking, or if you're going pasta, something like that, whatever, get that boiling, you know. Rice is ideal though, because you put the rice in the cooker, put the water in the cooker, ding, and then you're done.

SPEAKER_00: 18:28

You set it and forget it.

SPEAKER_01: 18:30

Thank you. I like that commercial.

SPEAKER_00: 18:33

I know you do.

SPEAKER_01: 18:34

Um, so yeah, so you start with the rice, and that's cooking. Then you can go get your meats, and depends on what you're doing. I prefer to cook my chicken um in I prefer to cook the chicken in uh sorry, I'm trying to make sure this is still recording. Okay, it is. That was weird. Um, yeah, I prefer to cook my chicken in the oven. I find that if you cook it in the pan, it kind of like dries it out a little bit. Um, but if you cook it in the oven, it can also dry it out.

SPEAKER_00: 19:04

He can turn into rubber.

SPEAKER_01: 19:06

Yeah, that's nasty. So, how to avoid that? So let's just say we're doing some oven chicken. Of course, you want to preheat the oven. While that's happening, you can kind of trim the chicken. Ooh, quick safety tip: always make sure you have a sharp knife. We're going over the basics. We're going over the basics, like someone never has meal prep before. You want a sharp knife, that is a safe knife. If you got a dull knife, risk of injury. Increases.

SPEAKER_00: 19:31

Oh no, apparently I'm a risk of injury even with a sharp knife. So through the roof.

SPEAKER_01: 19:34

No, I sharpened it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:35

Yeah, I know, and then you didn't let me cut the chicken.

SPEAKER_01: 19:38

Did I? Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. I was watching Liz. Oh man, I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_00: 19:44

Danger.

SPEAKER_01: 19:44

Oh my word. Yeah. I was programming and I look over, and Liz is like, I don't know, like cutting right towards her fingers. I'm like, oh my, I'm like, everything was fine, guys. We do not need to go to the ER.

SPEAKER_00: 19:54

Everything was fine.

SPEAKER_01: 19:55

So yeah, that's maybe another video. Anyways, make sure you got a sharp knife. And you can use again, this is like a time thing. You got the oven preheating, and you can start chopping up the chicken, um, or like you know, like cutting the fat off. So, from there, if you're baking chicken, um, you're gonna want to make sure you put it in the oven. And this the time is dependent on the oven and everything. So, roughly I would go like 400 degrees, 20 minutes is a good starting point. Measure it with the digital thermometer that you have, put it back in. I would cook it to about 165, 170, just a hair more, just in case for safety. Just in case. But I will say, hold on, hold on, don't go past that, because then you go into rubber land where it's just not gonna be good. You got chicken jerky all of a sudden, you're sitting there. It's not even jerky.

SPEAKER_00: 20:43

It's like the texture of it is one of the most terrible things. It's so bad.

SPEAKER_01: 20:48

Anyways, so if you're doing chicken, that's what you're doing. If you got chicken and ground beef going on the same time, watch this. Now we got the rice going, the chicken's in the oven, and now we got a pan on the stove, and what do we put in there? Ground beef, ground turkey. Any type of thing you gotta cook in the pan, boom, all three at once. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 21:06

Um, and again, we also had potatoes going last week. It was so many things at once.

SPEAKER_01: 21:11

But for the beginners, I'm just saying your brain might implode. Yeah. If anyone's brain is like mine, just like go back to the this part of the podcast and it'll calm you down. So you got so you got the ground beef cooking, you got the chicken cooking, you got the rice cooking, everything's rocking and rolling. Um and ground beef a little easier. Same with ground turkey, you can just kind of cook it in a pan until it's cooked. I don't know. Like, I don't really have advice on that. Yeah, just chop it up until it's not pink anywhere. Um and then things will start to get done. The rice is done. Rice you can usually just let sit for a while. That's fine. Uh chicken may get done. You pull it out of the oven again, let it sit for a little bit. Um, I wouldn't cut the chicken up yet, I would just let it sit. And then let's say you got the ground beef done, and now we're ready to portion out our meals, like Liz said. Now, here's where I was gonna give a little bit of leeway for people, which is why I didn't want to get into it too much earlier. If you're just beginning, I'm gonna tell you this right now. If you're just beginning, like Liz said, you don't really even need a scale. You can just get some portions, get some meal prep containers, get it, you know, a few pounds of ground beef, something, and just put some in each thing, and you're gonna be just fine.

SPEAKER_00: 22:22

Because again, doing something is better than nothing. Exactly. So, like having some type of prepared meal is going to be 100% better, even if it's not portioned out or the perfect macros or the perfect balance, having something home cooked that's like good, like what whole food basically is going to be better than going out to whatever fast food place you decide to go to that day because you didn't have food to eat.

SPEAKER_01: 22:48

So just with that information, you guys, I want you to really like give yourself a little bit of grace if you're just starting out on your meal prepping journey. Just you know, grab some grab some meat, grab some rice, grab some veggies. If you want veggies, measure it out, portion it out for the week, you're gonna be good to go. Um, and what I was saying earlier about um the measuring, this is where I would start measuring, not before when it's all like raw. Uh, you're gonna wanna like you can measure out the beef, the chicken once it's already cooked, or this is a little hack. If you know how much you started with, you can just divide it by whatever, and that's what you're eating. So that's what we want to do.

SPEAKER_00: 23:25

Because like I, it's mine is about a pound and a half of ground beef across five meals. So we'll take that and then just kind of cook it and then make the containers look about the same. Like, and I know they're not exactly perfectly even. Yeah, and they're they're also close enough. Yeah. Like if I have, I don't know, 4.2 ounces one day and 4.4 ounces another day, like it's not yes, like it's close enough, is my point with that. Because the total amount is still being consumed throughout the week.

SPEAKER_01: 23:57

You're still consuming the total amount throughout the week, and this is uh mainly for people interested in general fitness and powerlifting. I mean, you don't have to be as super, super strict on a day-to-day basis as say like a bodybuilding show or something like this, right? That's totally different. So that is super important. Portion it out, um, and then close up those meal prep containers, stick them in the fridge right away.

SPEAKER_00: 24:18

Uh and I know there's different things, like if you are just kind of starting out, um, I don't know them off the top of my head because I use a scale when I portion out, but there are things like you'd have to look it up online, or if you don't know and you want me to find it for you, I guess message me and I'll find it for you. But like you can use like different parts of your hand to know like about the portion size. Oh, yeah. So it's like your fist is something and your thumb is something. I don't really remember all of the things, but like there's I know there's stuff out there that you could like look up to find it, or like I said, I'll look it up if someone is interested in actually doing that, just to kind of give you like an idea. Like, if you are brand new and you're like, don't know how much I should have, like you're telling me put some put some stuff in here, like I don't know how much stuff. Like there are like guidelines that you can use your hand for or things like that. That um if that's something that you wanted to use in place of like a measuring thing, especially at first, you could try and do something like that too.

SPEAKER_01: 25:14

Yeah, I would agree with Liz. The scale, I think the scale is nice just because it's like a consistent thing. However, if you don't have the money for a scale yet, uh, or like you're just like that's too intense, I think just portioning out, you're gonna be much better off than if you just have no meal prep whatsoever. Yeah. Um, also, one other thing, I explained kind of like what I do with the multiple meats going at once. If it's your very, very first time cooking, I probably would recommend you just do one at a time. So do the rice, and then you basically cook your meat while the rice is cooking, and then there you go. Um, the multiple meats is more for like time saving. Uh, so if it's your very first time, it's probably best not to get overwhelmed and just start with just one meat and one carb and then go from there. Another quick tip if you like vegetables, I strongly recommend either using um like if you're using fresh vegetables, vegetables, don't like totally roast them when you're cooking because you're gonna re-microwave them.

SPEAKER_00: 26:12

So with vegetables, I would also, if you're doing a whole week, I'm gonna tell you they're not gonna last till the end of the week. So that is something like you could prep the rest of your meals and maybe do the veggies like halfway through the week if you needed to, but they're not gonna last you the whole week. I've tried.

SPEAKER_01: 26:25

Yeah. I have tried. But some people like love vegetables. So another, this is a couple hacks. One, don't fully cook it. Two, they have like frozen, excuse me, frozen veggie packs that you can get, like this like steaming in a bag thing. That would be a prime thing to do and just bring that with you to wherever you're going. They're frozen usually, so if they get a little defrosted, no big deal. And then you just warm them up right there. So if you need, because some people really like veggies. If you like to eat veggies, I would do one of those two things. I would not, like Liz said, don't totally cook it like you're cooking the meat and the rice, and then you're gonna put it in there. Trust me, two days, it's gonna be like mush.

SPEAKER_00: 26:59

It's rough.

SPEAKER_01: 27:00

Yeah, so don't do that.

SPEAKER_00: 27:02

Um I have one more tip. Yeah, what else? Um, a lot of people tell me that they can't eat the same thing every day. Yeah, um, I hear that a lot. So my advice for that would be one of two things. Either when you're prepping the meat, um, just cook it with like a little salt and pepper or something, like plain, and don't really put anything in it. And then each day you can take out your seasoning that you want, your sauces that you want, whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 27:26

That isn't great.

SPEAKER_00: 27:27

Either bring it with you or do it at home, like when you're throwing everything in the bag, whatever. So either that way, or if you kind of know some like options that you want for the week, maybe you have like two or three different things. You're like, Yeah, I like these options. So then prep your meals with those two or three different sauces. So maybe half your meals have, I don't know, barbecue sauce and half of them have ketchup, yeah. Taco seasoning, whatever, something else. Um, so that way, like you have like two different options, even though it's the same meal, and literally it's not taking you really any extra time because one you're gonna maybe sprinkle some taco seasoning on, and one you're gonna pour some barbecue sauce on. Um, so however, like that's just my my suggestion for the people who say they can't eat the same thing every day. Like, leave it plain, I think, would actually be a better option because then you can see what you're feeling for that day. Um, but if that's just like, I don't know, too much extra time each day to decide and then put something on it, yeah. Um, you can have a mystery meal every day and then maybe it's taco, maybe it's barbecue. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 28:32

Yeah. Uh no, that's that's a great uh kind of ending point for today's episode because you don't want to just be bored and like get like eating fatigue super early in your meal prepping career. So have a variety of seasonings, variety of sauces. I think we might maybe do another whole episode on that, uh, to be honest, because they're shorter episodes. Uh we can talk about our favorites and give you guys some tips and tricks for how to season it. But uh hopefully today we were able to break down how to get started with your meal prepping journey. Um, and you can, I think with this information, you can get started.

SPEAKER_00: 29:06

And if I can do it, that's what I was guessing. Anyone can do it.

SPEAKER_01: 29:10

If Liz could do it, anyone could do it. Uh, she killed it last week, um, just with the same following the same kind of process. And we had great meals all week. Yeah. And Liz is not usually the person that cooks. Oh.

SPEAKER_00: 29:22

Um, so and I survived, and I didn't cut my fingers off.

SPEAKER_01: 29:24

Yeah. Well, I did take the knife away and start cutting it, but yeah. It was fine. Yeah. But yeah, hopefully this helps you guys out. Um, and if it does or you have questions, please let us know. Reach out, tag us. We will share your meal prepping successes, and we will see you guys in the next episode.

SPEAKER_00: 29:42

Bye.

SPEAKER_01: 29:42

Peace.

SPEAKER_00: 29:43

That was backwards.