The Aerial Alchemist
Where circus meets storytelling, wellness, and the magic of movement. Hosted by Fallon, founder of In the Wings, this podcast explores aerial dance, creativity, and the rituals that help us stay grounded while reaching new heights. From artistry to resilience, community to self-care, each episode offers inspiration for living boldly, moving with intention, and finding your own alchemy—both in the air and on the ground. Always… happy flying.
The Aerial Alchemist
Episode 30: Ahead of the Cauldron: Meal Prep Hacks for Busy Movers
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0:00 | Intro and Announcements
1:21 | Simplifying Meal Prep: Go-To Recipes
3:24 | Batch Cooking and Freezing Strategies
Shay on IG and Cookbook
8:21 | Mix and Match Building Blocks
9:15 | Outsourced Meal Hacks
15:13 | Breakfast Meal Prep Ideas
18:44 | Easy Swaps
19:39 | Snacks and Treats: Balancing Nutrition and Enjoyment
Connect with Fallon
📧 info@inthewingsaerial.com
🌐 www.inthewingsaerial.com
Welcome to the Arial Alchemist, where movement transforms into magic and stories take flight. I'm Fallon, dancer, aerialist, and storyteller, inviting you into a world where circus and dance meet creativity, resilience, and community. Whether you're here to be inspired, to learn, or to simply dream a little bigger, you found your place. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to the Arial Alchemist episode number 30 of Ahead of the Cauldron. I'm gonna be going through my favorite meal prep hacks and what has worked for me as someone who is working part-time as a nurse, running an aerial dance company, and also trying to have a life outside of all of that. And it's hard to stay on the goals. So here's how I do it. Before we jump in, reminder June 19th through the 25th is our flourish retreat in Italy. It is an aerial creation-based retreat for aerialists of all levels. You literally could have taken one class and you can join us. We'll make it happen for you. So the link to that is in the show notes. Check it out. It's gonna be so beautiful. It'll be in Umbria, Italy, about an hour outside of Rome in the Italian countryside. It we will have our aerial rigs set up next to a beautiful pool. We are going to be doing an outdoor movie night and an olive oil tasting. We are going to check out some of the ruins in the nearby city. It's gonna be plenty of time to create and also relax. So we hope you join us. Please do. Please let me know if you have any questions. Happy to chat through any of it with you. So here we go. Meal prep, in my opinion, does not need to be this super overwhelming big deal thing. And I think us as women, we take on this mental load of having to do all of this, and it is hard. It is hard. I don't want to take away from that. Even what I do still takes a lot of mental space and planning, but I've figured out a way that makes it a little bit easier for me so that I don't have to take on too much. So my biggest thing is have your go-tos so you don't have to overthink it. So I have my go-to breakfasts, I have my go-to snacks, I have my go-to recipes that I kind of have on a rotation. I have a binder where I have printed out several of my recipes that are my favorites. I have them divided up into like chicken and beef, so depending on what proteins I want. I also have them organized by rice and pasta, so I can kind of and then like and then neither. So that I kind of kind of go through at the beginning of the week, flip through it and be like, okay, here's what I want, pop it into my grocery app, order my groceries. I don't go inside the grocery store hardly ever anymore because who's got the time and energy? And they do it for free now. So that's what I use. And then and we go on and then we go on through the life. We have it picked up and every once in a while delivered, because that they do charge for, which is fair. But sometimes we need to pay the extra few bucks in a tip to make it work. My biggest hack system is the batch and freeze system. So I have done this recently. My new one is with just chicken, and I will grill up or bake or whatever saute. I'm gonna make a bunch of chicken. I'm gonna go to Costco, I'm gonna get the big pack of chicken, I'm going to cook it, I'm going to cut it up, and then I am going to put it into freezer bags and freeze it in portions. I usually use about a pound and a half of chicken for a recipe for six, and I will put it in those portions so that I can easily just grab one out of the freezer and use it when I need to. This was brilliant for me this last week. I was making, I'm gonna tag him again because I love, I love Zach Cohen. I made his barbecue chicken pizza, and the hardest part of that recipe is cooking up the chicken. Everything else is pretty simple. So I already had it, got it, and then I had that dinner uh ready in less than 30 minutes, and that would, and 15 of it was just the pizza cooking in the oven. Um, it was probably even less time than that, but you know, anyways. So um that's been a big one of mine. You can season the chicken. I just do a basic, a basic seasoning that will go with anything like salt, pepper, Italian seasoning or something like that. Um, I change it a little bit every time depending on what I have. Um, and yeah, that's what I do. Uh the other thing I do, uh, I use Zach Cohen's meals a lot, a lot. And why I love his meals is they are high protein, low calorie, and affordable. And they all make six portions and they are high volume, baby, because you know your girl is hungry. So they're big, big portions. When I first started making them, my husband would be like, This is too much food. And I was like, What are you talking about? It's amazing. He's like, This is so much. And I was like, Well, it's only 400 calories. Shit, shut up. Uh, you're welcome for making it. But yeah, so I use his meals. And then what I will also do with his meals is I will make double batches. So instead of making six, I will make 12 and then I will put six of them in the freezer so that when I know that I have a busy week coming up, I've got a performance, I've got a show, whatever is happening. I can then just pull a couple out of the freezer and I will then rotate them so that it's not always the same, the same thing that I'm eating. Because I know some people can eat the same thing day in, day out, forever. I am not those people. I need more variety in my life. I really love food a lot. I love variety in food. Um, so so that's how I do it. But you could totally just make the same thing all the time. And that's cool. That if that works for you, boo, you do that. Um, it's all about like freeing up mental space in our brain. Um, when I first started working with Shay, my personal trainer, she would send out meal plans and have them so that you could change them if you needed them higher calorie or lower calorie, depending on where you were at in your in your calories that you were goals. And I started using them and she would only send out like one day for like every week. And I was like, what? And so some people were literally eating the same thing for the full week of what she had suggested. That is not for me. And I was like, Are you people cooking every single meal, every single day to make this happen? Because I tried that for like three days and I was like, this is not sustainable. This is not sustainable. And and the answer was most of them were like, no, no, we're not doing it that way. Here's how we're doing it. So so yeah, getting those recipes that uh that freeze are great or are quickly prepared. And there's one that I have of Shay's. She's I I'll link her cookbook. Her cookbook is fantastic. It's it's kind of pricey. I think it's like around $100, but it is a cookbook that you get recipes for life. So she keeps updating it. I don't even know how many updates I've had at this point. She keeps adding to it. Every time she adds something, you get it. The great part about her cookbook is she has it broken down, all of the macros by ingredient. So if you can't find the tortillas that she had, you subtract her macros out of it, add yours macros into it, and then have it recalculated really easily. So that would be a difference between Zach and Shay. Zach doesn't do that. For me, it it doesn't really matter. But for some people, it matters. So if you're on that strict of a thing, then that's the way to go. Shay has a lot of dupes. If you like fast food, she has like a lot of Taco Bell and other like KFC like dupes. Um and recently I've been making her Big Mac tacos, which are so good and I can whip up so easily once I have the dressing made, because I can't find the kind of dressing that she has. So I just make my own. And once that's made, I can whip those bad boys up in like eight minutes, which is great. So, anyways, things that are quick like that, I love. Another thing that I would do is like mix and match building blocks. So, like maybe at the beginning of the week, I cook a bunch of chicken, I cook a bunch of like ground turkey, maybe, maybe some steak, whatever, whatever it is. Tofu, I love for uh vegan protein. Yeah. And then I will also cook up, like roast a bunch of vegetables and a starch. So either a starchy veggie or rice or pasta or maybe a little bit of both. And then what I do is I mix and match. So I get like my protein, my starch, and my veggie. And then I can add a sauce or maybe some cheese or maybe a tortilla, depending on what it is, and kind of eat it in different, different ways. Again, because I like variety. But you could totally just do like your chicken, rice, and veg and have that all week, but that is boring as heck to me and not needed. If you start looking at these creators that I like get these recipes from, you can have food that is like lower calorie and is it's exciting. It's exciting to eat. That it's not boring, it's not just chicken and veggies. You can add more things to it, I promise. Um, and make it really tasty. I reached out, I'm on the Safe Space Nutrition group on Facebook, which is um moderated and owned by Zach Cohen, who is the dietitian that I keep referring to. But it is a great group. I highly recommend it. If you're still on the Facebook, the groups are the only thing that's worth it, right? But people, it really is a safe space, like for people to ask questions to get results. There is no um, there's no shaming in that group. There's no shaming. It's and if there is, they get blocked and kicked out. So I highly recommend it. In there, I asked, I asked them what their favorite meal prep hacks were. So I'm going to list them off for you because there are a bunch of good ones in there. This person said they cut up low moisture veggies such as peppers, onions, and baby cucumbers. So you can easily throw them in a salad. They last several days in the fridge, and when your veggies are ready to go, it's a lot harder to tell yourself you don't have time to make a salad with your meal, which is true. That's also one of my hacks. Or sometimes I'll just have a salad with literal just lettuce and dressing and still counts. Someone else was trying to incorporate more beans into their life. So I cook a bag of dried beans in the crock pot for eight hours on low and I divvy it into freezer bags so I can make either full meals or little snacks. I just rinse the beans and check for rocks and throw them in. No overnight soaking, which is great because beans can can be a hassle. Another person, this one was really interesting. I do Costco runs for protein. As a chef, I'm always looking at food costs. I tend to stick with some of the basics like chicken thighs, chicken breasts, lean ground turkey, and salmon. And when something cool pops up, like pepper, chicken sausage, lamb shanks, etc., I will add those. Pretty much what I do is cut and portion all of my proteins and freeze them. I'm very fortunate to live right next to a fantastic produce market. So I walk there pretty much every other day and grab what I need for dinner, as I do cook for my wife and I and I anywhere four to six days a week. I will also have staples on hand like Greek yogurt, mainly to mainly make dipping sauces or protein pizza, canned tomatoes, whether to make sauces or use marinade. And I try to keep a trinity of prepped marinated, prepped and marinated protein, rice and potato, and a fresh vegetable of the day. So no matter what, I can portion from the freezer and decide what starch and veg they want. Prep time is maybe 20 minutes and we eat really well, which is a lot of the similar things of what I said of that like mixing and matching. Something from Costco that I've been doing lately is getting the salmon that has the um, it's like a dill salmon. It's got like butter on it. I take like half of the butter off because it's too much butter for me, but it's delicious. And then I throw that straight in the oven and then I portion that out with some rice, some edamame, which I love and like any extra I use is just like a snack, and then cucumbers, avocado if you like it, what kind of whatever you want. I throw in some ginger and some garlic also. And what I do is make these little salmon bowls, and then you get their seaweed snacks, and then you eat that with it in these little, like my I got this from my mother-in-law. Um, she calls them her like salmon tacos, their salmon sushi tacos, and you just kind of eat it with those little seaweed wraps, and it's so, it's really good. Keep going. There's there's a few more of these. I got a lot of like responses, which was awesome. Um, this one I loved. I have a small group of friends who will get together and make adult lunchables slash charcuterie. We will divvy up the ingredients and everyone brings a few items. So maybe I bring Colby Jack cheese, strawberries, and delihan and my favorite crackers. And we prepare items together and make our own little meal prepped lunchables. This way everybody gets a decent amount, but then everyone brings their favorite items to share. We're going to do this with regular food one day when we have a full day to take turns cooking. I love the community aspect to that. How cool is that? It's so I love that. And then you go home with your little meal preps after you hung out with your friends. Um, I'm gonna have to do that. Also, they said meal prep can be anything you want: pepperoni, rotisserie chicken, cheese, some diced sweet bell peppers, tossed in Italian dressing to make excellent quick chicken salad with strawberries on the side. Yeah, 100. Um, another person always has quick, easy graps in the freezer, um, like turkey meatballs and green giant and bird's eye veggies that are so they're quick, easy go. Those are great things like to meal prep. I do have like the I think it's Tyson, like pre-cooked chicken. It's basically what I do, but like if I run out of my own, Tyson makes like that. And then with some like, there's like the bird's eye power veggie bowl thing. Those are great, like together, quick girl dinner. Just bear chicken nuggets and potato wedges are also great. Yes. This one I thought was hilarious and great. I have certain times during the week when my mom's gonna be out of the house and those are my cooking times so that she's not micromanaging. So creating a container for meal prepping, get those people out of your way if they're in your way so that you can just do what you need to do. Or on the flip side, if you need a body double, sometimes that's all I need is someone to just sit there and chat with me while I cut up things. That can also be great. Yeah. Cook up raw meat and freeze in portions is also another one. Salad bar, prep all the ingredients and store in the fridge. Nose is a lot of prepping. There's prepping, but if you have everything out, it's not that big of a deal. And what I mean by that is it is a big deal, but you're only cleaning and doing the dishes once. You're only doing the things, those extra things once. Yes, you're there a little bit longer, but you don't have to pull out that knife three times in the week and clean the cutting board three times in a week. You're only doing it one time. So yeah. Um, and then the last one, I've been getting me, I've been getting me to eat vegetables by making a big salad, no lettuce or easy to wilt stuff, usually Greek salad on Sunday or Monday. It's much harder to skimp on veggies when we have all that salad I gotta eat. So yeah, making it so that you have to do the things, which is great. I want to talk about breakfasts too. Um, breakfast, I was talking with a coworker the other day. It's funny all my coworkers talk to me about this stuff because I because I love it and because they've seen things work for me. And so they want to know what I'm doing. But just going back to we gotta talk about things. We gotta talk about the things. So breakfast is where you can really go wrong because breakfast can be hard. A lot of times we're rushing in the morning. Um, so this is where like meal prepping is huge. Go to this is the one thing that I can eat like the same thing every day for whatever reason. Every day I can do it. I found a couple of things that I enjoy and I make a crap ton of them, and they are all freezeable. So I make these like egg McMuffins essentially. I use the 100 calorie English muffins. You can use whatever you want. This is what works for me. But I use a hundred calorie English muffins, a slice of Velveeta, and an egg and either a slice of turkey bacon or turkey sausage. And then I make I'll make a dozen to two dozen of those in one go. And I can get it, I can crank them out in about 30 to 45 minutes, depending on how many I'm making. I just pull out my like flat top and I just like whip them out. And then I wrap them in tinfoil and I put some in the fridge and I throw the rest in the freezer and then pull them out when I'm ready for them. And I pop them in the air fryer for eight minutes on reheat and in the morning, and then they're good to go. And then I combine that with a yogurt and maybe a maybe a protein shake, or maybe I just have like non-fat milk with my with my matcha in the morning, whatever. That usually makes makes up the the rest of the calories because there's about 250 calories in those little little egg McMuffins that I make, which is great, and like 18, 19 grams of protein. Um, so then you pair that, I get like about 30 calories, 30 calories, 30 grams of protein on that. The other thing that I do, um, Shay has breakfast burritos that I make um and can freeze those. There's a lot if you search high protein or low calorie options, like all over the internet. Um, and those are all freezeable, and then you alone just heat them up and and you can go. Um I think breakfast being on autopilot is kind of a a game changer for sure. Yeah. Uh there's also like, I know I'm like, I'm you all know at this point I'm protein forward, so that's like what I'm what I'm looking at. But there's some protein cereals and you combine that with some like fat-free fair life, which is pretty high protein, lower calorie milk, then that is also good breakfast. I prefer warm breakfasts. And then when I'm not during the week, I will make my own breakfast like fresh. And a lot of times what I'll do is do like one egg and then supplement with egg whites so that I again, so I can get more volume without getting all of the calories and and have like a slice of toast or or a half a bagel or something like that with it. Again, I find like the keto ones or the high protein ones that um again I can eat a little bit more of them because I like to eat a lot. The other thing that I love for breakfast is savory oats. I love savory oats. I do not like sweet things for breakfast. You're not gonna find that here with me. Um, but savory oats are so good. I'll see if I can find the link um to the one that I make and put it in the show notes for you. But it's essentially oats with bone broth and then spinach, and well still a little oyster sauce, a little soy sauce, and then I throw a uh fried or a poached egg on top with a little chili chili crisp. Nah, so good. It's like one of our favorite breakfasts. And oats have a good amount of fiber, so also you're welcome. Not really meal prep hacks, but just easy swaps. Like there's a lot of times I'll see a recipe that I like and I'm like, oh, but that has like way higher calories than what's gonna fit for my my goals and my body. So I can switch it to be things that will like help. So condiments are huge, like switching to the light mayo, the light sour cream. Bolt house makes great dressings. I do not there was another one that's like no calorie dressings. I don't recommend those. They taste like crap. I tried them, they're no good. Waldens, I think they were. Don't do it. Not worth it. Not worth it at all. They're again, like I've said, the low carb tortillas, low carb breads, also they have a lot of fiber, which is great. Um, usually. Read your labels, see what's in them. A lot of the times they'll they'll be listed as light or low calorie or whatever, and then you look at it and it really doesn't change much. It's they've just changed the marketing. So make sure you're reading your labels and you know actually what you're getting. My favorite snacks and go-to snacks, protein bars, bear bells are the best, in my opinion. I also love the boost puffs. I really enjoy those. I just got the David's. I'll have to keep you posted if I like those. I haven't tried them yet. But apparently the macros are where it's at on those. So if they taste good, then it's good. But it's important for me that things taste good. I'm not gonna eat things that taste like crap. This is also different for everybody. I love the Quest chips. I know a lot of people that hate them, but I do like them. I think they taste like Doritos. There is a bit of a texture that I could see you could not get around if that's your thing. Greek yogurt, the Dan and Dan and Lighton fits, are super tasty and have the best macros that I can find for my goals, but most yogurts, Greek yogurts are great. Jerky, fantastic. Cottage cheese, great. And cottage cheese can be a swap too. I recently swapped it for heavy cream. You do have to, I'm still playing with the with the ratios, but you have to add some pasta water if it's a pasta thing, or a little milk, a little water to get it the right consistency for heavy cream, but also it's really good in pastas. It's and gives that creamy, cheesy without um without all of the like calories if that's what you're looking at. My favorite low calorie treats slash high protein treats. Um, I like there's a brand, it's like keto, it's literally called keto ice cream bars. Those ones are pretty good. There's also yogurt bars by Yasso. I also like those ones. Um they both have like the crunchy chocolate. They're like Haganda's bars, but like with half the calories. So that's like a go-to if I need a little sweet and don't have a lot of calories left in my day. Another great one is tofu mousse. Sounds disgusting, but it's tofu chocolate mousse. It's really good. And then, which I'll I'll try to find the links for these for you and I'll put them in the show notes. And then also I've done a similar thing, and instead of tofu, I've done Greek yogurt, Greek yogurt with some cocoa powder, a little bit of sweet sweetener, like whatever sweetener you like, and then uh a little bit of vanilla and a pinch of salt, mix that up. I don't think I add water to that one. I don't think it needs it. And then sometimes you can, and I like to add like some toppings, like a little, a few mini chocolate chips for a little crunch, or I love raspberries. Raspberries are great and high in fiber. So yeah, I like because I, oh man, give me some chocolate raspberry. So those are some of my like go. To lower calorie trees, higher protein, some some of them higher protein, not all of them. Um if if that's what's um if that's what's needed in my day. I do want to say not everything has to be high protein and low calorie. Not everything has to be that. Sometimes have the real ice cream. Have the real ice cream. It's so good. It's so worth it. You need to have it. Don't have the entire pint in one sitting. You won't feel good, probably. Some people feel fine, but I don't feel good. I feel like I'm gonna vomit after I eat all of that. So I just want to say that. Some things don't need to be, don't need to be. At the end of the day, this is what works for me. You have to find what works for you. I'm happy to answer any questions, um, get into anything further, just send me a DM. Um, I am on all the social medias at in the wings Ariel or on Patreon at in the wings Ariel. Speaking of Patreon, thank you to my patrons for supporting me and all of my work. I could not do it without you. Thank you for being with me. Thank you to all of you for letting me talk into your earballs for another 20 some minutes. Uh, I appreciate you being here. If this resonated with you or you think it could help somebody else, please, please share it. I would really appreciate that. And I will talk to you next week. This has been the Arial Alchemist. Now go create some magic of your own. Happy flying.