Meal planning and meal prepping are key to hitting your fitness goals, no matter what they are. To be successful, your body needs to be fed macro and micronutrients consistently to give it the best shot of combining with your workout plan.
Start by Setting Your Goal
Like any successful journey, you need to be clear about your goals and set a clear metric for success. Meal plans, fitness goals, and success will not happen immediately, so it is easy to get discouraged and give up, but you have to keep at it.
So choose a weight goal, a muscle percentage, or perhaps avoid fast food and write it down. Even better, tell people what your goal is to get accountability from them as well.
Create Your Grocery List
Feeling organized in any aspect of your life takes away that huge stress factor and creates balance in your fitness goal plan. Good fitness nutrition should contain the below groceries on your list.
Sweet Potato
A great source of carbohydrates, meaning energy for your runs or gym sessions.
They also have a low Glycemic Index, or GI, which measures how quickly a food raises your blood sugar levels.
This makes them perfect for a pre-workout meal since sweet potatoes are better than white potatoes regarding GI.
They also have fiber, potassium, and other benefits.
Lychee
As many pink fruits, lychee is high in vitamin C and antioxidants. This is a great choice for breakfast alongside other foods such as eggs to naturally sweeten up your meal.
Eggs
Easily one of the most important ingredients in any fitness-related meal, you get the full package of eggs, including quality protein. If your fitness goals include muscle building, you must consume protein, especially if you’re following hypertrophy.
You’ll also get antioxidants like lutein and zeaxanthin, nutrients like choline, vitamins A, B2, B5, and B12, as well as vitamin E and other important ones like calcium, iron, potassium, and zinc, among others.
Don’t fall for the misinformation; eat the whole egg as the yolk and egg whites.
Spinach
Containing dietary nitrate and being high in fiber as well as vitamins A, B, K, and the important mineral iron, you get a lot out of the superfood of spinach.
Chicken
You can’t go past chicken. It is low fat and contains a decent amount of calories and a massive serving of protein. It is very flexible in how you can cook it and goes great with various sauces. You can easily combine chicken with spinach.
Explore Healthy Recipes for Meal Prepping
Here are some good recipes you can make with your new, healthy, and nutritionally rich groceries.
Sweet Chicken and Spinach Bowl
Grab some chicken breast, almonds, butternut squash, spinach, sesame seeds, and white rice. Mix a 1/3 cup soy sauce and 1/3 cup of sweet chili sauce together, then season 20 oz of chicken breast with salt and pepper after slicing into thin pieces.
Cook up 3/4 cup of white rice and then slice about 7 oz butternut squash into sticks and put them into the pan on one side with the chicken on the other, then bake for about 35 minutes at 370 degrees.
Put the spinach and cooked rice into a bowl, then put on top the cooked ingredients.
Roasted Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad
Get two medium sweet potatoes, cut into chunks and toss into olive oil, salt, and pepper. Put on a baking sheet, mix the chickpeas with olive oil, salt, and chili powder, and cook them both in the oven at around 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
Combine four cups of baby arugula, 1/2 cup of feta and pomegranate seeds, and 1/4 cup of mint with the roasted sweet potatoes and chickpeas to taste.
Slow-cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage
Slow-cooker recipes let you cook throughout the day, meaning you can put it on in the morning and return at night for it ready to eat.
Put the thyme, caraway seeds, a 3-pound piece of corned beef brisket with red potatoes, carrots, and cabbage, and about a cup of water. Cook for 7 to 8 hours on low.
Roasted Salmon With Curry and Tomatoes
This is another oven recipe with high-protein fish. Preheat to 400 degrees and cook the rice. Combine grape tomatoes, olive oil, salt, and pepper to marinate the 1.5-pound salmon pieces.
Sprinkle curry powder on top and cook for about 15 minutes.
