Sunday Meal Prep

I have had several people ask me lately about my Sunday meal prep day.  This is something I have been doing pretty consistently for a while, not just since I joined Weight Watchers.  I spend a few hours in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon and prep as much food as I have the time and energy for.  Some weeks I am able to prep a lot, and some weeks just a little.  At the very least I prep my snacks for work and at least a few of my work lunches.  On a good week I can do all of my lunches and some dinner prep too. 

Sometimes food prep just involves planning. I eat pretty much the same snacks every day.  My morning snack is a light string cheese, 7 almonds and an apple.  That is easy to prep.  I put the string cheese and almonds in a snack size bag and grab an apple each day.  My afternoon snack varies a bit more, but usually I have vegetables in some form so I chop as many fresh vegetables on Sunday as I can.  Easy to grab.  Sometimes I make a low point dip to dip my veggies in, and I make those ahead of time too on Sunday.

Lunches consist of turkey sandwiches, leftovers or salads.  I usually make 2 or 3 salads ahead of time in jars and store them in the fridge, dressing on the bottom heavy veggies, meat and eggs, then salad then a little Parmesan cheese.  Use the quart jars so you can put a lot of lettuce in!  I pack up any leftovers in my glass jars with a note about how many points they are so I can plan ahead.  I usually will take one of these on Wednesday when I work the evening shift.  I am also able to pick up the pieces and do a little more prep on Wednesday mornings, which I have off.  

If I am super organized I will also pre-chop any vegetables I need for recipes for dinner.  I store them in a bag and then when I start to cook I can just skip all the chopping!  I usually do at least one crock pot meal a week too, and try to put that together on Sunday night as well. 

Mostly the meal prep comes in handy when I am hungry.  If I get home after work and I am starving, I can grab the bag of veggies and the one point dip to snack on while I am making dinner.  That way I don’t reach for something with more points right before dinner.  Then after dinner I can quickly chop up a few more veggies for the next day.  Another helpful thing for me is storing a few healthy things at work.  I keep a box of my morning oatmeal here in case I am super rushed in the morning and also have a few bags of 2 point snacks stored in my desk just in case.  I can almost always fit an extra two points into my day. 

A few more of my favorites?  Laughing cow cheese with crackers and grapes.  Babybel cheese with crackers.  Popcorn (Angie’s chickaboom popcorn is great).  I always bag this up into individual serving sized bags so I don't accidentally eat the whole bag!  Veggies with ½ cup Greek yogurt and 1 TBSP of ranch dip.  I am not going to lie, I also really love chocolate and have been buying a lot of the WW 2 point chocolate caramel bars.  So easy and so tasty. 

Lastly, for me, presentation is key.  My snacks look so pretty and inviting in the glass jars just waiting for me to eat.  I feel so happy when my lunch bag is filled with carefully prepared snacks.  I hope this helps!