How to food prep like a pro for the working week

Staying on top of life administration like cooking as a junior lawyer can be tough, especially after 5 years flexible living as a university student. It can be a shock transitioning to inflexible full time work, 12+ hour days and limited time during the week. Being organised in the food department can seem impossible. But don’t give up. Food prepping like a pro is within your capabilities and takes much less time than you think.

Why should I food prep for the working week?

Food prepping enables you to plan and think about the nutrition you will need for your working week. Lawyers need their brains to be functioning optimally and bringing your own food to work is the best way to ensure what you are putting into your body will enable you to concentrate, identify errors and produce top quality work.

Food prepping will also save you time. In your 15 minute lunch break you won’t have to beat the crowds or stress about finding something mildly nutritious to eat. Instead you can go for a stress-busting power walk or keep on working so you can leave earlier that day.

Additionally, preparing your own food will save you serious amounts of money. There is also the personal satisfaction of finishing your food prep for the week and knowing at least something in your week is going to go to plan. Look at the Instagram hashtags #foodprepping  and #foodprep for inspiration and for an indication of the self-satisfaction involved.

Step 1: Make a food plan grid

Make a grid as follows:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Breakfast
Lunch					Lunch – Pho with colleague
Dinner						Dinner at Veggie Bar
Snacks

I eat leftovers on the weekend to save on food wastage, so don’t plan for Saturdays in detail. As I food prep on Sunday night, I plan for dinner on Sunday. Identify the times you are planning to eat out. For example if you know on Friday night you are eating dinner with friends and on Thursday you are eating out in your lunch break block that out.

There are two kinds of food preppers in the world:

1.       Those who prepare and eat the same food every single week; and

2.       Those who like variety and could not eat roast vegetable and quinoa salad for more than two days in a row.

I fall into the later category and thrive off variety. If you are the type of person who does not need variety in their life, you can save a lot of time by cooking large quantities of the same dish. However, beware of food poisoning. Food should be consumed within 3 days of cooking (some food goes off even more quickly and should be consumed within 2 days of cooking). If you are cooking on Sunday, it would be unsafe to eat your food on Thursday and Friday. If you cook too many portions, freeze the leftover portions before they go off and use these ready to go freezer meals in times of need.

Step 2: Plan your meals and snacks

Cooks tend to either like following recipes or not. I highly recommend following recipes if you are starting out as a food prepper. Mastering a small number of simple recipes will drastically improve the quality and taste of your cooking and give you an idea of flavour and ingredient combinations that work together. Following recipes also enables you to identify and plan the quantities of ingredients you require. Get out your cookbooks or print off recipes you have found from the internet. Recipe selection is key. Make sure you select recipes that are quick to make and nutritious. You are not going to have time to slow cook an eight hour pork shoulder in the middle of the week. 

Here is a picture of cook books I have on high rotation at the moment. Remember to look at the quantities in your recipes. If the recipe feeds four, and you are just cooking for yourself, you should halve the recipe which will make you two meals (unless you don’t need variety in your life and want to eat four of the same meals or are planning to freeze some meals). Don’t be scared to use recipes you have found on the internet. I often use the recipes on movenourishbelieve.com, as they are quick and easy for lunch and the ingredients are often substitutable.

Don’t forget to plan all your meals, including breakfast. After you become more experienced at food prepping you will probably have a few standard breakfasts you rotate through as well as snacks, so you might not need to write it down, but for now, write down everything.

Don’t forget to plan your snacks. Snacks I commonly plan for and eat at work include:

1.       Two Crackers (Vita Weat 9 Grain 100% Natural or Real Foods Multigrain Cornthins) with 20g cheese (fetta, cottage cheese, ricotta, or cheddar) and vegetables;

2.       Small container (100g) of plain greek yoghurt (Chobani is my favourite) with sprinkle of homemade granola or topping of fruit;

3.       Banana and handful of natural almonds;

4.       Boiled egg and vegetable sticks;

5.       Handful of cherry tomatoes cut in half with fetta sprinkled on top;

6.       Chickpea bombs (chickpeas I have dry roasted in the oven with paprika to much them crunchy);

7.       Thick slices of cucumber with 100% nut butter on top;

8.       Homemade fruit salad.

This is what my completed grid looks like this week

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Breakfast		Yoghurt, HM granola, fruit	Yoghurt, HM granola, fruit	Yoghurt, HM granola, fruit	Yoghurt, HM granola, fruit	Yoghurt, HM granola, fruit
Lunch		Poached chicken, pomegranate and kale salad	Poached chicken, pomegranate and kale salad	Chickpea, roast vegetable and salad wrap	Lunch – Pho with colleague	Chickpea, roast vegetable and salad wrap
Dinner	Beef and veg stir fry with brown rice	Beef and veg stir fry with brown rice	Poached chicken and roast vegetables	Miso broth, veggies and egg	Miso broth, veggies and egg	Dinner at Veggie Bar
Snacks		Cucumber with peanut butter. Crackers, cheese and vegetable sticks.	Cucumber with peanut butter. Crackers, cheese and vegetable sticks.	Cucumber with peanut butter. Crackers, cheese and vegetable sticks.	Cucumber with peanut butter. Crackers, cheese and vegetable sticks.	Cucumber with peanut butter. Crackers, cheese and vegetable sticks.

It does not matter if your planning grid is a bit less formal. It does not matter if your planning grid does not look pretty. I usually do my planning grid by hand on a sticky note. Over time you may eliminate categories such as breakfast and snacks because you know what you are going to eat. Just don’t forget to continue to write the ingredients you need to buy on your shopping list.

When planning your meals, remember that meat quickly goes off, so plan vegetarian food for later in the week. You will see I am eating beef tonight and tomorrow night followed by chicken. I then eat vegetarian for the rest of the week. I usually eat fish quite a lot but because I had fish for almost every meal last week I am not having it this week. If you did buy fish, you would want to eat that on Sunday night, then the beef, then the chicken. If you don’t like cooking vegetarian you might have to eat meals you have pre-prepared and frozen in the second half of the week.

I eat breakfast at my desk when I get to work, and I love yoghurt with homemade granola (which I bake in massive batches) and seasonal fruit. If I feel like protein for breakfast I might bring a boiled egg and have it with toast.

You will also notice I am eating the same snacks every day this week. This works for me, as I bring all those ingredients to work for the week. Each week I change my snack. You can change up your snacks everyday, I just find it easier to keep it the same for the week. 

As you plan each meal or snack, write the ingredients you need on your shopping list for your supermarket shop. Make sure you assess the food currently in your fridge and cupboards to ensure you don’t buy anything you already have. This is my shopping list for the week.

If you are new to food prepping you may need to stock up on Tupperware. Remember Tupperware is your portion control. Buy smaller Tupperware containers than you think. Remember you are a lawyer and while you need carbohydrates, protein and fats to function, the quantity you need is significantly reduced by the fact you sit down all day. I strongly recommend portion control sized Tupperware containers. You don’t have to actually eat out of the Tupperware, and if you don’t like plastic invest in some glass containers. I also recommend keeping some nice plates, bowls and cutlery at work, as eating out of containers all the time gets boring quickly. Remember that if you are working 12+ hour days you will probably be eating dinner at work, so you might need more Tupperware to cater for this.  

Step 3: Go to the markets or supermarket

I strongly recommend shopping at your local food markets. This is easy for me because I live right next to the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne, but I acknowledge it is not a possibility for everyone. Even when I shop at the markets, I will still need to go to the supermarket to buy essentials like tins of chickpeas.

To try and entice you to shop at your local food markets more often, here is a picture of my food market shop this week.

 

Step 4: Prepare your food

What you prepare on Sunday night will depend on a number of factors including what type of food prepper you are. If you eat the same thing for lunch and dinner every day of the week you would cook your dish and put it in containers. Meals for Thursday and Friday will go in the freezer and take out as needed. Remember to thoroughly reheat food. I don’t food prep like this because I really enjoy food cooked fresh. So on Sunday I will cook lunch for the following two days and dinner for Sunday night and the following two days. My meals on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are vegetarian, so I will do any meal preparation I can for that such as chopping the vegetables so they are ready to cook later in the week. Then when I do get home on those nights, I just have to assemble the meal which is relatively quick and sure beats a meal from the freezer. Good luck with your food prepping! May you never be stuck in a lunch time food court line again.

I am a lawyer not a nutritionist. This blog post is based solely on what has worked for me in my personal experience and is focused on how to prepare and organise food as opposed to what to eat. A nutritionist can provide you with advice on what to eat.