Food Shopping & Meal Prep Essentials

I meal prep my own meals and then plan and cook meals for the Aussie each week. There are certain things which I buy week in week out.

Recently I have been putting together a proposed meal plan based upon my macros and then Felicity will review them and make suggestions which has been both fun and interesting because sometimes it feels like a real juggling act to get it right. I feel like I am learning so much about food and how all the macros interact to make sure I eat whole healthy foods and don’t get hungry.

Sometimes I hit my protein macros when I am planning but then find that I don’t have enough carbs or fat so then have to go back and adjust. It is not easy especially when you want variety so you don’t get bored of your meals.

1. Green veggies – I can almost always guarantee that I will include green veggies including broccoli, green beans and peas in one or more of my meals each day because they really help fill me up. Also I generally don’t count them towards my calories. I used to buy everything fresh but as frozen vegetables are pretty good quality because they are snap frozen I now usually just buy the frozen green vegetables pack from Coles, they take a few minutes to cook and taste delicious.
2. Alternative or as well as green veggies I will have a green salad made up of spinach, kale, lettuce, cucumber, celery and throw in some red onion as well.
3. Protein (of course) – My protein choices vary between eggs, chicken, beef, pork, lamb, salmon and white fish. We like to mix it around so there is variety because I have the same meals for 7 days at a time. Protein is great because it helps reduce hunger and helps boost your metabolism.
4. Carbs – For carbs we swap between oats, basmati rice, jasmine rice, quinoa, white potatoes and sweet potatoes. We have found that my body reacts pretty well to carbs and I enjoy eating all of those (especially oats for my breakfast!).
5. Fats – we do not work on a low fat diet and I understand that this is actually not very helpful when you are trying to loose weight. My fats choices include olive oil, avocado, flaxseed oil, avocado oil. I have tended to lean towards avocado and olive oil but I am trying to mix in other oils.
6. Others – we also include foods like peanut butter (yum with oats and chocolate protein powder), almond butter, tahini, sauerkraut, herbs and spices which are all delicious additions.