Healthy Hoopie Habits - Day 26: Meal Prep

Meal prep has become a game-changer in our home the past few months. While we’ve gone through seasons of not prepping much at all, lately it’s turned into a Sunday ritual—one that’s made our weeks flow with far less stress and far more intention.

We’ve come to love it for one main reason: it removes the decision fatigue. No more scrambling each night, staring at the fridge, or spending an hour we didn’t plan on just getting food on the table. Now we go into the week with meals cooked, containers filled, and the hard part done.

Why We’ve Leaned into Meal Prep

• It saves time. Cooking every night was starting to feel repetitive and draining. Even though I love to cook, doing it from scratch every evening just didn’t make sense in our current season.

• It removes stress. We don’t have to decide what to eat every day—we already decided on Sunday.

• It keeps us on track. It’s easier to stick to our nutrition goals when we’ve already got good food ready to go.

Our Sundays now include 3-4 hours for:

• Grocery shopping

• Cleaning and marinating chicken

• Cutting up vegetables

• Cooking rice and grilling protein

• Dividing everything into glass containers and storing it in the fridge

Come Monday—we’re ready.

Cooking Can Still Be Self-Care

Even though we prep most of our meals, I still love to cook. It’s a form of self-care for me. I’ll throw on some music, pour a fun drink (like a Poppi or Olipop), and just enjoy the process of cooking something fresh and slow.

So instead of prepping every meal, we build in 2–3 nights a week for those slower cooking moments. We plan them around lighter training days or evenings we know we’ll have more margin. That’s part of the beauty of planning: we can choose what nights we want to go slower and what nights we just need to eat and keep moving.

The Real Magic: Planning Ahead

Meal prep isn’t just about chopping veggies or cooking chicken—it’s about thinking ahead. If you wait until 3 p.m. on Monday to think about dinner, you’re already behind. You’re more likely to feel overwhelmed, rushed, and default to something like takeout.

Meal prep puts you back in the driver’s seat.

Different Ways Meal Prep Can Look

Your meal prep doesn’t need to look like ours. Or like anything you’ve seen on Instagram. Here are a few options to try:

1. Grocery Shop + Meal Plan Only

• Write out what you’ll eat each night

• Get the groceries ahead of time

• No food is cooked yet—but the plan is in place

2. Prep Ingredients

• Clean and marinate proteins

• Chop veggies or portion out snacks

• Do the time-consuming stuff in advance

3. Fully Cooked Meals

• Batch-cook proteins, carbs, and veggies

• Store in individual containers

• Just reheat and eat during the week

4. Little bit of both (what we do)

• Prep for the busiest days

• Leave room for slow cooking on the days you’ll enjoy it

________________________

Meal prep isn’t about being perfect or producing picture-perfect Tupperware rows. It’s about creating structure in your week so you can show up better for everything else—work, training, family, and rest.

It’s a small investment of time that pays you back in energy, consistency, and peace of mind.