Hope you guys are having a great week. Mine has been a bit crazy and travel is about to pick up again starting this weekend. So I wanted to give you guys a tip on how I stay on track with my food during those busy times in life.

As a single mom who runs her own business and travels very often….I completely understand the challenges of LIFE, KIDS and the UNEXPECTED curve ball that messes up your plans. So having a set time for MEAL PREP in my schedule helps me not only eat the appropriate food for my plan, it also saves me time.

1. Set up a time each week to prepare your meals.

2. Season with many different flavors (if you are cooking all the same protien ex. all chicken).

3. Cook a large amount for the whole week.

4. Have a plan for what you will be doing while the chicken is grilling or baking. MULTI-TASKING!

5. After the cook time is complete, slice, weigh,  and separate for storage.

6. Store and move on to next task.

As you can see from my Pic Collage… I begin by placing all my chicken in  a large dish to season with all my different flavors. This will keep me from feeling like I am eating the same thing day in and day out for each meal. This time I did 5 different seasongs :
* Mesquite * Garlic Lemon Pepper Zest * Basil and Olive Oil * Lawyer’s * SeaSalt

After seasoning, I am ready to head out to the grill. My multi-tasking plan for today was to write you this blog and do a few conf calls wtih my coaching students. Once all the chicken was cooked, I sliced, weighed and portioned pre my meal plan. ( Ex. I need 3-4 oz of chicken per meal) So I separate the chicken several ways.

1. I put 3-4 oz per zip lock bag. By doing this I now have no excuse to not grab a bag of chicken if I need to run out the door to an appointment…because it is already cut and ready.

2. I put 1/2 the bags in the fridge for the week and the other 1/2 I place in another zip lock container to place in the freezer. This may seem like over kill….you may ask “why portion in bag and still put into container for freezer?” Well one it keeps it fresher, and two I can grab one bag as needed to thaw rather than thaw the whole container.

Once I was done, I had my meal of choice for today and a little clean up 😉 but all in all this took about 30 min max.

I hope this will help you and just remember.. it will limit your cook time on busy evening and you can just throw together a quick side dish or whatever you need to prepare for your family. But at least you know you are eating on your plan.

A few of my favorites:

3-4 oz chicken
1/4 or 1/2 cup black beans
sprinkle of cheese
1/4-1/2 avocado

or

3-4 oz chicken
1 cup Broc
3/4 cup Brown Rice

There are so many great option but just remember….the more you plan ahead and cook in larger quantities the more time you will save.

The next challenge for this busy mom…is what do when I travel out of town……But that is another post all together. 🙂 Karen