What Is Meal Prep and How Can It Benefit Students
Meal prep is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the preparation of a meal. It’s about cooking a large portion of typically the same meal and segmenting it for the next meals to come. Meal prepping can last you a day or even a few days. Some people even meal prep for a whole week, but that’s another story.
You will be convinced after reading this article, especially if you’re a student – meal prep can help you conserve a lot of your time and energy if you commit to it. And on that note, for all busy students who need help, you can buy admission essay services at Studyfy. Invest in yourself; it will be worth it.
Moving along, here’s how meal prep can help you in the long run.
It Conserves Time And Energy
Preparing your meals or cooking a huge meal meant to be portioned for a whole day or even for a few days or a week can seriously help with the following:
- The time you’d allocate to cooking in the first place. If you make an effort to prepare a few meals for a day or a few days, you’ll be conserving the time you’d be taking to cook every single day. So while you’ll need to put some effort into the meal prep, it’s balanced out by the fact that you won’t have to cook the following days ahead.
- Saving some energy from continuously having to cook each day. This is especially useful if you have a lot of other tasks and responsibilities to do.
Get into the habit of meal prepping when you feel like you won’t have time in the days to come. It can help alleviate the stress of having to cook every day while juggling school life.
It’s Practical
You don’t have to meal prep each and every time you decide to cook, but it can be a practical solution at times. Consider the following scenarios:
- You want to eat but are caught up in some important work you have to finish for a course. The deadline is close, and you’re hungry but don’t have the energy or focus to cook.
- You want to save money by not eating out.
- You want to track your meals and eat enough since you’ve started going to the gym seriously, and you want to bulk up and get some gains.
In all of these hypothetical but very common situations, having some meals prepared and ready for you to indulge in will be more than handy; they’ll make your day much easier.
It Can Really Help If You’re Going To The Gym
Students who get serious at the gym know the importance of eating enough, knowing what you’re eating, and for those who are really serious, tracking how much protein they’re eating in a day. By meal prepping, they can meet all these requirements more effortlessly.
Meal prepping can help them segment their meals, track their protein intake, track what they’re eating, and have their meals ready and scheduled accordingly so that their gym sessions are leveraged.
It Can Reduce Waste
Since you’ll be fully in control of how much food you’re putting in every meal and how big or small the portions will be, then evidently, you’re reducing the chances of wasting any percentage of food in your meal.
On the other hand, not all restaurants deliver food using sustainable and recyclable materials for their deliveries. In fact, many still use plastic bags and containers. So reusing your own containers, again and again, it’s obviously going to be a more eco-friendly choice.
It Can Help With Weight Loss & Healthier Eating
Since you’re the one who’s cooking your own meals, you’ll know what oil you’re cooking with, how much salt is in your meal, and how much carbs you’re putting in every meal portion. This can potentially help you lose some weight if that’s one of your goals.
Sodium from salt retains water and leads to bloatedness; too many carb portions in every meal do the same. Many takeout places use a lot of salt and serve you a lot of carbs, so by controlling what goes into your meals, you’re helping cut out the fluff and concentrate on healthy eating.
Not only that, but if you want to lose weight and eat healthier, then you can also add more vegetables and fruits into your meals and reduce empty carb intake.
It Can Help Avoid Impulsive Food Choices
We’ve all been there. We’re committed to healthier eating, and all of a sudden, we bought processed cupcakes and proceeded to eat almost all of them. This happens even more often when a person tries to go on restrictive diets and ends up compensating one way or the other.
With meal prep, you can have ready meals and snacks in your fridge that are tasty but also healthy. Instead of junk food, you can phase it out and eat prepped fruit instead. And while this may not be fun, it is ultimately necessary, especially if your goal is to become healthier.
There’s no need to be completely restrictive; you can have a good unhealthy snack or meal from time to time because we’re all still human, and it would be sad to restrict ourselves from all of life’s pleasures. But this type of eating should be reduced dramatically, and should only really be an occasional thing. Not an everyday one.
Final Thoughts
We hope this article has convinced you to try meal prepping since we think its pros outweigh any of its cons. We do believe that a better life comes from healthy eating; after all, we are what we consume.
If you often find yourself strapped for time, and don’t have anyone to help you cook your meals with, then you can put in the extra effort to make a big meal that can last you a few days. As a result, you can conserve your time and energy, and you can improve your health simultaneously.
About the Author
Twigs cafe staff is comprised of editors, writers, food & drink experts, nutritionists, and researchers to create informative and helpful content for health-conscious people.
