Meal Prep and a Mini Fridge

At some point this year I had gone to Sam’s Club and got 6 meal prep containers. I had originally had some in my cart on Amazon. Those ones were for 7 days a week and had different colored lids. So pretty. But the ones at Sam’s Club were right there and on sale and I didn’t have to wait for them to be shipped or delivered to the house. Plus the ones from Sam’s Club have 4 individual containers that come out. Each container is colored coded. So there’s one for protein, one for grains, one for veggies and one for fruits. The ones from Amazon only had 3 compartments and you would have to measure everything yourself. Now it’s quick and easy and no measuring cups required.

I have been wanting to meal prep and as an experiment I meal prepped for 5 days and lost 3.6 pounds. Those 5 days I had chicken, quinoa and a corn and peas mix. I was happy with the weight loss. Not so happy with eating the same thing for 5 days.

I have been wanting to get a mini fridge for years now. Lately I’ve been looking at different ones from different places, mostly at Walmart. At one point Walmart had some on sale. The 1.7 cubic feet was on sale for $59 instead of $89. I was going to get that one but it wasn’t in stock at the store. I found a couple on Facebook Marketplace. One of them was cheaper than the other but there was a couple of reasons why I didn’t the one. One it was missing the shelf and two I would have had to go pick it up and I’m not really comfortable with that so I went with the other one because she was able to meet me in a public place. I have small kids. I brought it home and it is now in the laundry room next to the deep freezer. My goal is to get a 4.5 cubic feet mini fridge.

I have the mini fridge and the meal prep containers. On YouTube I saw a meal prep video where she went to Trader Joes and spent $30 for the whole week. Fabulous but unfortunately I am an hour away from Trader Joes. Boy do I miss having one close by. I do have a Food Lion close by and they have sales and the shop and earn program. Plus on the other side of town is an Aldi. I can go there for things that I need. There is also an Aldi up the road from Elijah’s therapy appointment and I can go there if given the chance. But I want to meal prep for breakfast, lunch and a snack for myself during the week for roughly $30 a week. Less if I can get away with it.

When I did meal prep for 5 days it took me about an hour to cook, eat, and portion everything out. It only took a few minutes to clean up as well.

I want to have fun with the meal prepping and not eat the same thing every day. This week I have meal prepped a few days at a time so I’m not eating the same thing all week long. On Monday I made honey teriyaki chicken with brown rice and broccoli and mandarin oranges. I had enough for Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday I made beef and broccoli and finished up the brown rice. I have enough of the beef and broccoli to have with some pasta for today to eat in a little while.

Tomorrow I will weigh in and see how much weight I have lost from meal prepping this week. My eating hasn’t been perfect but that is life. I’ll get the hang of meal prepping. I am going to do some research and see what I can put together. It’ll be a learning experience for sure.