An Easy Meal Prep Routine for Runners:

Setting up an easy meal prep routine on the weekend or during the week can completely make your healthy eating dreams for the week come true!

It takes the guess work out, wondering what to eat, eating unhealthy options because you are too tired to make something, feel like you have nothing in the house or just don’t feel like cooking.

Making the prep work that you have to do every day easy and simple will make you much more likely to eat healthy!

That is the beauty of meal prepping on one day a week!

You are ready for the entire week with minimal cooking!

my notes on this Easy meal Prep plan

Here are a few details to help explain my thought process for when I do meal prepping at my house.

1. I like to meal prep for 6 days during the week.

There is usually at least one day that we are eating outside the house, bringing food home, or just eating leftovers and so I leave that day open for flexibility in my eating.

2. I typically will rotate between a couple of different things.

My husband and I are not picky eaters at all nor are we elaborate so you will probably find this meal plan very simple to follow and even implement!

3. I am currently not training for a marathon or going out on "long" distance runs.

Right now, a Typical menu looks something like this:

Here is a small sample of an easy meal prep routine that I am currently using.  Nothing fancy or extravagant here - very simple and easy ideas.

Breakfast

• A Veggie Egg Scramble - I try to keep this seasonal with tomatoes, onions, peppers, fresh salsa
  
• Plain Greek Yogurt sweetened with stevia and frozen berries (love this in the summer especially)
• Oatmeal with cinnamon, stevia, and raisins

Lunch:

• Vegetable Salad topped with grilled chicken or
• Soup
  

Dinner

• Since it is summer we usually grill chicken as our main entrée with roasted veggies OR
• Baked fish (usually salmon) with veggies at least once a week
• Soup (yes, soup again! It is so hydrating for you and usually contains a lot of veggies which is just what I am looking for as a runner. Plus it's usually easy to make, still tastes amazing when re-heated, and even freezes well!)
• For sides we typically will do roasted veggies or a salad. Honestly if you are not a vegetable person then you need to try roasting them! It is amazing! I will give you directions on how to do this below.

Snacks:

• Lightly salted almonds
  
• String cheese
  
• Protein poppers
• Air Popped Popcorn

Desserts

Yes! We have dessert 2-3x a week!

• Ice cream
• Pudding
• Protein poppers, again, because yum!

Steps + ideas for healthy meal prep for the week:

Based off of the menu above, here are the steps I take to achieve a healthy meal prep routine for the week.

Step 1:

Figure out what fresh ingredients you need to get for your easy meal prep.

I tend to pick up the same things:

Bananas, apples, oranges, pineapple, berries, broccoli, spinach or kale, onion, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots.

If you also regularly pick up the same foods you could make up a list of foods that you like to have always on hand to make your planning even easier.

Step 2:

Make a store run or do a curbside pickup.

Walmart pickup can save your life like it saved mine! You don't even get out of your car and it saves you so much time!

Step 3:

Prep as many of your ingredients as possible.

This could be washing your fruits and vegetables, measuring portions, browning meat, cooking chicken for shredding or cutting, cooking rice, steaming or roasting vegetables.

Look at the recipes you will be making and ask yourself what you can do ahead of time to make your cooking for the week easier?

You might find yourself fumbling and taking longer than you thought but after meal prepping even once, you will learn ways that you can become more economical with your time and food.

Step 4:

Do a grocery home delivery shop for non-perishable items that you need to replenish for future weeks and recipes.  

Keep your grocery list out and handy as you meal prep so that you can add ingredients that you have used up to your list.

Then between home delivery services (I use Walmart and have them ship me foods such as oats and raisins) and the store pickup you will have a very fast, easy and efficient shopping system set up and in place. 

This will leave you more time to do your easy meal prep and come up with other easy meal prep ideas for the week!

What my easy meal prep for the week looks like:

Remember, for this specific easy meal prep routine, I am working off of the previous mentioned menu plan.

Easy meal prep breakfasts

Cut veggies for my omelets:

Make sure i have all of the eggs i need

Mix up a batch of quick oatmeal

Stock up on a couple of individual sized greek Yogurts

Light and Fit as well as Kroger has a great option that has low to almost no added sugar content and high protein (13 grams) making either of them a great choice.

Another healthy option is the Chobani Plain Greek individual yogurt cups.

Wash any fruit that i will be using in the yogurts

Also store away out of sight so it does not go missing during the week. *wink

Tip: store any fruit that you wont be able to eat in a reasonable time in a ziploc bag and freeze it. Here two tips to reuse the frozen fruit:

• On the mornings that you want a fruit yogurt bowl, dump the berries into your yogurt and mix it up. Let it sit for awhile to help the berries un-thaw and they will release all of their sweet juices into the yogurt making for a delicious breakfast!
• The night before you will be eating a yogurt fruit bowl, mix your yogurt and the frozen fruit in a container, keep it in the fridge and let the fruit completely thaw in the yogurt overnight. 

My Easy meal prep lunches

• Grill the chicken, use a rotisserie chicken, or cook in an instant pot(all are fast options!) 
• Grill enough for salad throughout the week, tortilla wraps, soup (if chicken will be included) and as dinner for at least 2 nights. 
• Wash any spinach/salad lettuce and any vegetables that you will be putting in your salads.
• Make sure there are plenty of fresh vegetables in the fridge, washed and ready to go.
• Make one soup that will serve several lunches throughout the week. I really like doing a vegetable barley soup. It is ready in about 20 minutes and will last for days! This box of barley soup comes with two different recipes on it and both are delicious! 

There are so many soups though that you could find and add on rotation. It's fun to mix it up week after week since you will be eating a lot of it at once during the week.

My Easy meal prep dinners

Cut all the veggies up that you plan to roast

Roasting is such a delicious way to eat vegetables! If you don't like vegetables you just need to find a way that you enjoy them the most and for me that would be roasting them with olive oil and salt and pepper!

Some people choose to cut the veggies up and store them uncooked in the fridge. The day they will be eating them they will them cook them up.

Most of the time I prefer to roast up a big batch of vegetables and then store and reheat them throughout the week as needed.

My Go to Vegetables to roast are:

• broccoli
• carrots
• mushrooms
• butternut squash
• onions
  

Cut veggies for salmon/fish sides

If you want to sauté your vegetables in the pan that you cook your fish then you could simply cut up the vegetables that you will need for that meal.

At this point you can store them separately or cook your fish, sauté your veggies and then store in airtight containers (separately or together) for meals during the week.

Decide how to use the extra chicken you cooked for dinner and prep it!

I love chicken as a lean protein source and how versatile it can be in recipes.

You can make it into:

• chicken tacos
• chicken casseroles
• soups
• throw a sauce on top
• throw it in pasta

Therefore, I will usually prep a sauce, make a casserole, soup or chicken taco meat so that I can reheat or just add finishing touches to the meal the night that I will be eating it.

Dessert & snack meal prep ideas

Here's a quick list of some ideas for desserts and snacks that you could make ahead of time

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