Food prep, or the activity formerly known as cooking

It is an oft-repeated and (unfortunately) true statement that physique change (aka fat loss, muscle gain, body recomposition) happens in the kitchen more than the gym. While you certainly need to lift some weights to grow some guns, if you don't clean up your eating no one will ever see those rippling biceps, sick traps and beautiful quads because they'll all be covered up under a layer of fat, which you pretty much have to take off by adjusting your diet, as there's only so much high-intensity fat-loss training that you can do before you hit a serious wall of diminishing returns.

When I first started training and trying to clean up my diet it was enough to cut out alcohol and most sweets and generally just eat whole foods that I cooked myself. That helped me shed 20-25# of fat without making radical changes to the way I eat and that was awesome. At this point though, if I want to lose weight or shed fat I have to be pretty strict about what goes into my body and when. One of the most frequent questions I get from friends and family is what I eat and how I stick to my diet, so I thought I'd spend a blog post or two describing my usual weekly routine.

Regardless of where you are on the dieting/cleaning up your eating spectrum, I think it's immensely helpful to spend a couple of hours each week doing food prep. I spend about two hours every Sunday cooking food for the week, which allows me to not have to cook at the end of a long day during the week, and makes putting together lunches for myself a quick 5-minute process each evening. This morning I made:

• A giant frittata (made of 6 eggs, 3 cups of egg whites, 1# of ground buffalo, 3 bell peppers, 2 onions, 1 zucchini and 8 ounces of baby bella mushrooms) that I eat for breakfast every day along with salad greens.
• 8 zucchini turkey burgers. Perfect for throwing on top of salad greens for lunch.
• 2.5# of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, poached. I use Martha Stewart's recipe and just adapt with whatever I have on hand in the fridge for flavoring - today it was a lemon, garlic, carrot, salt and pepper in the poaching liquid. This chicken breast is easy, fast protein that can be tossed into stirfries or sliced on top of salads or eaten by itself when I'm feeling uninspired and just need to get the protein into my body (which happens some days.)
• Steamed sweet potatoes. For starchy carb fuel pre-workout and to throw into salads or eat as a side throughout the week.
• Steamed cauliflower. For salads or as a veggie side with fish. (I often will make a big batch up peppers and onions to eat with salads or as a veggie side through the week, but I got so much cauliflower in my farm share this week that I had no choice.)

I also always keep a big box of salad greens from Whole Foods on hand, as well as bags of frozen veggies and frozen fish from Trader Joe's (tilapia usually, it cooks up in 10 minutes in the oven) and also have lots of fresh vegetables from my farm share. Once I've got all these cooked and frozen and fresh options on hand, it makes putting together meals a lot easier and faster. For instance, tomorrow I'll be eating:

Breakfast: A giant piece of frittata (heated up in the toaster oven) on top of salad greens dressed with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Followed up by a tablespoon of coconut butter for a sweet treat.
Lunch: Turkey burger and cauliflower on top of salad greens dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Snap peas or carrots for a snack.
Pre-workout: Sweet potato, banana and a protein shake.
Post-workout: Low-fat granola and almond milk.
Dinner: Stir fry with fresh eggplant, frozen broccoli, poached chicken (spiced with dried ginger, garlic, mustard, crushed red pepper, sesame seeds and soy sauce) over brown rice (which I will make later tonight, and often include with the rest of my Sunday meal prep.)

The longest I'll spend making any of it is the stir fry which takes max 15 minutes including chopping time. Overall this is a system that works well for me, and I think is worth trying out if you are trying to eat healthier but are also short on time during the week. It can be adapted with any recipes you like, as long as they keep decently well for 4-5 days.