Meal Prep Jan 20 2019

The weekends are always a slippery slope when it comes to eating clean.  I started out okay today and had my steak and eggs for breakfast, but then after church we decided to go to Mellow Mushroom Pizza. It is so good but I had 3 1/2 pieces, which is way too many calories for the little protein I got from this meal.  The thing to remember is to not let one bad meal cause you to throw in the towel for the day or week.  I came home and crushed a workout and got back on track with a protein shake, and delicious shrimp tacos my wife made for dinner.

This week I am going to make classic man scramble for breakfast.  I don't have a link to a recipe but could find one if I felt like searching.  I will call this the classic Ham and Cheese Omelet Casserole.    I am starting a hypertrophy phase in my training this week, so along with making sure I hit my protein number I also want to up my carbs slightly in my diet.

Ingredients  

• 15 eggs
• 8 oz of chopped ham
• half bag of frozen hash browns.
• garlic, salt and pepper
• 1/2 onion
• 3 peppers
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, grease a baking dish and layer in hash browns, chopped ham, chopped peppers, and chopped onion.

Place eggs, milk, and spices in a large mixing bowl and beat them together and pour over the hash brown mix.  Top with cheese and bake for about  45 min to hour. 

On this one I  reduced the number of eggs because I am putting 8 oz of ham to bump the protein up. The ham adds a lot more salt so be careful if you are watching your salt.  I have 3 peppers to to give me some veggies in this one, although in the end  I only put 2.5 pepper because my boys kept eating them while I was chopping them up.   Most weeks I will peel and shred my own hash browns with sweet potatoes, but we bought a bunch of frozen hash browns a while back with they were on sale at Kroger, which is actually a little easier.  Some claim you need to precook the hash browns. I find this just dirties more pans, takes more time and I can't tell the difference in the flavor so I don't bother.  

The macro break down of the Ham and Cheese Omelet Casserole is shown to the right, when this casserole is split into 5 servings.   It has 494 calories, and if I couple it with my normal morning coffee with half and half and my green juice.  This will start my day off with about 700 calories, with a total of 40 grams of protein, 60 g of carbs and 28 grams of fat.  So I am starting to use a new app to track my calories called Cronometer.   A buddy at work told me about it, and it looks great. I love that not only does it give calories and macro-nutrition it also breaks down you micro-nutrition, which is something I have not tracked, but have been curious about tracking.  It also allows you to change your base Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).  If you don't know, the BMR is the number of calories your body would burn if you had zero movement all day.   If I used the base BMR on any of these apps, it claims I need to eat like 2000 calories to maintain my body weight, but my BMR is closer to 2700 which means I need closer to 3300 calories to maintain my body weight.  Previously I used the LoseIt app to track, but it is not nearly as customizable or, if it is, you must pay for it.  I have also been interested in tracking my micro-nutrition because I have taken a daily multivitamin for years, as a just in case supplement.  If I am actually hitting all my micro-nutrition from food, then I am literally just peeing these vitamins and money down the drain.  With that said, I am going to start tracking with Cronometer  to keep better macro and mirco-nutrition. 

For my lunch,  I am making a very basic meal. I got this meal from a legend in the Power lifting and body building, Stan Efferding.  He was known as the worlds strongest body builder because not only was he a professional body building but he was an elite world record holder power lifter too.   He has a diet system know as The Vertical Diet, and this meal is a staple in the vertical diet. This meal is called Monster Mash.  Stan Efferding has been on many great podcasts discussing the vertical diet if you are interested in the cliff notes version of his diet.  I love this meal because of how simple it is to make and also how nutrient dense.   

 

Ingredients

• 2.5 # Grass fed Ground beef or bison
• 6 cups of cooked rice 
• 10 cups spinach 
• 5 cups of home made Chicken Bone Broth
• Salt and Pepper

I like to use Jasmine white rice, it is a great deal at Costco.  A 25# bag of Jasmine rice is only $17.  White rice is a great source of carbs  and is very easy  for your body to digest.  Most people think brown rice is better for you, but this is not really the truth especially if you have any kind of gut issues.  Cook your rice and place 1 cup of rice in  your meal prep containers.  

Next brown your ground beef and drain, and rinse if you want to reduce calories.  I always drain most of the fat but don't rinse it.  The claim is that the fat from grass fed beef is good for you because grass fed beef has a better Omega-3 profile. In the research I have done this is technically true but the difference is tiny. I try to get grass fed because it makes sense to let the cows eat what they were designed to eat.  This amount of meat will be about 5 cups of cooked meat.   I also cook the spinach down with the meat after it is drained.  I have also made this same thing by just adding a bag of mixed frozen veggies, you can also use cooked peppers.  After it is all cooked, divide it into the 5 containers with the rice.   

Mix the meat and rice and pour 1 cup of chicken bone broth into each contain. Now you have your lunches for the week.  

I have been making my own bone broth for a while now.  Bone broth is a great source of collagen protein which most people don't get enough of in the their diets.   It is great for your connective tissues.  If you eat lots of meat off the bone then you probably get a good amount of collagen protein in your diet.   If not, I would recommend using bone broth instead of basic chicken broth.  It is also super cheap to make both beef bone broth and chicken bone broth.  For beef bone broth, I buys some beef soup bones from the store  and put in the crock pot with an onion, and a couple of carrots and fill with water and let simmer for 36 hours.   For chicken bone broth, cook or buy a cooked whole chicken for a dinner one night.  Take all the bones and skin and scraps and put in the crock pot and fill water and simmer for 36 hours.   Make sure you buy some mason jars to store all the broth. Freeze any extra you have.  I find we do this about once a month because so many recipes call for broth.

I love the macro break down of this meal.  About 700 calories and an equal split between protein, carbs and fats.  Combine these two meals with a protein shake and by lunch, I will already have about 115 grams of protein.   I will have a protein rich dinner and probably have my go-to healthy dessert of whole milk yogurt with a scoop of chocolate protein to push me over 170 grams of protein for the day.