Meal Prep Jan 27 2019

This week, I am planning to cut my calories a little.  I want to start to cut a few pounds over the next 10 weeks.    I am planning on only making small changes.  The easiest place for me to cut calories without cutting quantity of food, is to cut a little fat.  One thing I eat during the week for my after dinner dessert is yogurt, berries and a scoop of chocolate protien.  I normally get full fat yogurt, which results in an extra 400-500 calories a day.    I assume that cutting this all together might be difficult, but I decided to switch to fat free Greek yogurt.  I can still have a delicious dessert with only 250-300 calories, just from swapping to fat free yogurt.  Switching to Greek yogurt also give a protien boost.   I will also cut out a 12-16 oz glass of whole milk with dinner.  These two small changes in my diet should allow me to lose 1# a week, because this should eliminate about 500 calories a day.  One issue many people have with jumping on a diet to lose weight, is they make too many big changes all at once.  

For example, many people eat out for breakfast or lunch every day.  They decide to start eating better and switch from Big Macs with fries and chicken biscuits to oatmeal and salads right away.  This shocks your body because you instantly changed the number by over 1000-1500 calories in a day.  Your body now thinks you are starving and you feel starving too, which leads to failing at sticking with  the diet.   A simpler change would be to cut the fries at lunch or switch to a small fry, and add an apple with it.  This way the change in calories is small to start while adding in a quality food.    Over the next number of weeks you can make more small changes, which over time can lead to big results.  

This week for my breakfast, I am going to make a Hash with a side of eggs and bacon.  This breakfast is easy but requires a little bit of chopping of veggies.   This is such a good and hearty breakfast. 

Ingredients

• 2 Sweet potatoes
• 2 Large zucchini 
• 1 Large bell pepper
• 1/2  yellow onion 
• garlic 
• Salt 
• Red Pepper
• 10 slices of bacon 
• 20 eggs 

1. Cook bacon and set a side.   Leave SOME of the bacon grease in the pan.  You will cook the veggies in the bacon fats, which makes it so delicious. Don't use to much grease or everything will get saturated.
2. Cube the potatoes, peppers, onion, and zucchini into small pieces and place in the pan with left over bacon grease, along with garlic, salt and  pepper.   
3.  Cook until all the veggies are tender. 

This is all you have to do.  Each day place a serving into the pan with the couple slices of bacon. As this reheats in the pan it will grease the pan for cooking your eggs.  Couple this with green OJ and Coffee and have a great breakfast with plenty of calories (750) , and protien ( 35g)  to start your day off.   I would like to add that it is OK on days you are not feeling hungry in the morning to just cook 2 eggs, and make up the protien later.   This can be a slippery slope, because you may not be hungry early in the day, but this could make you more hungry later. If you don't plan  properly, then you may find yourself heading to the snack machine instead of having a protien rich healthy snack during the day.   Be aware that the change in routine early in the day may change your routine later in the day towards the negative.  

For lunch I am making another one of my favorites.  I love cajun food because it definitely doesn't lack in flavor.  This is a Crock Pot Jambalaya.  I have linked the recipe and I don't modify this one much.  This has veggies, protien and rice, so by my standard it's a great meal.     

Ingredients 

• 1-2# Chicken 
• 1#  Shrimp 
• 1#  Andouille sausage
• 3 Bell peppers 
• 3 Jalapenos 
• 1/2 yellow Onion 
• 30 oz can of crushed tomatoes 
• 1-2 cloves of garlic 
• 2- cups of chicken bone broth 
• 3 Tbs cajon seasoning 
• 1.5-2 cups of dry rice 

1.  Chop all the veggies and sausage and put in the crock pot.
2.  Mix in broth and crushed tomatoes, and spices 
3. If chicken is thawed then you can cut the chicken into cubes. If it is frozen just throw it in the crock pot, and chop it after it is cooked.   This batch I did not include shrimp only because I didn't have any on hand.  Therefore I  used about 2 # of chicken.  Only use 1# of chicken if you plan to use shrimp.  
4. The shrimp you need to put in about 20 min before it is finished.  
5. The rice you mix into the crock pot about 20 min before finished as well.  

The macros on this is one is great.  When splitting this into 5 serving you can get about 850 calories, 85 g of protien, 70 g of carbs and 21 g of fat.     If you are looking for a very high protien lunch, this is it .   You could cut some of the rice out if you are watching your carbs, but if are worried about performance then keep the rice in the recipe.   There is  an open question as to weather your body will use this much protien at one time.   I  am not too worried about it, but if you are worried then you could split the serving into two smaller meals during the day and cover your bases to maximize the absorption of the protien.

Combine this breakfast, lunch and the above mentioned dessert, and I will be up over 150 grams of protien with out dinner or a protien shake.  This should be a good week and easy to hit my protien number and while cutting some fat, I hope to drop 1#.   I hope you enjoy.   Let me know what you think of these recipes in the comments.