Transcript: Meal Prep for the Win: How to Stay Out of the Drive-Thru Without Spending Hours in the Kitchen

Yes, it takes planning, but you can keep yourself

out of the drive -thru. What's up you guys? Famous

Sasha Grant here. Welcome to More Movement Please,

the podcast where I hope to inspire you to move

your body more. Today I want to talk about meal

prepping and the reason this is important to

me is because I've told you guys many times I

do not subscribe to diet culture. However, I

do know that if I don't keep myself out of the

drive -thru that I'm basically just opening up

myself to taking in additional calories that

I don't want to take in. And so I kind of just

wanted to share with y 'all how it is that I

keep myself out of the drive -thru but also don't

spend hours upon hours in the kitchen. the first

thing I do is I par cook some stuff and it's

kind of similar to what restaurants do. For example,

if they are serving pasta, they might par cook

a bunch of pasta. Or they'll make a bunch of

sauces in advance so that whenever someone orders

it, it doesn't take very long to put the meal

together. And so that's the very thing that I

do with my meals. One of the things I'll do is

I go to Sam's Club and I will get like 10 pounds

of chicken breast. And I will actually prepare

all of that chicken breast the same way at the

same time. I bake it all. And I do what's called

velveting the chicken where you coat it in baking

soda and you let it sit for 30 minutes so that

it breaks down a little bit of the muscle tissue.

And you rinse it thoroughly and then you bake

it. And so the reason I do this is it gives it

a little bit more of a tender texture so that

it's not so hard. Because that's one of the big

things that I get annoyed about whenever it comes

to chicken breasts is that it seems like it's

always dry and rubbery. And so by doing this

method, I have found that I enjoy chicken breasts

a lot more. And so even though it's a little

bit of a leaner meat, I enjoy it more. And the

reason I bake it the same way for every single

time that I do this is because I add the sauces

and the seasonings for my meals later. So for

example, last night, my husband and I had chicken

tikka. And so what I did is I took one pound

of that chicken that I had already cooked. And

then I added the spices and the seasonings and

the sauce to it. And then... made some rice to

go with it. And within a few minutes, I had dinner.

And so my active cooking time was only about

15 minutes. Yeah, sure, it took about 45 minutes

for the meal to be made and be ready. But my

active time was only about 15 minutes. And so

that's one quick way that I can put together

a meal that tastes really, really good, doesn't

have as many calories as I would get in a restaurant

or in a fast food joint. And I still, you know,

get a really good meal and I don't spend as much

money. So that's just one of the things that

I do. to keep myself out of the drive -thru another

thing I do is I actually will bulk prep as much

breakfast in advance as I possibly can for example

yesterday my husband and I had waffles for breakfast

and what I did is instead of just making waffles

enough for just that morning I made a bunch and

then put the rest into the freezer so now if

we are having waffles again I can just take out

just the exact amount that I need for that breakfast

and then I just pop them in the toaster and boom,

I have waffles ready to go. And so instead of

it taking a long time to make breakfast, I can

have breakfast ready in about 15 to 20 minutes.

So another thing that I do is I bulk cook our

breakfast sausage. I will go and get a bunch

of sausage and then I will bake it all and then

freeze it and have it ready to go. I can just

pop it in the microwave for about a minute and

then I have sausage ready to go whenever I need

it. I do that with a lot of my different things.

Like I'll marinate pork for pork dishes. I will

marinate lamb chops for lamb chops. I try to

prepare as much in advance as humanly possible

and then keep it in the freezer until I'm ready

to eat. And so a lot of the meals that I do,

the prep time is usually only about 15 to 20

minutes. And then... Yeah, it might take longer

than that to actually cook it, but it's not active

time. I can be working on something else while

I'm waiting on it. So one of the things that

I've started doing while my food is cooking is

I'll either start doing a Zumba dance or I will

start doing, you know, I'll do different exercises

that I find on YouTube or, you know, we've even

done stuff like, you know, taking the dogs for

a quick walk around the block, depending on how

long it is that it's going to take for the item

to cook and depending on the method of cooking.

That's just some of the things that I do to,

like I said, just keep myself out of the drive

-thru. That's my big goal. I don't want to buy

a bunch of prepackaged stuff. We've gotten really,

you know. accustomed to not having prepackaged

stuff. For example, one of our things that we

used to eat whenever we first got married was

we would eat hamburger helper. It was quick and

it was easy, but I quickly found out how I could

make a homemade version of it that was healthier

and tasted better. And it was actually cheaper.

So, and it took the same amount of time and it

was like, if it's going to take the same amount

of time and it's going to be cheaper and healthier,

might as well go with that. So that's, that's

like the big thing that I can recommend is. Like

take every single thing you possibly can and

prep it in advance as much as you can. Like I

will buy peppers and I will cut them up and then

freeze them. I will buy, you know, onions and

cut them up and freeze them. You know, anything

that I can freeze, I will freeze. And then that

way, whenever it's time to eat, I can make my

meals much, much faster. I even do this with

like peas and carrots whenever I'm trying to

make a quick stir fry. You know, I'm a huge fan

of frozen vegetables because that way I don't

have to sit there and like. cook a lot. I love

to cook. Don't get me wrong, but I am a very

busy person. I do run my own business and I have

a lot of clients that I have to take care of.

And so. I know that if I am going to be going

to the gym and doing my work and, you know, all

these other things, I have to make sure that

I'm keeping myself away from going out to eat

and going to the drive -thru. So I don't know

if this will help you guys, but I just thought

I'd just recommend it as some of the things that

I do to keep myself out of the drive -thru and

out of going out to eat. Because that's a question

I get a lot is, you know, you're always so busy.

How do you have time to actually eat at home?

And that's the big thing. And yes, I do admit

that, you know, whenever we're doing these homework

days where... We're spending, you know, an hour

or two hours, sometimes even three hours bulk

prepping all of this food. Yeah, it does take

time, but it saves me so much time overall that

it's worth it for us. And so. If you can take

a look at what it is that you cook normally or

what you eat normally, I highly recommend just

figuring out what you can bulk prep in advance.

And another thing that I do that I should probably

talk about, but I just didn't even think about

it until this moment, is we meal plan ahead of

time. Every single time we go to the grocery

store, we have a list for 14 days worth of meals

that we can have for two weeks. It doesn't lock

us in to, oh, we have to have, you know, chicken

on Monday and beef on Tuesday and fish on Wednesday.

We don't do that. But we do pick like seven recipes

that have leftovers that we can have for a two

week period. And the good thing about doing our

shopping this way is, like I said, it doesn't

lock us into specific days and times of when

we eat, but it does. help us to purchase only

the items that we're going to be cooking so that

we can reduce food waste and reduce how much

money we're spending. And we don't ever have

to ask that dreaded question of what's for dinner.

We can figure it out really quickly because we

already know, hey, these are the ingredients

we have. These are the meals we can make. And

we have the choices right there for us. The other

thing we do is we always cook once and eat twice.

And so one of the things I'll do is like I'll

cook on Monday and Tuesday. That way I have leftovers

on Wednesday. And then on Thursday, I'll cook

another meal so that I have two more days of

leftovers. And I kind of just keep that cycle

going so that there's always at least one set

of leftovers in my fridge so that I don't have

to worry about, OK, if I got really busy today,

I don't have time to cook. What do I do? Well,

it's OK. I've already got leftovers. And I do

that a lot with. things like meatloaf and lasagna

like every time I'm making a lasagna I always

make two I will have one for that night and then

I have the next one frozen so that whenever I

get busy or if something happens and I don't

have time to cook I can just quickly take it

out of the freezer and throw it in the oven and

I do that with meatloaf too where I will make

a meatloaf and I cut it in half because I make

a very large meatloaf I make a meatloaf I'll

cut it in half and I'll put half of it in the

freezer so that on a busy day, if I don't have

time, I can just throw it in the oven, add a

quick vegetable and boom, I've got dinner and

I don't have to worry about it. So I hope these

ideas inspire you to start thinking a little

bit differently about how it is you handle your

food, because the whole goal of this is not to

restrict myself as to what I'm going to consume,

but it is to make sure that I'm making healthier

choices so that I still get the food I want,

but without paying a ridiculously overpriced

amount of money or. higher calorie count than

I would actually choose. Because let's face it,

every time you go out to eat, what is it that

makes the food taste so good? A lot of extra

butter, a lot of extra fat, a lot of extra salt,

and it's usually fried crap, right? So that's

kind of what I do to make sure that we always

have a decent meal available to us. If you've

not thought of doing something like this before,

just kind of open your mind to it. I'm not going

to lie to you guys and tell you that it's really,

really easy. It does take some thought. It does

take some time, but... When you start actually

putting yourself in a position where you're thinking

about these things for the long term, like one

of the things I did is I put together a spreadsheet

so that I know every single meal I know how to

cook and every single item on that spreadsheet

links to a recipe so that I know exactly what

is going to be required for those meals. And

so it's just simple things like that, that, yes,

take a lot of time to front load in the beginning.

But now that I have those systems in place. Meal

time does not stress me out anymore. And that's

what's important to me. So I get in my more movement

and I get in proper meals and it's just a win

-win all the way around. We're saving more money

than we've ever saved on groceries before. And

yet we don't go without. And so. Yeah, I really

hope that this helps someone. I hope that this

inspires you. And I want to know what you guys

do. How do you handle your like meal prepping

and your meal planning and things like that?

Hit me up at famousashleygrant .com backslash

fitness. I would love to hear from y 'all. Tell

me all about your fitness journey, how you're

eating healthier, how you're making wise choices.

And I can't wait to hear from you. I really love,

I love it when you guys give me feedback. It's

one of my favorite things in the whole world.

Onwards and upwards, my friends. Have you worked

out today?