At the start of this semester, I challenged myself to stay within a calorie deficit and start living a healthy-ish lifestyle. One part of this that has saved my semester is meal prepping.
Meal prepping is essentially the act of cooking a meal, then portioning it out and eating it over a period of time. This can range from just a few days to entire months for the meal prep sweats.
If you read my opinion on hiking a few weeks back, then you know that the activity part of this lifestyle is hitting a few road bumps (or trail bumps, rather). So, focusing on the food part of this journey has been key.
After almost 2 months of experience with meal prepping, I have found that it has not only helped me lose weight (down 13.4 pounds), but it has really helped me and my time management during my senior year.
The first improvement I saw when I started meal prepping was in my bank account.
For example, one week I prepped one week’s worth of breakfast and dinner; bacon egg and cheese sandwiches and enchiladas. After buying all of the ingredients, it was around $30 for the meals. Additionally, some of those ingredients are not all used up, so you’re left with about $15-20 of ingredients in your pantry.
Compared to what I USED to do, which is spend about $50 on random ingredients and then another $50 on takeout food, this was an improvement for my financial health.
As a student myself, I know how important the last $10 you have can be. When you’re scrounging in your car seat cracks to find that extra nickel or dime. Cutting down on your grocery bill by meal prepping can save you a ton down the line.
Additionally, meal prepping has saved me so much time that I can then put into the work I need to do for my senior year at Troy.
Spending about 2-3 hours on Sunday has saved me at least an hour and a half each weekday, or around 7.5 hours each week. Those hours go towards projects, work, homework and actually having a social life.
Students are already busy as is, and doing a bit of meal prep can seriously help them in the long run.
With that time saved, my sanity has been restored to a fraction of the original make and model (i.e: me before college). Not having to stress about cooking seriously saved me many mental breakdowns.
The one week I did not meal prep, everything went downhill. I ran to Trojan Mexican Grill and bought me $20 worth of the best rice and chicken you can buy at 7 p.m. I cried so much after that last bite of chicken was gone, because of how stressed out I was about the time I had left to do everything.
Long story short, students can benefit in many ways from meal prepping. Consider giving it a try, and get your prep on!