Meal prep for fat loss

Start with the meals you get wrong

You do not need to prep every meal. Look at your week and ask which meals go off track most often. For most people it is weekday lunches, followed by dinner on the evenings they get home late. Breakfast is often fine as a simple default, and weekends can be more flexible.

Start with four or five lunches. Once that is a habit, add a couple of dinners for your busiest evenings. Our main guide to meal prep made simple covers equipment and general tips; this guide focuses on doing it for fat loss.

Choose one prep window that suits your week, often Sunday afternoon or evening, and protect it like a training session. An hour with the oven, a large pan and a pot of rice all going at once gets most of the work done.

Building a fat loss box

Every box follows the same simple structure:

1. Protein first: roughly 30 to 40 g per meal. Chicken thigh or breast, lean mince, turkey, salmon, prawns, eggs, tofu, or lentils with a dairy side.
2. Vegetables second: at least half the box. Roasted peppers, courgettes and onions; steamed broccoli and green beans; a big handful of salad added on the day.
3. A measured carb: rice, potatoes, pasta, wraps or beans, weighed so you know what you are getting. Around 40 to 60 g of dry rice or pasta per box suits many people, more if you train hard.
4. Flavour last: spices, herbs, lemon, salsa, hot sauce and a measured dressing. Sauce is where calories hide, so portion it.

An example: 150 g of raw chicken thigh fillets roasted with paprika, 50 g of dry basmati rice, half a tray of roasted peppers and courgettes, a handful of spinach and a pot of salsa. It is filling, high in protein and lands at a sensible calorie count without any sauce doing the heavy lifting.

If you prefer not to weigh anything, the hand portion guide works just as well for filling boxes.

Components, not identical meals

Eating the same chicken, rice and broccoli five days running is how meal prep dies by Wednesday. A better approach is to cook components and combine them differently through the week.

On a Sunday you might roast a tray of chicken thighs with paprika, cook a pan of rice, roast two trays of vegetables and make a batch of lentil and tomato sauce. That becomes a burrito bowl on Monday, a chicken and veg traybake on Tuesday and a wrap with salad on Wednesday, with a different sauce changing the taste each day.

Batch meals such as chilli, curry, bolognese and stews work well too. They freeze well and often taste better the next day. Our guide to five high protein batch cook meals has recipes to start with.

Food safety

Prepped food only helps if it is safe to eat. The Food Standards Agency advises eating leftovers within two days and cooked rice within a day. In practice, that means keeping two days' worth in the fridge and freezing the rest.

• Cool cooked food quickly, within two hours, then refrigerate it.
• Keep your fridge at 5°C or below.
• Freeze meals for later in the week and defrost them in the fridge overnight.
• Reheat until steaming hot all the way through, and only reheat once.
• Label boxes with the date.

A simple rhythm is to prep on Sunday for Monday and Tuesday and freeze Wednesday to Friday's meals. Or split it into two shorter sessions, on Sunday and Wednesday evening.

Keeping costs down

Meal prep saves money as well as calories. Larger packs of chicken thighs, mince and frozen fish, own-brand rice and oats, and tinned beans, lentils and tomatoes bring the cost per meal well below most shop-bought lunches. Frozen vegetables are just as nutritious as fresh and never go limp at the back of the fridge.

Our guide to high protein shopping on a budget has a full list for UK supermarkets. A set of decent containers that are microwave and freezer safe is also worth buying; cheap ones crack and stain within weeks.

Snacks and the rest of the day

Prepped main meals only do half the job if the afternoon is spent grazing. Pre-portion snacks too: Greek style yoghurt pots, boiled eggs, chopped fruit, and a small bag of nuts weighed out rather than eaten from the big bag. Our guide on snacking and fat loss covers the rest.

Prepped breakfasts help on rushed mornings too. Overnight oats in jars or a batch of egg muffins baked with vegetables keep for a couple of days in the fridge and take seconds to grab on the way out.

Prep is not about perfection. Four good lunches out of five is a solid week. If you want a coach to help plan your food around your training, Lycan Strength offers nutrition and accountability coaching.