Food Prep

I have been food prepping for a few years now.  It all started with Kaia Fit.  That program is big on prepping yourself with healthy food choices for the week, especially when you start to get busy and life gets in the way.

I am going to start showing my lunches that I prep for the week.  I find it easiest if I eat the same thing everyday, and it takes all the decision making out of my world.  As I mentioned before, I've actually been food prepping for myself for years, but I recently started prepping for a co-worker about 2 months ago.  I try to make the lunches different and not just boring salads.

I do all my shopping on Saturday, and I will usually prep it once I am home.  I have been thinking weeks ahead for what I would like for my lunch, and then I run it by my co-worker and we iron out all the kinks.

I do try to keep my calories lower for lunch, because I don't like to eat heavy food sitting at my desk all day.  I am also working on my own personal weight loss journey (which I hope to write about soon) and find that if I keep my calories between 250-400 for lunch, I tend to do better for the rest of the day.

I hope you find inspiration in my lunches and maybe even find prepping for the week something you'd like to try.

Below are last week's lunches as well as this week.

Week of  8/21: Chicken Wraps-inspired by the chicken wraps at Buffalo Wild Wings, but with far less fat and calories.
Total Calories: Estimated at 403 (give or take on the veggies).  I don't usually count calories of veggies or fruit and I really only worry with the main ingredients.
Total Cost: $13.00/per person for the week

Tortillas De Harina (soft taco flour tortillas) 130 cal
John Soules Chicken Breast Fajitas (2 oz.) 67 cal
Sargento 4 cheese Mexican Blend (1 Tbsp) 56 cal
Ken's Honey Mustard (2 Tbsp) 130 cal
Cherry Tomato 7 cal
Red Onion 4 cal
Romaine Lettuce Leaf 2 cal

Week of 8/28: Stuffed Shells and Caesar salad
Total Calories: Estimate at 664--I will have to be very careful with my dinner and snacks this week.
Total Cost: $13.00 each

Caesar Salad:
Cooking with Spinach-1/2 cup 27 cal
Romaine Lettuce Leaf-2 leaves 4 cal
Lucerne (low moisture part skim shredded mozzarella)-1 tbsp 20 cal
Kraft Classic Caesar w/Extra Romano-2 tbsp 110 cal

Stuffed Shells:
I lined the bottom of the containers with two types of pasta sauce.
Francesco Rinaldi (tomato, garlic & onion)-1 tbsp 9 cal
Francesco Rinaldi (3 cheese)-1 tbsp 11 cal
Barila Jumbo Shells (the serving is 5, but I prepped for 3 people so we each got 4) 144 cal

Filling: I wish I would have taken a picture of this
In a large bowl, I mixed the entire container of ricotta, half of the remaining wilted spinach (which I tore into pieces and added to my left over pasta water) and ground turkey.  I also added Italian seasoning, salt and white pepper to taste 
Lucerne Ricotta Part Skim (I estimate each shell has about 1 tbsp of ricotta) 21 cal
Cooking with Spinach-1 cup 54 cal
Jennie-O Ground Turkey (2 tbsp) 85 cal

After filling the shells, I then added the remaining 1 tbsp spoon of each sauce (so add an additional 9 cal and 11 cal).
Then I covered the shells with the remaining portion of the mozzarella cheese (1/2 cup) 160. (The nutrition facts on the bag of cheese are incorrect and have the portion size in 1/4 cup as 1 oz, which is incorrect--so I cut the cheese (pun intended) calories in half.