I’ve been missing a really important aspect in my day to day life lately and it is starting to throw me off track. The last couple weeks my food prep, food choices and gym time have been quite inconsistent. I am not perfect, I can’t always stick to “the plan” and I too occasionally get thrown off track. Physically I can always tell when my inconsistency is catching up with me. I feel stressed always, I hold onto water like no other, I have cravings and I sleep horribly. It has caught up to me to the point where I am taking myself back to the basics. Back to planning out my entire menu for the week, back to a consistent workout program and back to my normal sleeping habits.
If you follow me on snapchat, you would have seen last night that I threw myself into the kitchen to meal prep and I snapped what was on the menu for the week. If you don’t follow me on snapchat, well you should (kissbybrooke). For years, before I would go to the grocery store I always had the full weeks of dinners and snacks all outlined and written down. I did it so often and consistently that I was able to do it in my head and not have to be so rigid about it. Well, I am going back to the basics of planning out our weekly dinners and snacks to get back on the consistency train.
If you are new to the blog, I don’t meal prep every single meal. I tried that and it just wasn’t realistic for me. What I have found works best for me is to bulk prep foods like protein and complex carb sources. For example, last night I made two pounds worth of hamburgers, today I have chicken in the crockpot and tomorrow I am throwing in a pork roast. I am making enough of each to give us dinner and lunches for the week. Then, I will bulk prep rice, sweet potato and steamed vegetables. This way, I can pick and choose what I want to take to lunch and make different variations of things. As far as snacks, a lot of times I have a protein bar in the morning and a mini meal of leftovers of a protein and carb for my pre workout meal. I have noticed this type of meal prep is less time consuming and offers the most amount of variations.
These chocolate mint protein balls were thrown into my weekly meal prep for the hubby so I decided to share the recipe. The best part about protein balls, you can honestly throw anything in them and they are going to taste amazing!
- 1 cup organic all natural peanut butter
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 2 scoops chocolate mint Isalean Shake
- 3 tbsp cashew milk or other nut milk
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- ¼ cup enjoy life chocolate chips
- Place all ingredients except for the chocolate chips in a food processor with the dough blade and blend for 10-15 seconds. If you do not have a food processor with a dough blade, you can mix with a large spoon.
- Remove the dough blade, add in the chocolate chips and mix with a large spoon until well combined.
- Form into balls and store in an air tight container in the refrigerator.