Episode 88- Meal Prepping for the Moms Who Don't Want to Meal Prep
Episode 88 Show Notes
In this conversation, Tiffany Wickes shares her journey with meal planning, particularly for busy moms who may not enjoy the process. She discusses her evolution from a primal diet to incorporating more variety and whole grains into her family's meals.
Tiffany emphasizes the importance of meal prep for saving time and ensuring healthy eating, offering practical tips for bulk cooking and managing family meals. She highlights the benefits of using a meal guide and shares her insights on balancing macronutrients for optimal health.
Takeaways
Meal planning can be simplified for busy moms.
Variety in meals is crucial for health and enjoyment.
Bulk cooking saves time and effort in meal prep.
Incorporating whole grains can benefit gut health.
Meal guides can alleviate the stress of planning.
Healthy eating doesn't have to be complicated.
Engaging kids in meal prep can be beneficial.
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Let's talk about meal planning for the moms who hate meal planning. All right, when I started my Facebook health group, probably 15 years ago, it's gone through a few different iterations of where I started. started as, well, mean, started started like actually paying attention to my health. I guess that would be back in the like primal blueprint days. I can't remember Mark Susson, Mark Susson, that's him.
He had a book and I think it was called the Primal Blueprint. And I was struggling with managing like my hunger signals. And boy have I gained a ton of information about my own body and what could be going on with that whole different bit of information. But long and the short of it is I transitioned from like a more whole foods diet to, so I've gone back and forth with you guys. I transitioned from a whole foods diet into a primal diet.
And a primal diet is one that basically focuses on meat, very limited dairy, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Whole grains were pretty much taken out of the equation. And I think that regulated my blood sugar at the time pretty well. I certainly got out of these like feast famine episodes I would get into where I would just eat and eat and eat and eat.
And then I would over exercise. That's what created my eating disorder. If I haven't told you about that, it's somewhere throughout all these podcasts. But yes, I had an eating disorder in my early 20s, like late teens, early 20s, because I couldn't figure out why I never felt full. Now I'm pretty convinced that I just don't have enough GLP receptors in my gut to produce that level of satiety that says, hey, you've eaten enough because I could eat. I can eat more than what most
people ought to list most women should be able to eat in one sitting. So anyway, off topic slightly, but I did start that. And then when I started doing that, I was like, well, I need to, you know, at first it was, okay, we'll just have meat, vegetables, some fruit and throw on some fat and move on with my life. And that was fine, I suppose, when it was just Adam and I. And then when we had little kids, like they were breastfeeding and they only got little scraps anyway of food because they're just toddlers. They don't eat that much.
Tiffany Wickes (02:22.604)
But I needed to start bringing in some variety because I get bored really easily. So I don't love repeating recipes throughout the week. Like I know some people like, I just meal prep, you know, chicken, rice and vegetables. And I eat that five days a week because I know what the macros are and it's simple. And I'm like, gosh, kill me right now. Like put me in the food cemetery because I need more variety and I need more spice and interest in my life than just prepping the exact same thing over and over again. Not to mention that can create some dysfunction in your gut and possible allergies if you start getting sensitive to the amount of proteins in these foods when you're overexposed to them, which is why I think variety literally is the spice of life and it will also help prevent disease processes. So there I was doing my primal thing. I was way over exercising. I got really skinny, you guys, really skinny. It was not cute.
I didn't have a whole lot of muscle because I actually wasn't eating enough. And this was in the season. I suppose I've been in this season for a minute now, but I mean, I was having babies pretty much back to back breastfeeding and then going straight from breastfeeding into another pregnancy. I didn't allow my body a whole lot of time to take in all the extra nutrients and recover because before I was right back in another pregnancy. So food was so much more crucial than what I knew it to be. I was just like, okay, I just need to eat for now, you know, to keep going.
Since then, I've learned an absolute ton. And when it came to meal prepping, I was like, OK, I more varieties. So then I opened up this Facebook group. And the Facebook group was really like, hey, if you're like me and you need some variety in your life and you need a meal plan that's, you I wanted to be healthy, here's what I'm doing. And since I'm doing it and I was posting the meal plan with links to other people's recipes for my own ease and for Adam to have access to because
Not often, but occasionally he was doing the kid thing and I would go out because I've been in network marketing for a long time. I'd go to events or whatnot and he needed access to what the meal plan was. Otherwise, brother will cook spaghetti and tacos every single day of the week if I leave him without a plan. So thankfully we have a different plan now and I'll tell you about that in a hot minute. But anyway, that's what he would do. And I'm not saying he's wrong for it. mean, dude just loves spaghetti and tacos. So it's simple.
He can execute it and the kids love it when I leave because typically he will make like two or three days of the actual Faster Way Meal Plan, which is on our app, which is so simple. But then after two or three days, he's like, and we're going back to tacos and tacos and spaghetti. So God love him. Anyhow, I opened up this Facebook group and in there, like it would take me probably 45 minutes to go research different recipes. And I wanted variety. wanted to make sure I had like pork, beef, chicken, fish, and then a vegetarian meal. And then somewhere in the weekend, we would just pull things out and reheat as necessary. Okay? Well, that's where it started was, okay, I'm just going to do this. And that was taking, you know, 30, 45 minutes, sometimes an hour to do because I'd get interested in like, ooh, maybe I can make this, maybe I make that. And then it would take another 15 or 20 minutes, possibly 30, depending on the level of distraction I had at the time to create the grocery list out of all that. So now we're talking an upwards of two-ish hours per week. I was spending creating a meal plan and then creating a grocery list every single week. And that is an incredible amount of time when you start thinking like, what could I be doing with that two to two and a half hours of time? I could be having more fun with my kids. I could go on a bike ride. I could take a freaking nap. I mean, you could...watch TV like back in the day when I had just a bunch of little kids and they would all go down for a nap at the same time. I absolutely loved watching like TLC. Do you guys remember TLC? What was it? The Learning Channel? Was that it? I don't know. But the baby story. I loved watching a baby story because I was in the zone, y'all. That's what I was doing. My whole life revolved around like having babies and just trying to be the very best mom I could be.
Which, by the way, was not easy for me because I did not grow up in a societal norm that mothers were tender, loving, attentive, supportive. Like that was not my experience with my own mother. I have one kind of odd memory of her being sweet and tender. I mean, she wouldn't remember it if I mentioned it to her. I mean, I won't mention it to her because we never talk, but if we did, it was the weirdest moment. And I'm just going to share it with you guys because just give you an insight into possibly how kids' brains work.
There was the evening news and it was like the peacock. What is that? CBS? I don't even know. Anyway, it was like the peacock and they had this jingle before the evening news would turn on. And mind you, I'm 42 and what was I? Six at the time. So it's been a minute. It's been a minute, but I loved that jingle. I couldn't even replicate it right now if I tried, but I loved it. And I ran downstairs when it came on and it was like relaxing to me.
And this is so stupid when I think about it now, but I jumped on the couch and she was sitting on the couch like she normally was with a cigarette and a cup of hot tea. And I like laid down next to her and she reached over and began to pet my hair. that lasted, you know, the jingle was like five to seven seconds, but her reaching over and just tenderly stroking my hair, it froze me in my tracks. I was like, what is happening right now?
What? I had never, I had not been able to recall a single moment where she was just tender with me. And that's the one that sticks in my memory is the darn news jingle. And then my mother tenderly stroking my hair and my head. And then I laid there, the jingle was over. I had every intention of getting back up and running off and going to play or do whatever it was I was doing. But I just laid there for as long as she would touch my head.
I laid there and I wouldn't get up. wouldn't move. It was like I was paralyzed or something. And there you go. You will never know when a pivotal impactful moment will happen to your to your whole family from you with just a light stroke of your hair. Anyway, I I went off track slightly with that one. So moving back to how do I even get on that, you guys? Oh my gosh.
So moving back to the meal plan, a couple of hours, that's what it was, is if you got your time back, then maybe you could spend more time loving your kids, and I don't know, stroking their hair to a news jingle. Who the hell knows? You pick your light of the day. So that happened, and then I added more children, four five kids, and I was like, okay, I cannot spend that amount of time doing this. So was like, well, I'm gonna make this real easy, and I'm just gonna bulk prep you know, a whole bunch of meat and then get a whole bunch of frozen vegetables and some fresh vegetables for like dipping in hummus or whatever and some fruits and then nuts and seeds are pretty darn easy. So that's what I did. It was like bulk cooking meat. And at the time, I don't recall. I know exactly actually when we transitioned to bringing whole grains back into our life was that would have been when we moved to Georgia from Florida. So that was seven and a half ish years ago is when we brought whole grains back in. That's a whole other story, you guys, which I'm gonna talk about. Maybe I'll record another episode on actually grinding and milling your own fresh grains, the benefits of them and the benefits we experience. But that's when we brought whole grains back into our life because our boys had some gut dysfunctions. And then here I am saying I'm gonna record another episode and then I'm talking about it. So our boys had some gut dysfunction and I'll go into far more detail on a future episode, but.
They had some gut dysfunction. A friend mentioned, hey, have you tried actual whole grains grinding it? I was like, no, gluten's the devil, duh. Don't you know that? She's like, no, of course not. Not if you do it in the right way. So we did. We brought it back in and sure enough, our boys' guts started to heal and they got better. And I haven't seen warts on my boys ever since. So yes, another episode. But we started, okay, well, maybe, you know, it is better if we have some whole grains. So we brought those back in.
Since then, was like that was the quickest way to do it when I was homeschooling, you know, five and six young kids. A couple of years ago, I learned about the faster way after I had destroyed my body with over exercise, over caffeinating, not eating enough and not sleeping enough. So those were the four pillars that I just completely collapsed my own house of cards with destroying those four pillars of health. And that's when I was like, I need a different way. Well, I found the faster way.
And I became a client and what kept me was the meal planning option. In fact, I didn't have to plan. That's what hooked me big time was like workouts. I figure I can work out no matter what, because I'm going to work out in every single nook and cranny of my time because I just love being fit and I love being active. I love moving. Well, the meal guide is what hooked me and kept me here because that was one less thing I had to think about. The app provides every single meal, every snack, it's all macro balanced. I only have to expand it or make it smaller based off of my individual macronutrients. And soon our app is going to evolve. So it's 100 % personalized. We're not quite there yet, but it's coming to where your individual app will show your macros and then the meal plan will be perfectly fit to it with quantity. Right now you might have to adapt and change just a little bit. So.
With all that being said, that was my evolution to coming to where I'm at right now as a Faster Way Coach and how I serve my clients with these workouts and the support system and the meal guides and all that. If you are not there yet, I think this is the simplest and easiest way for you to meal plan for the mom who doesn't want a meal plan. You're going to take bits and pieces of my journey and mush them all together. So here's what you do. You're going to make batches of your proteins.
Fish, don't suggest making that ahead of time because I don't know about you, but leftover fish to me is nasty AF. So chicken, beef, pork, turkey, okay? You can cook all those ahead of time. They're awesome. Now choose some whole grains to go with it. Brown rice, white rice, quinoa. If you make fresh milled bread, actually grind your own grains and make that, then you can have, make some rolls to go in those meals. And then you've got either frozen vegetables, I think which are the easiest, get a big bag from Costco, organic frozen vegetables, and then get some fresh vegetables for snacking and then some fresh fruits. You can also get frozen fruits for smoothies.
Moving on. So once you have all of those components of a meal, you simply combine it. And like I said, I don't know you, I don't know what your macro distribution is going to be like, but typically you can get away with 40, 30, 30. So 40 % of your meals is going to come from carbohydrates and then the 30 and the 30 is going to be from protein and fats. So healthy fats look like nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and I have a whole episode on oils, but those would be or higher cuts of fat in your beef or like higher cuts of fat in chicken like chicken thighs. All of those will add to the fat content or certain parts of pork are going to be fattier. So you just want to make sure that you have the macro balance and then you just grab and combine.
So if you are in a situation where you've got like three teenagers and they're kind of coming and going all the time, you don't have many opportunities to sit down as a family and eat together. And you're certainly not serving their meals in them anymore like you would with a toddler. See, I'm in the range where I have everybody. Okay, I have teenagers who are coming and going. I have people in the middle that can get their own food, but they'll go to heavier light on one or the other components of the macros. So I typically serve them their meal or they're making their own, like my 13 year old, he makes his own breakfast, he packs his own lunch, and then for dinner, I serve dinner to the entire family, but my teenage guy, my 17 year old, he might not be home. He might be at wrestling practice, he might be at work, he might be hanging out with friends. So in that case, because I'm so loving and so service-filled, I will usually, and I also I do want to control just a little bit like what he gets. I'm like, at least I know he had one meal that was perfectly balanced. I will put a plate together, put a wrap over the top of it and like stick it in the microwave. And the microwave not so much so that he can heat it up in the microwave because they don't love microwave use. But really it's just a safe place to put it that the freaking cats won't get in there and start eating it or a kid won't reach up and grab a chunk of steak off his plate. If you don't live in a big family, you have no idea what this is like but the kids will actually say, guard my plate as they walk away. That is a big family thing. I need you guys to tell me on social if you have experienced this, if you come from a big family, because this is an actual thing. So here, those are my tips for the meal prepping mom who doesn't actually want to do meal prepping. You're gonna have to precook all of your protein, get your frozen vegetables lined up.
And then your whole grains and resistant starches, like even beans, throw beans in there, beans are amazing. And then you're just going to combine them. So 40, 30, 30 principle, combine them, put whatever seasonings you want on them. You can make them dull, I guess, and put a sauce on it. Just be careful how much fat is in that sauce because that's gonna be considered into your fat equation on that 30%. So there you go. There's the down, dirty, quick version of how you can meal prep if you don't wanna spend two hours a week doing what I used to do and you want some variety in it, then you can combine all of those different methods. And if you are not yet a Faster Way client where you have your entire meal guide and grocery list delivered to you with zero thought on your end, then make sure you check the show notes for when I'm coaching my next round. I would love to have you, but if you're not ready, this will get you going. Cheers friends. Remember, stay strong mamas, show up. You're doing better every day. Ciao.