Food prep can seem like an endless task, given it can be, boring and likely to produce rubbish tasting food sometimes; and let’s face it – it doesn’t take 15-20 minutes! The FWX Team have put together 6 tips to help you prep and progress towards your goals.

• Keep it varied; – The same meals quickly become boring and lose their taste – especially cold lunches and dinners. Buy ingredients that force you to prep a few different meals each week, as even a little variation is bound to help you stick to your diet better than a conveyor belt producing only the same flavours, textures and smells!

• Get decent tupperware, and enough of it! – This may sound simple, but not having enough or good quality tupperware can be a nail in the coffin of any promising health drive. This can lead to no container for your food, or even worse – food prep finding its way out the container and on to or into your belongings in your bag.

• Be smart, be lazy – cook double portions of dinner! – Double up on your dinner portions; serving half, and placing the other half in Tupperware, before allowing it to cool, sealing it and refrigerating it. This is a terrifically easy way to prep your food, and prevents a marathon or late night cooking session (followed by the even later night, bad-tempered washing up).

• Keep it colourful – This is mainly in regards to vegetables, where aiming for a variety of colours and textures will help you increase the range of vitamins and minerals you include in your diet. More vegetables also helps bulk out a meal, increases fibre and water intake, and adds to the flavour in most cases. Try roasting vegetables, raw vegetables or frozen vegetables that you microwave, in order to increase portion sizes without increasing prep time.

• Microwave products to the rescue! – Express grains such as rice and quinoa are all great, as are the marketed healthier microwave meal options. We often simply prep the protein and vegetable portion of our meals, and add the grains before eating. To keep these from drying out the meal, low fat mayo and green or red pesto are all good sauces.

• Prepare to fail. – Fitness bloggers and Instagram accounts may have all the time in the World to cook each meal and prep on the daily, but for those of us who work taxing, arduous, time-consuming hours we are inevitably going to fail to prep perhaps once or twice a week. The key is not to beat yourself up about this, but in this situation, the key is to prepare to fail. Note the healthy eateries in your vicinity at work, combos of foods from supermarkets and even lower calorie options at fast food chains. As long as you know the caloric intake (roughly), you can stay on track with your diet overall knowing one lunch won’t have a negative impact.

Thanks for reading this weeks FWX Blog!

FWX offer a wide range of pre-ready meals from our partner “Simply Prep Meals” – If you would like further information, please contact us via the website or ask at a FWX reception! 

The Fitness Worx Team

Confidence

Lifting, gives a person a certain swagger, vitality and ability to look you right in the eyeball that no other training form does. Feeling strong, feeling fit and feeling good about yourself engenders confidence.

Accountability

There are no half reps in lifting. You either complete the rep, or you don’t. We’ve all said, “That was really eight-and-a-half,” and sort of meant it, but deep down, if you’re training right, you know it was eight reps. You also know whether eight was a good result for you or not that day. This internal, frank dialogue will develop within you and enable you to be honest with yourself with increasing comfort and levity.

You won’t be afraid to fail

When you train for progress, you seek your limits and push them. You fail frequently in a controlled manner, in order to see your abilities increase. This isn’t failure from a lack of effort or aptitude or from carelessness. It’s how we explore our potential and learn. Upped the weight too soon? Got a bit ahead of yourself? No problem. Drop it down, check your form and keep training. You’ll soon move forwards.

You’ll feel epic

Your whole body will function better if you exercise and eat well. You already know that. Weight training, in particular, is known to develop strong bones and joints as well as strong muscles. You’ll relish your food and sleep well. Bad days, weeks or even years will be less overwhelming because you will have the confidence, accountability and resilience to knuckle down and find your way through.

You’ll look fabulous

That higher muscle mass and lower fat mass from lifting weights will show. Lifting is great for your posture and this, in turn, helps you to think clearly and feel good. Other people will also treat you with greater respect if you literally keep your chin up and this will, in turn, boost your confidence. This isn’t about turning back the clock and being someone you aren’t.

Thanks for reading!

Fitness-Worx

In this weeks ‘Gym Series’ episode, Eliot shows us 4 ‘Calf’ exercises. By adding these 4 simple exercises into your routine, you can help improve the size and strength of your calfs.