4 Simple Steps to Meal Prepping to Lose fat, Optimize Hormones, and Build Muscle

5 Easy Steps to Meal Prepping CORRECTLY to optimize building muscle and burning fat.

When thinking about how you should be meal prepping for the week, you must consider your current diet, daily activity, current bodyweight, and goal body weight. Once you find your answer for these questions, it will be a lot easier to come up with a meal prep plan to help get you burning .5-1 lb of body fat weekly.

Step 1: CLEAN UP THE DIET:

If your goal is to lose fat and your current diet is filled with processed foods and refined sugars, you might never be able to achieve your goals because like the old saying goes, “You can not outrun a bad diet.” So first and foremost is to quit junk food and sugary drinks immediately. These foods can act similar to that of an addictive drug as you will notice the first week of getting off of them is the hardest. Then after the one-month mark, you will begin to have much fewer cravings of junk food and you will find it much easier to stay on track.

Step 2: FINDING YOUR BODY FAT PERCENTAGE:

Once you cleaned up your diet from harmful processed foods, the next step is to identify what is your current weight and body fat percentage. You can find this through dexa scans, skin fold measurements and hydrostatic weighing but the easiest way to find this is through your BMI. However, if you have lots of muscle and you do not have access to a dexa scan or other machines to get your body mass, then I would recommend you just guess what body fat percentage you are at by looking in the mirror and seeing what similar body fat percentages look like online as a BMI will be inaccurate. If you do not lift consistently, use the BMI equation (Kilos divided by height) to find your general body fat percentage.

Once you find your general body fat percentage, subtract how much fat in pounds you will need to lose to hit your ideal body fat percentage. I would recommend shooting for 15% for men and 20% body fat for women to optimize for healthy hormones. So lets say you are a woman at 25% body fat and are looking to get to 20%. We will guesstimate that each percent body fat is 2-3 pounds of fat so you will need to lose roughly 10-15 pounds of fat to reach your goal.

Step 3: FINDING HOW MANY GRAMS OF PROTEIN YOU NEED DAILY

The next step would be to subtract those 10-15 pounds from your current weight and this lean body mass is how many grams of protein you need daily. So if you are 155 pounds of lean body mass you need to shoot for 155 grams of protein per day. Studies show that getting even more than 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass daily will increase your metabolism up to 20%, thus helping you burn fat from thermogenesis alone!

To find out how many meals you need, you want to shoot for 30-40 grams of protein per meal to allow your body to digest it properly. Going off this metric, a 155 lean pound of body mass individual will need roughly four meals or three meals and one protein shake daily.

Step 4: CREATING YOUR MEAL PREPPED FOOD FOR THE WEEK

Once you have the above steps set, you are now ready to create your own custom meal prep guide based on the amount of protein you need per day! Now, I always recommend you have some kind of default meal that should be your go-to when hungry. Think of meal prepping in this way and try not to get too caught up in making everything taste perfect. Eating this way will allow your body to reduce the inflammation built up from previous unhealthy sodium and refined sugar-enriched foods.

FOODS TO CONSIDER:

As a nutrition certified coach, NASM-certified personal trainer, and a nationally qualified bodybuilder in men’s physique, I have tried lots of diet plans in the past. What has worked for me best is an animal-based diet as animal protein is more of a whole protein source than plant protein. With this being said, as long as you are getting enough protein and fats and a bit of carbs in (mostly around your workouts) daily, you will be just fine! Below are some healthy, lean sources of protein for both a carnivore and vegetarian diet!

Carnivore: Ground Turkey (7% fat), ground beef (5-10% fat), chicken breasts, whole eggs, egg whites, whey protein powder

Vegetarian: Egg whites, eggs, tofu, lentils, chickpeas, plant protein powder, whey protein powder

Once you made sure to cook enough protein for the week, consider how much fat you need with each meal as well as studies suggest low-fat diets can decrease testosterone 10-15%. Fats are essential to optimizing hormone health so you should be shooting for even more grams of fats than grams of protein daily. This can range from 1.2-2 grams of fats per pound of protein eaten daily. So for the 155 pound lean body weight person, they should shoot for 186-310 grams of fat daily. Below are some healthy sources of fats for a carnivore and vegetarian diet!

Carnivore: Egg yolks, beef, tallow, butter, steak

Vegetarian: Egg yolks, avocado, almonds, coconuts, olive oils, butter

ADDING VEGGIES TO YOUR DIET:

When considering adding vegetables to your diet, think about what vitamins most people are deficient in. Most people are deficient in vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D and magnesium. Below are some vegetables that will help you fill your nutrient-lacking diet making you feel more energetic throughout the day.

Veggies to add: Bell peppers, tomatoes, cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower), white potatoes, red potatoes, sweet potatoes

ADDING REFINED CARBS TO YOUR DIET?:

Unless you are a high-performing athlete that trains 1-2 hours daily, I would not recommend adding refined carbs like pasta or even rice to your meal-prepped food. Having enough fats in your diet as the main fuel source will allow your blood sugar to spike less throughout the day and will increase your sustainable energy. With this being said, eating healthy carb sources like potatoes and even honey before and after your workout will help ensure your muscles are not depleting. So look to these foods to sprinkle in your diet in 1-2 meals daily and stay away from gluten and flower-enriched foods that will cause inflammation in the body.

Follow these simple 4 steps and you will find yourself well on your way to meal prepping the right way and have confidence knowing you will be losing fat while gaining muscle!