And just like that, the weekend is over already.  On Saturday, we went on a day trip to Toronto for the Interior Design Show at the Metro Convention Centre. Timing was great as our house reno starts in one week, so it was the perfect place to go for ideas and inspiration (if you disregard the fact that most of the stuff there was ridiculously expensive). We made a game out of trying to guess how much stuff was worth, and then pretending that it was within our budget when talking to the sales reps. LOL. But seriously, we got some really great ideas which will get recreated in our new place.

Sunday we hit the gym and then did our grocery shopping. We usually shop and cook on Saturday, but obviously this week our plan had to shift a bit. Due to the fact that I think food prep and staying on track with your nutrition is the most important and most challenging part of this lifestyle, I thought I would do a post on how we do it, because we’ve learned a lot along the way to speed things up.

Step 1. Stock your fridge with everything you need for the week (unless you live in a miniature apartment with a baby fridge…. oh wait that’s just us). We buy the same things each week, and can make it in and out of Costco in about 20 minutes (if the crowds cooperate). Currently, as it’s our offseason, we may buy a few different things as we crave them.

Step 2. Cook! Get as much cooking at the same time as you can handle – chicken in the oven, vegetables on the stove, sweet potatoes in the microwave. They’ll all finish at different times, so you can deal with them easily. Because there’s two of us eating this, we cook a lot at a time, like a Costco pack of chicken at once and three football-sized sweet potatoes.

Step 3. Portion out the meat into your meal sizes. We use a scale for pretty much everything (because we’re on a meal plan), and pack it so everything is ready to go. We’ll keep about three day’s worth of food in the fridge and freeze the rest of it for later in the week. Veggies don’t get portioned as we don’t weigh them per meal, they’re all just stored in containers in the fridge.

Step 4. Pack your meals as needed. Been as the meat is already weighed and ready to go, it’s so much faster in the morning, or the night before, to simply add the carbs and veggies in.

In general, it takes us a couple of hours on the weekend to do all of this, but we’re battling with a serious lack of space and cooking tools – our oven ONLY holds one baking sheet at a time and our stove only has 2 working burners. But, taking the time on the weekend allows us to have more time during the week and stay on track with our nutrition.

Finally, last week I promised that I’d give you a tip for working hamstrings, I’m sorry it took me so long! When using a laying hamstring curl machine, you might notice that as you get fatigued, your hips start to rise off the bench to help with the movement. To stop this from happening and to keep the work in your hamstrings, prop your chest up with your arms – this will force your hips to stay down. The difference is incredible! Give it a try!