I think you’re over-thinking this. Find a nice small change that seems to work for you and then try it out. Adjust based on your results.

What works for me–I cook for just me–won’t necessarily work for you. What works for you won’t necessarily work for everyone you cook for?

Yesterday, I had time, so I cooked up 10 servings of pasta sauce with meat and froze them all individually. For me, it’s a handy way to have an easy different meal to pull out of the freezer. This morning I bought some chicken breast and buffalo sauce. I’ll slow cook that, shred it and freeze the portions. Some weeks, I don’t feel like cooking at all. I’ll buy some pre-sliced ham, a loaf of wheat bread or wraps, some cheese and greens, and trust that I’ll use it up that week. And then I’ve also got those other meals to pull out of the freezer for variety.

I think protein is just protein. You find a convenient way to eat it? I think it’s useful to get a variety of fruits and veggies that you’ll eat. Some weeks, it’s the veggies in the pasta sauce, some it’s buy fresh and make salads, some it’s I’m just going to make sure to drink a big glass of V8 each day. Depends on what’s going on in my life?

If you’re doing this with a couple other people, maybe you find efficiency and variety by just having each person plan and cook a healthy meal twice a week?

Ok there is a lot to unpack here. I think you need to be careful not to make too many big lifestyle changes at once or nothing will stick.

If your goal is primarily weight loss, check out /r/CICO - ultimately weight loss is purely physics, it does not matter if you meal prep or not. It does not matter how many grams of protein you eat. It literally only matters how many calories you burn vs consume.

If your goal is physical fitness, then I would focus on getting into the routine of exercising regularly. Worry less about specifically what you’re doing and just focus on being physically active each day. Note to carefully consider before “eating back” your exercise calories if you want to lose weight.

I would do these two things first and then reassess everything else after a month or two.

Only after I was in the habit of tracking / planning meals and exercising regularly would I start to fuss over specific workout plans or macros or whatever.

If you find planning and preparing your meals ahead of time helps keep things convenient for you then great. If not then don’t bother, it’s supposed to be helpful, not a burden you take on because you “have to.”

Something that may help with variety is to prepare a few proteins and vegetables and then decide throughout the week how to combine them instead of trying to make complete meals out of them upfront

Ok so if there’s several of you then sit together to create a meal plan and then delegate

So for example Bob makes dinner which is a grain bowl with roasted veggies and pan fried tofu with barley.

And Sam makes dinner the next night a bean based veggie chili with cabbage slaw

Or whatever you decide. Then one person cooks for the group each night

Lunches yes prep ahead your own, doesn’t have to be the exact same thing every day. Often I’ll prep two options, a bean based soup or stew, and a grain veggie lentil salad thing like with kale and barley and lentils and walnuts and some shredded carrots or other sturdy veg

At the gym for weight loss cardio is the way to go

Just a quick one on the gym stuff. What are you actually doing?

If there’s a few of you doing it in the same house hold the meal prep should be quite easy idk how many you are but assuming 3 each take a day to make a meal that feeds 6 everyone eats that over 2 days lunch or dinner if you don’t plan on eating loads of protein with every meal get protein powder have 1 of them a day doubte you’ll need 2 for what you’re doing… Also very important since you’re at the start of your gym journey don’t over do it I’d recommend 3 day a week lower body, upper body then cardio or add cardio to every workout and do lower and upper body don’t bother with a hard routine to start with all you’ll do is wear yourself out.

So I’ve actually lost about 100 pounds since January, and I can tell you meal prepping was pivotal in making it happen. Weight loss is calories in, calories out, which I’m sure you already know. A lot of people assume that you can either exercise or change diet to create the caloric deficit, but it just doesn’t work that way. When you exercise, your appetite goes up, and if you’re not planning out your meals or simply watching/adjusting your intake, quickly burning through that deficit you genuinely worked hard to create. In some cases, exercise makes it easy to even go beyond what you were taking in the first place.

I didn’t start counting macros or anything until I was well into the whole process, what worked for me was finding a rotation of healthy, filling meals and sticking to it. The meals I prepped were my lunches and a midday snack, then breakfast and dinner were prepared the day of. I did weekly portions, but it all depends on what works for you. So long as you’re consistent, it’ll happen

Highly recommend the YouTube/Podcast Mind Pump to help you sort through all the confusion. Their information on health and fitness is life changing. I wish they existed 15 years ago when I started working out. It would have saved me a lot of time.

Create a meal rotation that meets your goals. Get the group together, do some research on some meals, and then have each member of the group choose the meal(s) they will make ahead of time for the group. Make it fair, and split the grocery bill.

You don’t need to eat the same food every day. What some people do is prep a bunch of different freezer/fridge meals, and then you can take out a different bag/meal and cook that whenever you’re ready. If you’re comfortable enough with a hotpot or an oven, this is probably the easier method to prep for a large number of people, there’s a bunch of recipes you can google where you just toss the contents in and heat it up until cooked. (Microwave works too, but it’s usually better for smaller portions, not feeding large number of people).

What some others do is to prep over a few weeks, for eg today they cook a large batch of lasagna and put it in the freezer. Next couple of days they cook a large number of pies. Now they have both pies and lasagna in their freezer and can rotate between the two. After that another dish, and another. This works better if you have large kitchen and lots of freezer space since you’ll end up with a lot of frozen food. Don’t forget to write the dates on each batch and rotate them so they get eaten in time.

Or alternatively, you could prep some things that can be combined differently. For eg cooked chicken can be added to salads at the beginning of the week, or add bread and make sandwiches for the middle of the week, and then you can add them to rice, or noodle + soup base at the end of the week.

A same but different way is mealprep a bunch of side dishes, if you look up bento side dishes some of them are relatively easier to prep. Your main may be the same but at least the side dishes make it feel like a different meal each time.

I can’t really advise on the type of meals you should prep. If this is your first time, you may want to go slow. Stick to simpler recipes, and start prepping just one meal a day. You can expand to more meals once you get the hang of things. Better than prepping 15 meals and then tossing out most of them if you find you can’t eat them for whatever reason.

I personally stick with varieties. You can make different meal sets for the week. I prefer the same for two days and then change. I have lost 3kgs in 10 days. I prefer adding fruits that is very much crucial in our diet. Hope this will help!

Also, I love rice! I eat every single day but I try to limit it to one bowl only. Plain white rice.

oh man, meal prep can be a game-changer for hitting those protein goals! you can totally mix it up by prepping different protein sources and switching up seasonings and sides. start small, maybe prep lunches for a few days to ease into it. variety is key to not getting bored, so get creative with your meal prep!

here’s what i do. I only cook for myself now but lately i’ve been picking about 4 things for dinner that will feed me at least 4 meals each. 16 all together for two weeks, just dinner. I don’t meal prep breakfast, just make it in the am and don’t eat lunch. For dinner i just rotate. One meal one night, the next another, all the way through. I also tend to do home cooked stuff, but also keep 2-3 frozen prepared foods for a quick dinner when i’m too tired to cook dinner or don’t have enough time.

my grade is c + +

I would take advantage of the housemates who also want healthier lives. Sharing the weekly prep with the others will definitely give you more variety and fresher meals through the week.

No is a full sentence.