How to Stick to a Meal Prep Routine

If you've ever meal prepped, you know there's a certain feeling you probably get from preparing a bunch of food at once, portioning it out, and knowing that you're in for a week of eating better while saving time and money. But when that feeling wears off, many of us find that the satisfaction just isn’t enough to make us do it again next week.

It seems odd that something with so many immediate and easily quantifiable payoffs could be so hard to make into a habit. If instant cash savings, health benefits, and increased productivity aren’t enough to to inspire a consistent routine, what is? Rather than resign ourselves to a life of perpetual takeout and PB&Js, however, we asked some of the world's leading habit experts how to create a meal prep routine that will actually last. Here's what they told us.

Use the “strategy of pairing.”
Getting into the routine of preparing meals ahead of time is tedious. There’s rinsing, straining, chopping, dicing, roasting, flipping, and sautéing, none of which are particularly engaging unless you really love to cook. That’s why Gretchen Rubin, author of The Four Tendencies suggests pairing meal prep with something you love, like a podcast or a television show.

“Pairing makes it easier to keep up with a necessary activity," Rubin says, "and often means that we even begin to look forward to it." If you have a favorite podcast, only allow yourself to listen to new episodes when you’re preparing food for the week. When you’ve been waiting all week to listen to the latest episode of The Habitat, it’s not out of the question that you could find yourself canceling brunch plans to sauté asparagus and broil salmon.

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Make it as easy as humanly possible.
That tiny plastic cutting board and serrated knife with the wooden handle that your parents gave you when you went off to college aren’t going to make meal prep easy, let alone enjoyable. According to BJ Fogg, who directs research at Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab, in order for change to happen people need to be matched with behaviors that they both want to do and actually can do.

“If you really want to get into the routine of preparing meals, get the tools and resources that you need," Fogg says. If you’re struggling with the idea of budgeting for new kitchen gear, just think about all the money you’re going to save if you can actually pull off making meal prep a regular thing. A small investment today could yield big savings in the long run.

Leave nothing to the imagination.
Fogg has another piece of advice for wannabe meal preppers: Plan. Everything. Where will you get your food? What will you prepare? How will you prepare it? What equipment will you need? Which containers will you use? On which day and at what time will you begin? If you live with others, will the kitchen be free? Reserve the kitchen if you have to. But leave nothing to chance.

“Even if there’s the smallest thing that you haven’t planned for, or that one ingredient that you don’t have on hand, your brain will start making excuses—'oh that jar’s not washed, guess I’ll just do it tomorrow,’” Fogg says. Odds are, you won’t.

Take a “starter step.”
If prep time rolls around and you just can’t peel yourself away from binge watching episodes of She’s Gotta Have It, Fogg has a better idea, and it only requires five minutes of your time.

“Trick yourself. Get out your vegetables and cutting board, and commit to rinsing and chopping for just five minutes. Set the timer. After five minutes, give yourself permission to go back to what you’d rather be doing,” Fogg says.

But once you start, he says, you’ll almost always keep going. You’ve rinsed the kale, so you might as well chop it. You’ve chopped the potatoes, might as well toss them in olive oil and pop them in the oven. And then you can get back to your show. Or, since you’re already in the kitchen, you can start boiling the water for pasta, or mixing your salad dressing. Repetition is key.
Many would-be meal preppers get discouraged by the fact that one successful Sunday of preparing food for the week does not automatically beget another. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “this is so amazing, I’ll definitely be motivated to do it again next week,” and then proceeding to not do it again, and wonder why.

Wendy Wood, a researcher of habit formation and change and professor of psychology and business at University of Southern California, reminds wannabe meal preppers that doing something once usually isn’t going to be enough to make it a routine.

“It might be difficult to make yourself do the work initially, but after you’ve done it a few times, and it becomes a more regular part of your week, it will seem easier," Wood says. "Over time, it will become more automated and you won’t have to to think about it. You’ll just do it." Wood also recommends another version of the strategy of pairing—tasting ingredients as you cook to make the process more engaging. In order for this to work, though, you’ll want to make sure you’re making foods that you actually like. As tempting as it may be to use your budding meal prep routine as an opportunity to start a new diet, it might be wise to take things one step at a time. Preparing foods you enjoy will be an added benefit to saving money and time, and you’ll be more likely to stick with it in the long run.

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