How I Meal Prep With ADHD Part 1

Because I can’t photosynthesize yet

This week I’m breaking down my meal prep system in detail! Even though eating is required for survival it is one of the great nuisances of my life. So I created a way to make sure I do it regularly without completely draining my energy bank.

Some quick admin stuff:

Thank you all so much for your patience, I know I promised this one a while ago. It was an absolute BEAST to write. I amaze myself with how much I have to say sometimes.

As a result I’m splitting this into 2 parts because let’s be honest, I have a decent idea of what y’alls attention span is and I want this letter to be actually helpful.

So part 1 will cover all the benefits of setting up a system, a broad overview of how I set mine up, and a detailed description of the first step. It’s the longest and takes the most mental energy, so frankly it kinda deserves it’s own letter.

Part 2 will be steps 2-4 and discuss a bit about implementation. It’s scheduled to go out in 2 days to give you guys a chance to play around with step 1.

Ok, back to it ⬇️

I feel like I see a lot of things claiming to be “The last meal prep system you’ll ever need” or “The only right way to meal prep”. I’ll tell you now that’s not how this letter is going to be.

Frankly I think it’s possible that this system in it’s entirety may not work for anyone EXCEPT me. But convincing you to use my system is not the point of this letter.

My hope is that my system gives you some ideas to improve (or even create) your own system.

I hope that you pick it apart, take what sounds good to you, and experiment to create something that keeps you well fed without eating up all your mental capacity.

The benefits I’ve gotten from creating a meal prep system that works for me have been astronomical.

I cook once a week

Obviously one main benefit of meal prep in general is cooking one day a week. I realized this aspect was important to me a long time ago when I used to tell myself I was just gonna wing it that week for lunches and dinners.

The mental load was stupid high for coming up with meals on the spot, making the actual cooking feel even more daunting. Daunting enough that I would frequently resort to chips (or even nothing) for dinner because I didn’t want to deal with the thinking.

For the record I’m not saying chips for dinner is the worst thing in the world. Fed is best. BUT I can’t ignore how physically terrible I would feel and I don’t think just because I deal with executive functioning challenges means I should just suck it up.

I rarely allow food to go bad

This benefit is like a two for one.

It saves money.

And it really lowers the mental load associated with trying to eat everything in time before it goes bad.

I honestly think that a lot of the high cost we see with eating healthy comes from food going bad too fast rather than the actual cost of the food itself.

Unless you buy snacks marketed as health food. Or organic. Which I do not. I know, sue me.

In general produce is relatively cheap. The issue is it just goes bad so fast. Even faster when it takes 1-2 business weeks to build up enough executive function points to actually use them.

This fact was one huge driver for me to create a system that prevents this from happening.

I’m a huge fan of paying the ADHD tax up front if it’s available, which helps a lot.

Buying chopped carrots, pre-minced garlic, the sliced and washed mushrooms, etc.

I don’t absolutely love it, as I’d really like to use as little plastic as I can and save that money eventually. But paying the ADHD tax is the most sustainable for me for now. My hope is eventually I’ll learn to free up energy in other areas to dedicate more to cooking.

Meats are on the more expensive side but again that’s why having a system to prevent things going bad is so important.

And all that doesn’t even account for the mental load of eating traditional meal prep.

Raise your hand if you worked your ass off to make 7 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, landing you in ADHD paralysis jail for at least a day after, just to have the ick for everything you just made?

And then feeling massive pressure to eat it all anyway because you spent time and money on it and plus it just feels horrible to have food go to waste?

So the whole week is just full of mental turmoil where the guilt over letting food sit in the fridge wars with the sickening feeling of having to eat something you really don’t want to and that’s where all your available energy goes?

✋🏽

Yeah me too.

I easily get my protein and veggies

Now I will say I do crave protein and veggies. But I wasn’t always like this, it was something I had to work on.

The issue I was trying to solve with this system was the mental load associated with making sure I get them in.

Because let’s be honest, even cravings for healthy food can’t be the only thing that’s relied on to make sure they’re consumed, at least not with ADHD. I can barely rely on my hunger signals, let alone cravings.

Back when I would try and “wing it” I would always either have way too much of one or the other, or way too little. It was really difficult for me to create “balanced” meals. I mean I could. But the mental effort of doing so was a lot even for one night, let alone a whole week.

I don’t have to eat the same thing for 5 days straight

I’ll be totally real, I definitely eat the same thing for multiple days in a row sometimes.

BUT those are times where I’m just legitimately enjoying what I made. There is absolutely 0 pressure for me to eat everything within a week.

I believe that fact alone has made my apatite so much more regular.

I’m sure if you’ve meal prepped the usual way before you know what I’m talking about.

Just like I said above, you spend hours and hours making perfectly portioned meals for the whole week, but then by day 3 you’re really not feeling the now slightly suspicious looking chicken alfredo that’s been sitting in the fridge.

But you feel guilty for potentially wasting the food so you push through.

For a day.

And then the pressure the next few days make you not want to eat at all. And then stuff goes bad and you have to throw it out and all the bad feelings come up and you decide meal prep isn’t for you.

Yep I’ve been in that exact spot.

How?

(Remember: all of this is optional. You do not have to copy any of this step for step. This is just how I did it.)

When I was working on setting up this system I tried to think about all the things that I absolutely hated about cooking at home, and how I would fix them.

The first thing was feeling stressed about the entire process in general.

Trying to pick out meals, making the list, remembering to go shopping, and then remembering to use everything I bought, etc.

Also remembering to block out time to cook because for some reason my brain thinks everything should only take 5 minutes so when things took an hour I’d get stressed AF.

Every. single. week. I’d have to start from square one.

Organize all my thoughts and the steps, to the point that anything related to food took waaaayyy longer than it should, which again, stressed me tf out.

I broke everything down once and for all.

Then systemized as much as possible so my brain is responsible for as little as possible.

Here are the main steps:

1. Planning

2. Shopping

3. Cooking

4. Storing

There is a bonus 5th step that a wonderful creator on Threads pointed out which is cleaning up. I do plan on smoothing out this step to include it but have not had the chance to experiment with anything yet so I’ll only be including the first 4 in this letter.

Fair warning: setting up a system does take a lot of effort.

Going through the trial and error to find what works can be very draining.

But I am here to tell you that unlike the drain of just accepting how it is, the energy put into setting up a system is 100% an investment.

Planning - the mental nightmare

(This is the longest section because it takes the most mental energy. Stick with me, I promise it’s worth it)

I’ll reiterate what I said in my thread; I HATED this step before this system. I’m sure anyone who’s had to decide “what’s for dinner?” and then proceed to make a shopping list after can agree.

I swear that question is like that gadget in Men in Black. As soon as it get’s asked (doesn’t matter if it comes from someone else or myself) it’s like I forget anything I’ve ever eaten (let alone liked) ever.

To make this step easier on myself I picked it apart to find the specific parts I hated:

• Trying to think about what kind of food I was “feeling”.

• Having to Google breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes every week based on said feeling.

• Sifting through said recipes to find what would actually be feasible for me to do.

• Going through the mental gymnastics of writing a shopping list that isn’t missing anything.

  • This was the most draining part for me. I’d always either skim over something that was important or end up buying stuff I already had in the house no matter how many times I looked over the list.

It seriously felt like so much freaking effort and I’d dread it all week. Forcing myself to sit down and do all that felt like dragging myself across a bed of nails.

I fucking hated it.

And I was tired of how drained it left me.

You’re telling me this is how adult life is supposed to be? Being so drained from setting up basic survival needs that I hardly have energy for things I love?

Nah I don’t accept that. So here’s what I did to make this step easier.

I picked 1 day as a meal plan day

I put a weekly recurring reminder in my phone and made a point to sit down and meal plan no matter how I felt.

Yep that meant plenty weeks the meal plan was just a variation of chicken rice and broccoli or some sort of pasta, but I had to get that habit going to save my sanity.

I also dabbled a bit with meal planning monthly and have thought about trying to do quarterly or even yearly. But I think I’ll have to have some more structures in place if I ever want that to work.

Honestly, and surprisingly, weekly has worked pretty well for me so far.

I stick to a prep style

I am 100% sure that I have not tried all the possible styles out there.

As I’m writing this I Googled meal prep styles just to see what came up (and to make sure it can actually be looked up before I talk out of my ass) and there’s definitely some I haven’t given an honest effort to.

In the past I remember trying to do full meal preps (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks) because I thought that was what meal prepping was.

I’ve done simple ingredient preps where I would just make some rice and chicken and use that in whatever.

Not a terrible option and it made prep really simple but I still really struggled with the mental load of deciding what to do with them when meal times rolled around.

Now I just like to make a huge batch of 2 things. For myself I’ve found that it’s easier to make a lot of a couple things than a little of many things.

I could probably get away with just doing a big batch of 1 thing but my absolute favorite breakfast is chicken, broccoli, and toast.

I know I know it sounds gross and I swear it’s not because of the whole chicken and broccoli gym stereotype. It’s literally because it’s the breakfast that makes me feel physically the best.

Plus it’s super easy to prep. We order diced chicken from the butcher (my favorite ADHD tax to pay because I hate touching raw chicken) and we bake it in a big batch. Then we freeze it in a bag and buy a big bag of frozen broccoli. In the mornings we pour a little bit of frozen chicken and a little bit of frozen broccoli into the air fryer and I’m eating in 8 minutes.

I make my own bread because I think it’s fun but I don’t think I’d recommend it for meal prep.

I’m really picky with my recipes

I think this may be the biggest contributor to making meal prep easier. The recipes I pick have to meet a certain criteria if I’m going to attempt to use it for a meal prep:

1. Needs to be freezable:

   1. Recipes won’t always say if they’re freezable, but a lot of times you can go to the comments if you’re finding the recipe on Google and see if someone asked the question (hit ctrl + f and search for “freeze” to save time).

   2. Or you can look at the recipe itself and with some experience you’ll be able to tell. For example I now know (from experience) that I cannot get many dairy related casseroles to freeze right. Cheesy pasta dishes do ok but I’ll never forget this one hashbrown thing that ended up as a watery, disgusting mess. Yeah you’re gonna fuck up recipes some times (or probably many times in the beginning) ¯\(ツ)/¯ it’s part of the learning process.

2. Needs to be big batch compatible:

   1. This can mean paying attention to equipment. For example I have some pretty big pans but a really small food processor so I’m set for cooking on the stove but I pay attention if something calls for a lot of blending.

   2. It can mean paying attention to cost. I’m not going to make a huge batch of something that has like shrimp as it’s primary protein because that shit is expensive.

   3. It can mean paying attention to capacity. I really love freezer burritos. I think they’re the shit. But sometimes they’re a huge pain in the ass. Laying out all the tortillas, getting all the toppings put on, rolling all them up so they don’t come apart, etc. I’ve done it before. And I do love them. But I don’t always have the energy to deal with them. Slow cooker meals on the other hand are fantastic. All just in one big pot that I transfer to freezer molds later.

   4. Or whatever other factors that play a part in allowing you to batch cook.

3. Needs to have decent protein, vegetables, and carbs:

   1. What can I say, I’m still a personal trainer and nutrition coach so of course this is a requirement for me. And I think it’s so important to add good stuff in rather than try to cut stuff out. So I make sure all the recipes I collect for my meal preps have at least 20-30g of protein per serving.

   2. Veggies I’m a bit more lax on but only because I make sure to keep steam-able bags of vegetables in the freezer at all times. Like I have this Korean Beef recipe that’s delicious but the meal prep is literally only the ground beef itself and a sauce. When I actually eat it I make some rice in the rice cooker and pop a bag of vegetables in the microwave and call it a day.

   3. Carbs come so naturally I don’t have to think about them too much, but I do shoot for whole grains as often as possible to get some more fiber. And similar to the veg situation above sometimes the prep itself doesn’t have all the carbs I like so I add them in later. I have a chili recipe which is ground beef, carrots, bell peppers, kidney beans and black beans. The beans and the veggies have some carbs but when I go to actually eat it I like to make a little bit of fresh whole grain pasta (spirals of course) and mix in some extra cheese to make a chili mac.

Find a way to save and organize recipes

Doesn’t matter how you do it, you can write them all down by hand, you can store all of them in a bookmark folder on Google, you can print them out and put them in a binder, whatever floats your boat.

But find a way that works for you and use it for all your recipes.

I’m telling you, this helps a TON when faced with the “what do I want to eat?” question that always seems to wipe our memory.

If you have them all collected in one place, instead of trying to pull something from thin air you can flip through what you have saved like a catalogue.

And hey, some weeks maybe you’ll have more energy and you can look for something new. But if not, you’ve got some basics to fall back on.

Bonus points if you organize them by something.

All my recipes are sorted by 2 criteria, newness and difficulty.

Recipes are marked as; “New”, “Needs Work”, or “Tried and True”, so it’s easy for me to see which I’ve tried before usually go well and which need some tweaking for them to be considered trustworthy. And then they’re marked as the basic “easy”, “medium”, “hard”, so if I‘m lower energy I can pick something easier for me to handle.

Systemize your shopping list

This is definitely in the more advanced category of setting up a meal prep system but it does help a lot.

A huge struggle for me for a long time was putting together a shopping list from multiple recipes.

I’d have like 4 recipes on different tabs in my phone and then my notes app pulled up. I’d keep switching back and forth between all the recipes and then back to the notes app trying not only to make sure I got everything down, but also to make sure there are no duplicates and then had to go through the kitchen to see what we actually have on hand.

Everyone reading with ADHD can see how that’s riddled with pitfalls.

Short term memory issues made making the shopping list initially feel like hell. I could only remember one item at a time and would not remember which recipe I got it from, meaning I switched between all the recipes several times.

What should have realistically took like 5 minutes max would take upwards of 15-30 minutes because I just couldn’t hold the information in my head.

Not to mention trying to scan for duplicates or missing ingredients, losing focus halfway through the list and having to start over. 3 times. And THEN trying to go through what I already have so I don’t waste money. But then I have to go back through all the recipes to check the amounts of ingredients I’ll need and I’m back to Google tab musical chairs.

Systemizing this can look different for everyone.

My first solution to this was to keep a note on my phone that was a huge checklist of every ingredient I frequently bought at the store (separated by section and alphabetized because I’m a nerd). The default was for everything to be checked so when I needed to make a shopping list I would just find the ingredient and uncheck it. That way if multiple recipes needed it I could see it was indeed unchecked. This worked really well for a while. Then it graduated to a Google Sheets document and now it’s a Notion tool.

This is where I’m goin to end part 1. Hopefully you got some good ideas to help streamline your planning process and free up some mental energy. Talk to you in a couple days.

-Savannah

Thank you so much for reading the Chaotically Consistent Newsletter! I’m Savannah, the personal trainer with ADHD. I started this newsletter because I enjoy creating and experimenting with processes and systems to make life easier for my brain, and I like sharing what I learn. If you’ve ever wished that you had help setting up systems in the 4 main pillars of health; exercise, nutrition, sleep, and rest, then stay tuned because I have an exciting announcement coming soon!