This Is The ONLY Thing I Meal Prep To Maintain My 60 Lb Weight Loss Because Meal Prep Is Death
If you love meal prep, can you come over and teach me how to do it?
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by Audie Metcalf
Hi. I’m Audie. I’m the editor of this site and sometimes (too much?) I write about my recent (non GLP-1) weight loss and all the annoying things I’ve learned along the way, mostly with food, so that if you are also on a similar journey, or want some inspiration or solutions to jumpstart one, here we are.
First, my credentials.
I’ve written about my favorite, easy sweet/savory snack, a full WIEIAD (wow these take a lot of work), my high-protein smoothie, my 3-minute winter breakfast, various mind-tricks I use, and my secret to making an enormous sandwich.
But I am constantly asked on dm (ok, maybe like 17 of you asked) what and how I meal prep for all of this.
But the truth is, I don’t meal prep.
I hate meal prep.
I work so hard during the week. Do I really want to be frantically digging for the matching lids for 7 glass Tupperware bowls while sweating from the oven being on all day on my blessed SUNDAY? THE DAY OF OUR LORD?
No, I do not.
But I realized I do prep ONE thing, and I will say it’s a complete game-changer specifically as it relates to snacking:
I chop up a ton of veg, and I make a very mindless yogurt-based green goddess dip.
And that’s it.
Here’s a very unsexy photo of how I store the veg:
I know. It’s not aesthetic. And I should store it in glass and I often do, but the huge glass container I have was dirty so I did this. Are you going to yell at me about microplastics? Most restaurants have all their prep in those plastic quart containers so at least promise me that if you yell at me for this, you will also never eat in a restaurant again, deal?
It’s surprising that I don’t have a more streamlined and camera-ready fridge—I actually just did a semi house-tour HERE, and you can see that I care deeply about aesthetics, but with food I can’t seem to keep it going. I’m going to brazenly show you the interior of my refrigerator now, perhaps to see if the feeling of it being out there in the world is enough to make me change my habits:
But back to the topic at hand.
Here is the more aesthetic yogurt-based, green goddess dip, indeed in a glass container:
For the veg, it’s whatever you love. I always do a rainbow of peppers, those petite carrots, radishes (watermelon or rainbow), and Persian cukes. You need to be a little careful with the cukes because they can go mushy after 2 days so just eat them up. I also do broccoli, green beans, snap peas, and (blanched) asparagus if I have a scrap of energy.
And for the dip, you’re going to freak for how easy this is. Take EVERY herb that’s wilting in your fridge that you bought for 1 tbsp for a recipe, bung it all in your Cuisinart (or high-powdered blender), throw in a bunch of yogurt, lemon juice, scallions, some anchovy paste (no it won’t take like fish), lots of salt and pepper, and some raw garlic if your tum can manage it or garlic powder if it can’t, blitz it all together, annnnd you’re done. My herbs of choice are always chives, parsley, and cilantro. Of course you know this but any herbs with woody stems (like rosemary) need to be plucked off, but rosemary and thyme aren’t ideal in this dip anyway.
Once you have a vat of chopped veg and a vat of gloriously fresh green goddess dip in your fridge, your snacking habits will TRANSFORM. Imagine skulking into the kitchen at 3:42, ravenous as a bear, and seeing some ludicrous FULL pepper staring back at you in the fridge. Your desire to chop that pepper for a snack would be zero. But now imagine knowing you have a colorful array of crunchy, sweet chopped veg, with a bright and herbaceous dip, just ready to be devoured with no work.
Well. You would put together a snack plate that looks something like this:
Bursting with protein, completely satisfying, low in calories (the one thing that actually matters for weight loss) and, blessedly, a mere 2-minute assemblage is all that’s required.
Now. What food storage brand wants to sponsor us and come organize my disgusting fridge?
Audie Metcalf is the Editor-in-chief of The Candidly, and lives in LA with her family. You can find more of her articles here.
At The Candidly, we try a lot of stuff so you don’t have to. We only recommend things we truly love, and that we think you’ll love, too. All products are chosen independently by our creative team, and all details reflect the price and availability of products at the time of publication. If you buy something we link to, The Candidly may earn a commission.
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