I believe I'm not the only one who has had a strange relationship with diets. Personally, throughout all the years that I have worked on improving my physical health, I have learned a few lessons, and the most important one is that indeed, nutrition has a great impact not only on your physical development and progress but also on your mental health and energy levels.

During the summer of this year, I made the decision to start meal prepping. During my summer internship, there was a time when I would go to a nearby restaurant called Pelicana Chicken. It had the best fried rice I have ever tasted in my life. Every time I arrived, the restaurant staff already knew what I was going to order, "Fried rice with chicken and a diet coke." The lady at the restaurant always asked me, "The usual?" And when I finished, she would say, "I love it" because I always left everything clean and tidy for them to collect the plates.

One day, my friend Mateo asked me, "Don't you think it's expensive to eat there every day?" After that, I started doing the math, and it was indeed a considerable amount. But I thought that in the end, I was sacrificing that extra cost by preparing it myself for the time it would take me to cook every day, so it seemed like a good deal. I could eat the same thing every day, the restaurant would receive money from me, and I would gain time to do other things instead of cooking.

It was not until one day when we went to the restaurant that I decided to analyze what the dish had. The dish had rice, chicken, sesame seeds, vegetables, and small pieces of bacon. I already knew how to cook rice and chicken for a long time (as a gym enthusiast), but this rice had something different, it had a peculiar flavor. It was then that I had a moment of enlightenment and thought, "What if the restaurant fries the bacon, chops it, and then fries the rice with the same oil so that it has a bacon flavor?" I felt like I had found gold and said, "I can do this."

The next day, I went to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients to try to replicate the dish. On that first occasion, the result was not the best because I didn't know how to use the stove well in the house where we were staying, so the rice burned a little. Additionally, I tried to mix it with lettuce and cherry tomatoes. I didn't dislike the taste, but I knew that in the long run, I would leave those two ingredients aside, so I eliminated them from the recipe. But the next time I tried it, it was the complete opposite. From the moment I took the first bite, I knew it was a recipe that would change my life in a radical way. I remember going to Ikea that day before cooking to buy containers to store the food for the week. I found a package of 4 containers for $10, and I bought 3 packages (I still use them today).

One piece of advice I would like to give you is to eat with chopsticks instead of using a fork. On the same day that I bought the containers at Ikea, I also bought a set of chopsticks. By using chopsticks, you eat more slowly, so you get full with less food. By giving your brain more time to register that you are eating, it starts to feel satisfied. At first, I didn't know how to use chopsticks, but later on, I found it very practical since it also allows you to enjoy the food. Additionally, if you ever go to a sushi restaurant or a place where chopsticks are used, you can show off your chopstick skills ;)

Some time after I returned to Mexico, I ran into my friend Javier playing basketball, so I joined him for a while. While we were shooting hoops, I asked him how he did meal prep since he is also in the fitness field. He told me that he also prepares everything on Sundays and eats what he prepared throughout the week. What caught my attention the most was when he mentioned that he pays close attention to the macros of his meals.

In case you don't know, macros refer to macronutrients, which include proteins, carbohydrates, fats, sodium, sugar, etc. They are listed on the back of all the food you consume, where you can find the information.

I was surprised that he separates the egg yolk from the egg white. I asked him, "Is there really a significant difference in doing that?" He told me that yes, the yolk has more fats and calories, and the egg white has fewer calories but a good amount of protein. So, I started including egg whites in my recipe. I told him that for the moment, I don't count macros and that I estimate the portions by eye since I had a bad experience in the past when I counted calories because it became very decisive about what I ate.

I'm not an expert in health, so all of this is based on my experience and advice from acquaintances. But if I can give you one piece of advice, if you're not preparing for a competition or need to lose weight forcibly by a certain date, DON'T COUNT CALORIES. It's not sustainable in the long run and only ends up wearing you down physically and mentally.

I also told him that I manage my portions of food and know that I consume healthy things like vegetables, proteins, grains, etc. Besides, calculating the macros for each meal seemed like a hassle to me. He mentioned that before preparing his meal preps, he weighs all the ingredients he is going to use on a scale. He told me, "If you weigh all the ingredients, calculate the macros for each of them, and add them up, you have the content of all your meal preps. You just have to divide it by the number of portions you want to make, divide each of the macros by that number, and you will know what each meal has on average."

At that moment, my mind exploded as if I had been shown the holy grail of meal prepping. I remembered that I had just bought a small scale to do exactly what he mentioned. So, the next time, I weighed all my ingredients and ended up with a table showing the amount of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, etc., of everything I had prepared and the macros for each meal of the week.

I hope you liked this post. Thank you very much for reading :)