Reimagining Meal Prep Outside of Diet Culture with Talia Koren | #73

Click here to access a written transcript of this episode.

If the idea of meal prep transports you back to tupperware containers filled with sad, flavorless food from your dieting days, you're not alone. For many people, just the thought of planning and preparing food in advance is synonymous with diet culture. And that's a problem when you consider that most of us don't have the time or energy to fly by the seat of our pants every time we need to eat.

That's why I invited Talia Koren, the founder of Workweek Lunch, on the podcast to talk about how to prep your meals without falling back into the diet mentality. Talia is committed to helping her clients stress less about food by using advance planning techniques that don't focus on things like calories and macros. If you're interested in learning how to love meal prep (or at least not dread it), this is the episode for you.

We discussed:

• What led Talia to found Workweek Lunch.
• How Talia defines meal prep and why she thinks it's so valuable.
• Strategies for shifting your mindset around meal prep.
• Why you don't need to micromanage your meals down to the calories and macros.
• What meal prep might look like if you prefer to have a lot of variety in what you're eating.
• How people can ease into meal prep so it's more sustainable.
• Curiosity as an essential ingredient for successful meal prep.
• Navigating food choices outside of diet culture.
• How to not compare your eating to “What I Eat In A Day” posts on social media.
• The inaccuracy of calorie counts in packages, recipes, and fitness trackers.
• How to find answers to the “What do I eat?” question.
• Some of our favorite ways to make foods taste better.
• Sneaky diet culture beliefs it took us a while to get over.
• Ways to make meal prep more fun.
• How Talia defines health and wellness for herself at this moment in her life.

Mentioned in This Episode

• Food Psych podcast with Christy Harrison
• The Intuitive Eating principles
• Pinterest
• Vegan Zuppa Toscana recipe (pro tip: Shohreh uses the Beyond Meat Spicy Italian sausage for this recipe)
• Fancy Sprinkles

Featured in This Episode

Talia Koren (she/her) is the founder of Workweek Lunch, a blog and digital meal plan subscription that helps thousands of people all over the world master meal prep. Talia is a self-taught home cook and she started WWL in 2016 to teach her peers how to cook easy, balanced meals to save time and money. Before WWL, Talia was a staff writer at Elite Daily and worked in the entertainment industry after graduating from Ithaca College in 2014. When she's not developing new recipes for the WWL Meal Prep Program, Talia loves to travel, snowboard, binge watch TV, and explore her new home, Seattle. You can learn more about Talia and Workweek Lunch on her website, Instagram, YouTube channel, and Facebook.

Did you benefit from this episode? You can show your appreciation by supporting Talia's work. Be sure to check out all of Talia's free meal prep tips on her social media channels and sign up for a 7-day free trial of her Workweek Lunch Meal Prep Program.