Are Meal Prep Services Worth The Cost?

I used to be the queen of Meal Prep Sunday - I would head to Costco on Saturday afternoon and cook all of my eggs, fish, and veggies on Sunday. It would take hours - I didn’t mind at the time, as I made my own schedule and I do enjoy cooking. Things have changed a bit and I now have a full time office job on top of my personal training business.

One thing that has simplified my meal prep routine is ordering from a meal prep service instead. I gave Icon Meals a try last fall and was hooked right away! At first I just ordered lunches, as that is the main meal I eat at the office. After a while, I ended up ordering a lot of my dinners as well for nights when I just wanted to come home and heat something up. I always thought meal prep services were kind of pricey, but when I started comparing the prices compared to making my own meals, they came out about even. Not to mention the time - I can now spend that time on my business or with my loved ones and avoid the lines at Costco.

What do I typically order? Since I don’t eat meat, I stick with the seafood options. The shrimp with fajita veggies (hint: throw in some sriracha cashews for an extra kick) is my go-to lunch on rest days when carbs are a little lower. On training days I’ll have a shrimp fajita bowl, shrimp with brown rice and veggies, or cod with mashed sweet potatoes and green beans. For dinner, I almost always order a custom meal of salmon, sweet potato wedges, and asparagus. Sometimes I'll add some avocado to the mix!

I also use the ICONIC Seasonings for my fish and veggies - my current favorites are the Hawaiian BBQ and the Garlic Beer.

The other benefit to having ICON Meals is they come temperature controlled (shipped via FedEx overnight with dry ice), so I can keep them in my freezer until I decide to eat them. Some weeks I cook a little more and will save the frozen meals without wasting food. They come vacuum sealed and always taste super fresh, plus they don’t smell up the kitchen when you heat them up (I can bring cod to work and my coworkers don’t hate me).

I’ve also brought ICON Meals on trips to Disney and Universal. While I usually sneak some fun foods into my macros on those trips, I like to have some healthy meals readily available to keep me on track.

Using a meal prep service has helped me hit my macros while having busy work schedule and has fit well within my budget. Think you might benefit from this? Give Icon Meals a try!

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