Start by taking an hour to crunch the numbers.

What are your goals? Adding weight? Subtracting? How many calories do you want to shoot for?

Take a stroll through the nutrition information of all your favorite healthy

foods to form some combinations. In addition to looking at the overall calorie count, make sure to keep an eye on your balance of proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

Once you have your raw

menu items, calculate the amount of each food you will need for one week.

The places you store your meals will be critical to your meal prep success. By far the best part about clever container use is that it precludes having to think too much

about portions.

Plan ahead using your math from above, and dedicate each container by size. This way you can build your one-time calculations into a permanent, automatic routine.

Whenever you fill a

container with the food you've selected for it, you will know that you're getting exactly the right amount of that food. This will make it very hard to overindulge.

Now that you have your math and your containers, it's time to get some food. Pick a day of the week that you can reliably fit in a grocery trip (or

to have your subscription foods delivered - another improvement to efficiency).

Keep a list of the items you will need on every trip, and get creative around the edges each

week as you pick up new recipes for your tried and true ingredients. Divide the groceries into a range of most to least perishable, using the more delicate items early in

the week.

Muffin tins are the perfect solution for large-scale prep. Cook yourself a batch of quiches, tarts or even baked eggs right in their shells. Then divide them up into your daily containers.

For a twist on the yummy hot snacks you're preparing in these nifty tins, try freezing smoothies in them for easy consumption all week long. Cut down on that blender

cleaning time!

Just like you have one shopping trip now, you should have one cooking session, too. This might be the single most time-saving part of the whole food-prep idea, so take it

seriously.

Bake, sauté, boil, fry... whatever you're going to do, just do it together, all in one go, until each of your non-toxic containers is loaded up and ready for the

week.

A few things are tricky to combine, like salad dressings. Also, some items won't hold up well, like chopped tomatoes. Work around these problems by cutting out ingredients that are too

delicate, or moving them to the earliest part of your rotation, and by stacking salad meals in jars, dressing on the bottom, only to be shaken up later.

Foods high in protein make especially great all-day snacks, since they replenish the vital amino acids your body needs to build and repair tissue. They also help satisfy hunger faster than

most other foods, making them a preferable lower calorie solution.

Steak is delicious, but other even healthier proteins can be enjoyed in the form of eggs, poultry and fish. For variety and efficiency,

try separating the proteins you are cooking by preparing them in tin-foil trays on one cooking sheet. This way you can flavor each section differently, keeping your menu interesting as the

week progresses.

Keep up the good work on your new system, and don't let the stress get you down. It's ok to eat some of the same things again and again. You don't

always need a new, snazzy recipe.

It's ok to use only a few ingredients in each meal. This is not a complexity contest. And if you want to meet your health goals all

week, choose foods that are both good for you and appealing.

It's all about the portion control. Don't deny yourself the sweetest parts of life, just eat them in the

right amount! After all, what's the point of a healthy life if you're not having fun?