Keto Meal Prep 101: Grab-and-Go Protein as Insurance Against the Bad Day

2021-01-19

A 28-minute Facebook Live from January 2021, filmed on a rowing machine, the second of two broadcasts that night. The question is whether you have to meal prep to do keto. My answer, from the first minute: yes. But my idea of meal prep here is much lazier than plastic boxes of chicken and broccoli. It isn't on YouTube.

In this recording

[0:00] On the rowing machine. Meal prep: should you, and what if you can't cook, or don't have much money?
[0:23] My position up front: you should do meal prep.
[1:18] Snack foods lean on carbs plus fat, with little protein. Fries and a Coke, pizza, ice cream.
[2:58] When the most successful people in the group slip, it's almost always a grab-and-go moment: a bad day after work, cupcakes in the break room, nothing ready.
[4:15] Part A, grab-and-go snacks: cooked bacon, seasoned chicken bites from one sheet pan.
[5:39] Not a cook? String cheese, cheese squares, boiled eggs, pre-grilled chicken, pre-cooked bacon, pepperoni, charcuterie, deli meat.
[7:34] Nuts too. Some people overeat them, but at least they're not carbs.
[8:27] The defence against standing at the fridge "like a feral hog."
[9:44] If you don't use them, the worst case is you throw them out.
[10:43] Freezer meals and takeout count. A high-protein fast-food burger in the fridge beats nothing.
[11:50] Part B, meal planning. Not everyone can eat the same box five days running.
[12:23] Stall breaker's chicken and broccoli can become Alfredo or a stir-fry.
[13:09] Restaurants are stingy with the chicken on a salad. Add your own protein: boiled eggs instead of croutons, extra chicken.
[15:17] Protein-to-fat ratios: sirloin, chicken, tuna and white fish.
[15:49] Family pasta night: a shrimp cocktail or sliced London broil for you, skip the noodles.
[16:21] Cook one ribeye and two chicken breasts at the start of the week. Not a meal, just cooked protein on hand.
[17:25] Rotisserie chicken and deli meat do the same job if you don't want to cook.
[20:05] Can't afford it? Look at the money already going on chips and cookies.
[22:13] Get as simple as your life needs. Pay for the labour if you must.
[25:41] I'm not selling anything any more. Share your prep ideas in the group.
[26:45] I'm up in weight myself, so I'll be back too.

Watching this in 2026

This one holds up better than most of my early videos, mostly because I wasn't arguing with anybody. The core idea is right: plans don't usually fail on a good day. They fail at 7 p.m. after a bad one, when the only thing within reach is crackers.

What I'd keep is the definition. Meal prep doesn't mean five matching boxes. It means making sure there is something high in protein you can eat in under a minute. A bag of string cheese counts. So does a rotisserie chicken. That's a lower bar than most people think they have to clear, and I think that's why it works.

I'd also say one thing more gently. At [9:44] I said the worst case is you throw the food out. That's true, but some people can't afford to waste, and at [20:05] my answer to "I can't afford it" was to look at the money already going on chips and cookies. That works for some households. For others the cheaper move is a cheap cut in the slow cooker once a week, like the pork chops I did in 2019.

The claim worth unpacking: put protein on the plate and it pushes other food off

At [13:25] I said that adding protein makes you fuller, which pushes other things off the plate. That one has support. In Weigle et al., 2005, raising protein from 15% to 30% of energy, with carbs held constant, cut free-choice intake by about 441 kcal a day, and people lost about 4.9 kg over 12 weeks. A review by Leidy et al., 2015 links about 1.2–1.6 g per kg a day, with about 25–30 g per meal, to better appetite control and weight management. That per-meal figure is a fair test of a restaurant salad. If the chicken on it is half a breast, as I complained at [13:09], adding two eggs or some extra chicken gets you closer.

There's a second reason to keep protein up while dieting. Across 24 trials with 1,063 people, energy-restricted high-protein diets gave modestly more fat loss and less loss of lean mass (Wycherley et al., 2012).

If you have kidney disease, your protein target is your doctor's call. See protein and kidneys.

Then vs now

In 2019 my meal prep was cooking: a few minutes of slow-cooker pork chops. In this 2021 Live I'd moved toward buying the labour: deli meat, pre-grilled chicken, takeout salads "doctored" with protein. The goal didn't change. In the 2019 Men's Health Live I was already steering people to lean protein (white fish, chicken, tuna) during weight loss, and that's the backbone of this one too.

The other change is me. In 2019 I closed the full Men's Health Live with a coaching offer (live DDZH9703). Here I said I wasn't selling anything any more, and that if any money came in it would go to a charity (live DLZI1631). I also said, on camera, that I'd put weight back on and was using the group to get it off. That's the honest version of "keto made easy": it's easier, not automatic.

One line to check for yourself: at [6:34] I guessed pre-cooked chicken keeps "like 10 days" and said I didn't know the rules. Don't go by my guess. Look up current food-safety guidance for cooked poultry.

Key points

Meal prep means having ready-to-eat protein on hand, not cooking five identical lunches.
Slip-ups tend to happen in grab-and-go moments. String cheese, eggs, deli meat and rotisserie chicken are the insurance.
Add protein to takeout and family meals instead of trying to cook everything from scratch.
More protein tends to mean eating less overall (Weigle 2005). Roughly 25–30 g per meal is a useful target (Leidy 2015).
Kidney disease, diabetes medication or pregnancy: talk to your doctor before changing protein or carbs much.