This article was written by Martin Khoo, who is the director and owner of the Bespoke-Fitness, personal training studio in Glasgow, West Regent Street.

Better Than A Sandwich

Often when I sit down with a new client for the first time and have a little chat about nutrition, I ask them what they have for lunch, and often the answer is something “convenient”. Something convenient is normally a store bought sandwich. I want my clients to get a bigger nutrient bang for their buck than a sandwich. What if we could massively improve the nutrient density of lunch, make it convenient, and save money? Well we can and it's called: batch cooking. Get ready to be the envy of the office while delivering all the nutrients you need to for a healthier body.

Reason 1# Convenience

No more walking to the shops, standing in queues, or being at the mercy of what your local supermarket has in stock. You no longer have to wander round the shops thinking "what do i fancy?". Instead, for 20-30 mins of effort of chopping and cooking on a sunday, you have lunch for 5 days. All you'll need is a microwave at work and your sorted. And youve saved about 20 mins of lunchtime to do whatever you want. Yes life is great, and your winning!

Reason 2# Its Money Saving

It is possible to buy high quality convenience food such as fresh sushi, but this will hit your wallet to about the tune of £15 which most people are unwilling to pay every day and understandably so. I can make a casserole with a kg of grass fed beef, organic veg, bone stock, and a side of rice with green veg for £3.50 a day. That's cheaper than a terrible sandwich! You'll probably be able to go on that second holiday to Tenerife by the end of the year with all the money you've saved.

Reason 3# Delivering Nutrients

I want clients eating lunches that increase health reserves, provides the building blocks for muscle, stabilises their blood sugar levels, and enhances their energy levels. Bulk cooking foods the right foods will make this so much easier. It puts you in full control of what you eat and I'v included 3 of my favourite nutrient dense meals in this article.

Bulk cooking is simply cooking a few more portions to what you would normally cook so just multiply all your ingredients by 4 or 5 and you have lunch sorted for every day of the week. Normally I’ll bulk cook 2 meals at 4 portions each, one batch a Sunday and one batch on a Monday. That gives me some variety for lunch and some dinners for those days I work a bit later and have less time to cook.

How I Batch Cook

I aim to cook batches that will provide me with 4-5 days of lunches. I'll do it on a Sunday afternoon or evening, if I'm going out I'll just stick on the slow cooker for when I'm back. In terms of storing my bulk cooked foods I put them in Pyrex containers, cool them down in cold water in the sink, and then pop them into the fridge. But you can also freeze your portions individually. When it comes to reheating meals, I find 3 mins in the microwave normally does the job and if frozen, adding an extra 1 min and 30 secs should to the trick. If I cook a casserole, or something similar, I’ll normally buy some microwave rice and green veg to go with it.