I used to hate meal prep. It felt like spending my entire Sunday cooking food I’d be bored of by Wednesday. Then I had a string of terrible blood sugar weeks — unpredictable spikes, unexplained lows — and I started paying closer attention to what I was actually eating.
The turning point: consistency. When I ate the same thing for lunch three days in a row, my post-meal numbers became predictable. And predictable blood sugar is, honestly, one of the most relaxing feelings in the world when you have T1D.
The T1D Meal Prep Philosophy
Forget “eating clean” or “eating healthy” — the goal here is dosing accuracy. The more you know about what’s in your food, the better you can estimate your insulin needs. Meal prep eliminates the guesswork.
Here’s what I aim for:
- Known carb counts — weighed and measured, not estimated
- Stable carb sources — foods that digest predictably (no mystery restaurant sauces)
- Protein + fat with every meal — slows digestion, flattens the spike
My Go-To Weekly Prep
Protein Base (Sunday, ~45 minutes)
- 2 lbs sheet-pan chicken thighs (seasoned simply — olive oil, salt, garlic)
- 1 dozen hard-boiled eggs
- 1 lb ground turkey, browned with onion and bell pepper
Carb Base (Sunday, ~30 minutes)
- 2 cups dry brown rice → ~6 cups cooked (~45g carbs per cup cooked)
- Roasted sweet potato cubes (25g carbs per half cup)
- Cauliflower rice for when I want volume without the carb math
Vegetables (no-count)
- Roasted broccoli, zucchini, asparagus
- A big undressed salad base I can add things to all week
The Bolusing Advantage
When lunch is always “3 oz chicken + ½ cup rice + roasted broccoli,” I know it’s roughly 25g carbs, and I know exactly how I respond to it. My pre-bolus timing gets dialed in after a few days of eating the same thing.
That predictability is worth more to me than any fancy recipe.
My Favorite Low-Carb Swap
Cauliflower pizza crust. I know, I know — everyone says this and everyone’s disappointed. But here’s the thing: if you squeeze all the moisture out of the cauliflower before you make the crust, you get something genuinely crispy and satisfying. 8g carbs versus 40g for regular crust. For me, that’s the difference between a manageable bolus and a two-hour guessing game.
Give it a real try. Wring out that cauliflower like your blood sugar depends on it — because it kind of does.