We may earn a commission from links on this page.When you get serious about your fitness goals, one first step is usually to get your nutrition in order. You want to get enough protein to support your muscles, fruits and vegetables for health, carbs for fuel, and a total amount of calories that supports your activity and your goals without undereating or overeating.Preparing your meals ahead of time ("meal prepping") really helps with that. Instead of deciding what to have for lunch, you just grab a container from the fridge and heat up what's in it. You can't beat that convenience, and prepping makes sure you're staying on track with your plan. A bodybuilder who eats the stereotypical chicken and broccoli for lunch every day may get bored with his meals but he also knows how much protein hes getting without even thinking about it. (You, of course, will make something tastier.)But meal-prepping has its pitfalls. Maybe you will get bored with your meals. Or maybe you wont even get that far, and youll burn out just from the mental and physical effort of cooking a whole weeks meals at once. With that in mind, here are some beginner tips to ease into the process with your sanity intact.Have a go-to breakfastBefore we start prepping anything, lets start planning. Most of us are fine with eating the same breakfast every day, and theres a good chance you already have a few favorite breakfasts that you can throw together quickly before youve fully woken up. So, your first step is to come up with a breakfast that fits your macros and that is easy to prepare. Were taking baby steps here, so dont worry too much about prepping this ahead of time. Just make sure that it will be ready when breakfast time arrives. For example, maybe your breakfast is yogurt and fruit. Thats easy enough: Buy some yogurt and buy some fruit. In the morning, you can put the two together. Or you can make something the night before to grab on your way out the door. A smoothie in a jar is perfectjust shake it in the morning and it's ready to drink. (Don't use ice, since ice melts, but frozen fruit is fine.) Or for another option, I like to make Bircher muesli two servings at a time, since each calls for half an apple. So on Sunday night, Ill prep jars for Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday night Ill make another pair.Save your takeout containersWhen you start packing up dinners and lunches, youll need something to put them in. While cute little bento-esque Tupperwares may look nice, you may decide you dont actually want all those divided containers. Or the boxes you buy may turn out to be the wrong size once you start filling them. Save money and time by selecting one or two types of takeout container that you get plenty of, and save those whenever you get them. I like the flat rectangular ones and the round one-pint soup containers. Once you've figured out what you like, I'll admit there is a convenience to buying yourself some containers. Here's a fresh 50-pack of those rectangle containers, to save you from having to eat 50 takeout meals first. And if, unlike me, you enjoy packing lunches bento-style, you can get divided containers. (I like eating bento lunches, but it's work to come up with something to fill each compartment. Much easier to make a one-pot dish that fills the container by itself.) Moretoes 30-Pack Meal Prep Containers $12.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $12.99 at Amazon For something more durable, these are made of thicker plastic. I'm too clumsy to be trusted with glass containers, but perhaps you are not. These are more expensive than the options abovearound $5 each, while the semi-disposables were more like 50 centsbut they'll last forever if you take care of them. While you're gathering your supplies, make sure to grab a Sharpie and some masking tape (or, if you prefer, fancy labels). Label each meal, even if it's a simple reminder like "PASTA" or "CHICKEN," so that you can tell your lunches apart. If you're prepping for more than one person, you can add names as well.Make one meal at a timeAfter you get into the habit of eating your planned breakfast every day, the next step is to choose a second meal. For most of us, it will be lunch. This way, you have your first two meals taken care of, and youre still free to make any dinner plans you like. (It is fine if you never advance past this stage.) I also recommend, at least at first, not planning for seven days at a time. Since I work a Monday-through-Friday job, I like to prep my weekday meals and then wing it on the weekends. (A weekend menu for me usually involves my regular breakfast, some kind of meal scrounged from leftovers, and often a takeout meal or two.) For your first foray into cooking for the week, I recommend finding a recipe that makes three servings. Two such recipes will get you through the work week with one to spare. You can even alternate the two meals. An important food safety tip: Meals prepped on Sunday arent going to be in the greatest shape come Saturday. I recommend choosing one of the following strategies: On Sunday, make one dish and divide it up for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday meals; then on Wednesday night, make another three-serving dish for the second half of the week. On Sunday, make both your dishes so you can alternate. Pop three of the meals into the freezer. Then, on Tuesday or Wednesday, take them out of the freezer to begin to thaw. If a meal is still slightly frosty at mealtime, just microwave it a little longer.Try a recipe before you commitReady to start making that first meal? Hold up: Did you choose a recipe you actually like? Im not asking whether it looks good in photos. The ideal meal prep recipe is something that you have not only eaten in the past, but also one where you have an idea of how well it reheats. That means that you can stay off the recipe websites for now. Choose an old favorite; you can get experimental later. And if you ever become tempted to make, say, a months worth of food on your meal prep day, definitely try that exact recipe out in a one-week batch first. Be lazyThis is honestly my most important tip. When I started meal prepping, Id spend an entire Sunday afternoon shopping and cooking. My feet would ache and my other household chores would be unfinished. No time or effort was saved; it was just moved. Ive gotten better since then. One of my favorite meal preps is to buy two bags of Trader Joes chimichurri rice and a pound of ground beef, heat each of them up appropriately, and combine them. The job is done in barely 15 minutes, and I now have four lunches for the week that each fit perfectly into one of those round soup containers. Do I care that Mr. Joe gets half the credit for my culinary artistry? I do not.Even when cooking from scratch, it's not cheating to find ways to be more efficient. Buy frozen veggies, since theyre already chopped. Get a rice cooker if you find yourself using rice for a lot of your meals. If theres a special homemade sauce or condiment you want to use, allow yourself that one labor-intensive item, and make sure your other tasks are simple ones. For example, most items in the animal and vegetable kingdoms can be thrown onto a sheet pan and roasted. Ill buy some frozen fish and fresh or frozen veggies (both very healthy options, sometimes more so than fresh) and then roast a tray of each with appropriate seasonings. (Olive oil and garlic salt are perfect for broccoli or, to be honest, any vegetable.) Chicken tenderloins marinated in mayo are another protein option that go with anything and can be prepared en masse. Thanks to the extra moisture, they reheat superbly well.You get the idea: Make a lazy meal, make no more of it than you will actually eat, and pack it into the containers that you already have around. Dont expect to get everything perfect at first; youll refine your workflow over time.

Sony's CES 2025 press conference was huge on the entertainment front if you're a PlayStation fan. In a series of rapid-fire announcements, the company announced it was making an anime based on Ghost of Tsushima Legends, the cooperative multiplayer mode from the acclaimed game. It then followed that up with news that Columbia Pictures was in the early stages of developing a movie based on the post-apocalyptic PlayStation game Horizon Zero Dawn. Finally, Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog popped out to announce that season two of The Last of Us would hit HBO in April.We already know a fair bit about The Last of Us season two its based on 2020's The Last of Us Part 2, but it won't take us through all of the events of the second game. It'll take at least two seasons to retell the story of that terrific but complex misery simulator. This season, Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Catherine O'Hara and Jeffery Wright join season one veterans Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.The other projects remain a mystery for now. A bit over two years ago, we heard that Horizon Zero Dawn was being adapted as a series for Netflix, but the project eventually fell apart. I'm definitely curious to see how they'll streamline the game's sprawling storyline into a tight narrative for a two-hour movie (or even a three-hour one), but hopefully a strong creative team is behind this one.As for Ghost of Tsushima, it's another of the most well-regarded and popular PlayStation Studios titles, with a sequel on the way, so this is just another example of Sony using some of its best gaming titles to expand into the broader entertainment space making these stories more accessible to people who are less likely to play a 20-to-40-hour game. After the event, Sony said that the series will premiere exclusively on Crunchyroll in 2027.On a personal note, The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn are two of my favorite games of all time, so this 10-minute blast of good news was most welcome in the middle of a very long day at CES!Update, January 7, 2:40PM ET: This story was updated to add a release window at platform for the Ghost of Tsushima anime.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-last-of-us-season-2-arrives-in-april-and-a-horizon-zero-dawn-film-is-in-the-works-020950940.html?src=rss

The National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the remote parking features in some Tesla vehicles. The tools in question are Smart Summon and the unfortunately acronymed Actual Smart Summon, which uses cameras in the car to automatically control the parking process.The agency's Office of Defects Investigation has received 12 complaints of alleged crashes from the Smart Summon feature and one complaint about Actual Smart Summon use allegedly resulting in a crash. It has also reviewed three media reports of seemingly similar collisions involving Actual Smart Summon where the driver did not have the time to react to avoid a crash. The remote parking feature is available in an estimated 2.6 million vehicles, including the 2016-2025 Model S, 2016 Model X, 2018-2025 Model Xs, 2019-2025 Model 3s, and 2019-2025 Model Ys.Tesla reported its first ever drop in deliveries at the start of the month. The company reported about 1.78 million vehicle deliveries over 2024, compared with 1.81 million in 2023.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/nhtsa-opens-investigation-into-tesla-remote-parking-features-194559802.html?src=rss

As it did last year, TCL is showing off a new generation of NXTPAPER tech this week at CES. The new NXTPAPER 11 Plus tablet is built around the also new NXTPAPER 4.0 screen which uses a "nano-matrix lithography to improve clarity and sharpness. The color accuracy is better as well, with the new output measuring just one on the Delta-E scale (the metric measures how the human eye perceives color differences and any value of one or lower is said to be imperceptible to the human eye). Since its launch in 2021, the goal of NXTPAPER tech has been to create a screen that's easier on the eyes and now, unsurprisingly, AI is here to help with that. The NXTPAPER 11 Plus has an AI-powered Smart Eye Comfort Mode that adjusts output based on different usage scenario and the Personalized Eye Comfort Modes let users adjust eye-comfort settings to their liking. Features like NXTPAPER's paper-like matte finish and blue light purification technologies go further to help make the screen easier to look at for longer periods. The new tablet will support Googles Circle to Search feature and the Smart Voice Memo function will transcribe and summarize recordings. There's a Smart Translator to handle language from voice, text and images and AI Subtitles offers real-time dialog transcription. TCLs NXTPAPER tech is relatively unique in the display industry, providing something that looks almost like E-Ink, but with the speed, resolution and sharpness of a traditional LCD display. Pricing and availability for the NXTPAPER 11 Plus are still forthcoming. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/tcl-announces-the-nxtpaper-11-plus-tablet-at-ces-2025-featuring-a-new-nano-etched-display-190042475.html?src=rss

27-inch Lenovo ThinkCentre M90a Pro Gen 6 offers on-device personal AI.

Nvidia claims RTX 5090 exceeds 800 fps in Valorant and that its a pro gamers dream GPU for low latency and smooth frame rates.

Manufacturers are targeting safer user experiences, and Dell's new UltraSharp monitors are no different.

Want more housing market stories from Lance LambertsResiClubin your inbox?Subscribeto theResiClubnewsletter.Morgan Stanley forecasts that nationally aggregated home prices are likely to fall 2% this year.This is a particularly bearish view compared to other forecasters. Among the 26 firms tracked by ResiClub, the average U.S. home price forecast for 2025 is a 2.7% increase.We believe the housing market, and home prices in particular, are on a healthy foundation, Jim Egan, Morgan Stanleys head of housing market research, told ResiClub. We by no means view this as a correction in [national] home pricesjust the dynamic introduced by increasing inventories, allowing home price appreciation to dip below 0%.Morgan Stanleys home price appreciation forecast is based on an analysis of several factors, including demand for shelter, housing supply (both existing homes for sale and new construction), affordability, and the availability and quality of mortgage credit. The firms bearish 2025 outlook is driven by the U.S. housing markets intertwined affordability and supply dynamics.Although total active listings are among the lowest in decades, supply is increasing. According to Morgan Stanleys December housing tracker, for-sale housing inventory has risen 15% year-over-year.It is this inventory growth that we believe has contributed to the slowdown in home price appreciation over the past several months, Egan says. We think that continued growth in for-sale inventory in 2025 will lead to further slowing in home price appreciation, eventually bringing it below 0% by the end of the year, leading to our -2% forecast.After this years slowdown in home price appreciation, Morgan Stanley predicts national home price growth will re-accelerate to +3% in 2026.Meanwhile, affordability has improved from Q4 2023, even when the recent increase in mortgage rates since mid-September is factored in, Egan says.However, it is important to note that housing affordability remains more challenging than it has been for most of the past 40 years. This marginal improvement in affordability has yet to increase home sales volumes significantly, with supply reacting faster than demand to the broader decrease in mortgage rates. However, Egan does expect sales volumes to climb in 2025.We think we are seeing green shoots in the form of year-over-year increases in both pending home sales and mortgage applications for purchase over the past few monthsthe first time either has shown year-over-year growth since 2021, he says. That being said, the backdrop of challenged affordability and limited inventory should keep home sales growth modest.In addition to the official -2% home price appreciation forecast, the investment bank also accounts for unforeseen macro developments providing bull case and bear case forecasts.Morgan Stanleys housing researchers suggest that if demand responds stronger than anticipated to lower mortgage rates, home prices could continue to grow in 2025. This would support the firms bull case, which predicts national home price appreciation at +5%.On the flip side, if supply increases faster than expected, with strained affordability keeping buyers on the sidelines, this would contribute to Morgan Stanleys bear case, which calls for a -5% decline in home prices in 2025.After this years home price appreciation slowdown, Morgan Stanley predicts national home price growth to re-accelerate to +3% in 2026, Egan told ResiClub.

On Tuesday, Girl Scouts of the USA kicked off its 2025 cookie season. (As a former Girl Scout, I can say that finding inventive ways to sell cookies was my first experience as an entrepreneur.)Some bad news for Girl Scout cookie-lovers, though: The organization will no longer be making two popular flavors, Smores and Toast-Yay! However, fans will still have a chance to stock up on them before they are officially retired in 2026.For the Girl Scouts, who have been in the cookie business for 100 years, these two flavors are relatively new. Smores cookies, introducedin 2017, taste just like youd imagine: marshmallow and chocolate filling sandwiched between graham cracker cookies. Toast-Yay! tastes like French toast dipped in icing and debuted just four years ago. Availability of the soon-to-be-retired varieties will vary depending on customer location.(Another flavor, Raspberry Rally, was discontinued in 2023.)Hungry yet? (I am.) If youre looking to order some Girl Scout cookies now, heres what to know:Girl Scout cookie 2025 line-upAs the Girl Scouts like to say, the future is sweet, and so is this years cookie lineup, which is jam-packed with classics including the top three best-selling Girl Scout Cookies: Thin Mints (my favorite), Caramel deLites/Samoas, and Peanut Butter Patties/Tagalongs. There are no new cookies this season.Heres the full list:Do-si-dos (or Peanut Butter Sandwiches)Thin MintsSamoas (or Caramel deLites)Tagalongs (or Peanut Butter Patties)AdventurefulsCaramel Chocolate ChipLemonadesLemon-UpsToffee-tasticTrefoilsPlus: Smores and Toast-Yay! (locations may vary)How to purchase Girl Scout cookies If you know a registered Girl Scout, reach out to her.Beginning February 21, customers who do not already know a Girl Scout will also be able to buy and ship cookies to their home using the Girl Scout Cookie Finder.You can also text COOKIES to 59618 to stay informed about how to purchase Girl Scout Cookies.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a $20 billion new investment to build data centers across the United States.At a news conference at his home in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said the investor is Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani, chairman of DAMAC properties.Trump introduced Hussain Sajwani, chairman of DAMAC Properties, as one of the most respected business leaders in the Middle East, indeed the world.Big technology companies have been racing over the past year to set up data centers essential for powering generative artificial intelligence applications such as OpenAIs ChatGPT and Google Gemini, which require immense computing power. Microsoft said last week it would spend about $80 billion this fiscal year to ramp up its AI capacity. Overall, global spending on procurement and installation of mechanical and electrical systems for data centers is likely to exceed $250 billion by 2030, McKinsey estimates.(This story has been refiled to drop extraneous words in paragraph 1)Steve Holland and Aditya Soni; writing by Doina Chiacu, Reuters