Doing it wrong??
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I adore you already. I raised my two children as a single parent working full-time. I think pre-planned cooking will be your salvation. It's much cheaper than fast food, too. You might check if there is a community kitchen in your neighbourhood. You buy in bulk, make a whole bunch of meals together with a cooking coach, and take home your results for the next week.
Staples I always had on hand: eggs, powdered milk, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. You would be pleasantly surprised how many foods you can make with these few items. Pancakes, biscuits, pizza crust, cake, muffins, scrambled eggs, omelet, to name a few.
Frozen vegetables for your freezer. Then you don't have to worry about them going bad. If you buy fresh vegetables, take small amounts you can finish in a day or two. This also helps you to love your veggies. Long-lasting vegetables are cabbage and carrots.
I use aluminum take-out trays from the dollar store and leftovers are put in the freezer or taken for lunch the next day. I mark each one "350 degrees for twenty minutes" for my cooking-challenged husband. I remind him to take off the paper cover first.
Learn a few basic cooking techniques and you will be good to go.
huffingtonpost.com/the-daily-meal/7-basic-cooking-methods-e_b_4078339.html [/quote
lol your cooking challenged husband. That is not a bad idea though. Labeling them "350 degrees for 20 mins". Sometimes my daughter is home before me, so she could actually put something in the oven for me if needed.0 -
I adore you already. I raised my two children as a single parent working full-time. I think pre-planned cooking will be your salvation. It's much cheaper than fast food, too. You might check if there is a community kitchen in your neighbourhood. You buy in bulk, make a whole bunch of meals together with a cooking coach, and take home your results for the next week.
Staples I always had on hand: eggs, powdered milk, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. You would be pleasantly surprised how many foods you can make with these few items. Pancakes, biscuits, pizza crust, cake, muffins, scrambled eggs, omelet, to name a few.
Frozen vegetables for your freezer. Then you don't have to worry about them going bad. If you buy fresh vegetables, take small amounts you can finish in a day or two. This also helps you to love your veggies. Long-lasting vegetables are cabbage and carrots.
I use aluminum take-out trays from the dollar store and leftovers are put in the freezer or taken for lunch the next day. I mark each one "350 degrees for twenty minutes" for my cooking-challenged husband. I remind him to take off the paper cover first.
Learn a few basic cooking techniques and you will be good to go.
huffingtonpost.com/the-daily-meal/7-basic-cooking-methods-e_b_4078339.html
I concur, cook ahead and do not wait until you are hungry to plan a meal. I try to plan my diary the night before for the whole day and the adjust it as the day unfolds. By planning it I can make sure I am getting a balance of protein/carbs/fat - and I can see that if Mum (inlaw) is fixing spaghetti for tea tonight (which she is).... my snacks and lunch are planned to take in less carbs to offset. Planning and cooking ahead is really the key
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I notice you eat out a lot. That is going to be where a lot of the calories come from. As for cooking I don't cook a whole lot lately but it doesn't take much to make a healthy dinner for yourself. You can whip up an omelet really quick or make some minute brown rice with a few slices of chicken (which you can buy at any grocery store) or even just roll up some turkey with cheddar cheese. It's all about better choices in smaller portions. I personally cut out all soda and very rarely do I ever have coffee anymore. That help me cut out a lot of excess calories. I only drink water and sometimes orange juice. You also need to get in some sort of exercise. Any little bit helps. Try doing crunches on commercial breaks when watching tv or take a family walk around the block after dinner. The little things will add up. The weight won't fall off right away. It'll take time but don't get discouraged! Soon you'll feel pants fit better or the shirt won't be stretched as much. It'll happen but you gotta put in the work. If you have any questions or anything feel free to add me!
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Well loads of great advice here, and you can never get too much advice. absorb it all and than find a path that works for you. Stay with it, and best of luck. You seem such a nice person - we all here are rooting for you.0
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juniebug2013 wrote: »I love your honesty! A lot of people are in complete denial of the food they put in their body, so at least you realize you aren't making the best choices and are willing to make changes. I have found that (for me at least) making too many changes at once sets me up for failure. You could try making one or two significant changes to your diet a week and see if that works better for you.
Like week 1: cut out all sugary drinks, and drink water or tea instead. Try sweetening your tea and coffee with stevia or splenda.
Week 2: continue to avoid sugary drinks, and aim to eat dinner at home at least 5 nights a week instead of fast food. Even if it's the frozen dinners you can microwave, it's probably better than eating out. It will most likely be cheaper, plus when you are at the grocery store you can see right then how many calories are on the box and make better choices. Add a cup of canned soup, or a salad and you have a meal for less than 500-600 calories easy.
Week 3: Continue with week 1 & 2 plus replace 1 snack a day with a healthier alternative like fruit or yogurt.
Obviously cooking at home from scratch and cutting out all the convenience foods completely will be cheaper and healthier for you in the long run, but I understand that it can be hard to transition from grab and go type meals to cooking everything from scratch in one week. Take baby steps and you will get there!
Exactly what this person said! Take it from me, I also had to do a over-haul on myself as well. I, just like you, do not cook either, so this was extremely hard to change. So my first step was to just try to make one meal a day at home. This started with dinner. I buy frozen chicken or seafood (like salmon or cod) and cook in a fry pan with some seasoning and heat-up a vegetable like the Green Giant Steamers, add a side of Instant Minute Wild Rice or Quinoa (think the plate like a pie and 1/2 should be veggie, 1/4 should be protein, and 1/4 should be carb).
Baby steps is absolutely key. In looking at your diary, you seem to consume a lot of liquid calories (sweet tea, Gatorade, coffee shop drinks). Try to eliminate these completely first and only have if you know you are low on your calories for the day and treat yourself to a treat. Drink more regular teas (some flavored teas, you will find, will totally make-up for this. I buy green tea with pomegranate, and it's delicious!).
Also, follow the others advice and plan your meals out for the week, once you get comfortable with cooking. My roommate does her meals on Sunday and makes a casserole dish or crock-pot and then puts them in serving size containers in our fridge to take-out and heat-up for her lunch or dinner during the week.
Again, use these as baby steps. Otherwise it will seem like a chore and something that is hard to stick to for life. That's what this is all about, making life choices for you and your family.
You can do this!0 -
On the eating out, I eat out way too often, but there are health(ier) options. Veggie burrito bowl from Chipotle, rather than a hamburger and fries from McD, for example.
With the cooking, the internet is your friend. I, personally, add the word "easy" when looking for a recipe. It usually brings up the more basic recipes. Some things are incredibly easy to make.
I do a lot of soup for lunch too. Generally easy to make (I make a bunch then freeze) and filling. Canned soup has a lot of sodium, but homemade does not.0 -
I have been where you are. I was you! Abusive relationship, divorce where I left with nothing but one paycheck, no money for anything, I totally get it.
You are doing a great thing trying to turn your life around, and it's hard to turn so many different areas around at once but you CAN do it! Good for you!
I'm repeating what a lot of other people have said on here, but you are making a lot of bad eating choices. You can eat a LOT of food if you are eating "better" foods, and you won't feel hungry. It makes the weight loss journey a lot more bearable if you don't feel deprived.
Stay out of Starbuck's. You're drinking almost a whole meal of calories with their frappuccinos. A little planning ahead will help you not have to go to Burger King and other places and have those 800 and 900 calorie meals. If you have time to eat Captain Crunch, you have time to eat other things.
I make up a big batch of steel cut oats (I think these keep you more full and taste better than rolled oats) and keep them in the fridge. I warm up a portion every morning and eat that. On days where I don't want that, I toast a 100 calorie English muffin, scramble 1/2 cup of Egg Beaters, and add some fat free cheese and make my own version of an Egg McMuffin. Very quick, and both meals hold me until lunch.
Buy a 5 lb. package of boneless/skinless chicken for about $10 (it's $1.99 a lb at Walmart). Cook them on the weekend and eat on them all week. You can put the chicken on salads, spoon a little sauce on them and have veggies as sides, shred it for tacos, etc. You can make that protein go a LONG way.
Last night I made a big batch of turkey/beef meatballs that are 30 calories each - the recipe is on my page. That with a cup of regular spaghetti (you can use other options too, but let's go with the easiest option here) and a bit of spaghetti sauce isn't a super high calorie meal and will make you feel like you are eating "junk" food but it's really not so bad. And, one batch made 78 meatballs so you can eat on it all week. You can also add shredded carrots/zucchini to the meatballs if you want to add more nutrition, but I'm trying to get you moving with baby steps here.
A big batch of soup on the weekend would also be easy to take to work during the week.0 -
Thank you so much for all the advice. More then I thought I would get. Really good advice. Most of my eating is never planned, and it is basically I'm hungry, grab something and go. I normally eat at home for breakfast on the weekdays. But lunch and dinner is always something. I have to bring a lunch to work, so most of those meals are random things I can find that will stay edible in my lunch box, and that will fit in my lunch box. So thats why you see alot of prepackaged stuff. I really love the carrots, hummus, with sunflower seeds. Which is interesting because I never liked hummus before, but when they put sunflower seeds in it, I loved it. Sometimes I would eat smart ones meals, but those are loaded with sodium.
For dinner, is almost always fast food. Mcdonalds, burger king, sometimes we would "treat" ourselves and go to a healthier restaurant like Dennys. LOL I know I have a warped since of what is healthy. My go to meal at Mcdonalds is usually a double cheese burger, small fry, large sweet tea, and small caramel frappe. So thats how I was easily eating 3000 calories or more a day. If you look at my first day of tracking, that shows what I ate without trying to eat healthy or lessen what I was eating. Horrible.
I plan on exercising Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I started going to a gym called Trinity fitness. Its kind of like crossfit. Saturdays they have a workout for kids, so while I'm working out my daughter can. She loved it when we went saturday. It's about 25 mins long and we do hard core, running, weight lifting, squats, burpees, etc. I had to modify almost all of it. But the days after my thighs hurt so much.
I have a stationary bike at home, so I planned when I wasn't going to the gym, I could ride that, while watching the biggest loser. That only seems to hold my attention for like 10 minutes.
I also have turbo fire, hip hop abs, and body gospel beach body dvds. Turbo fire is fun, but to hard for me right now. HIp hop abs is so fun, I love to shake my butt, but I stopped doing it because I went to the gym, and then my body hurt so much.
So I'm going to try to switch off with those. But I don't know if I should track my workouts on mfp because it tends to give me a lot more calories.0 -
Just remember, you cannot out exercise a bad diet.0
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OP, it sounds like you've made a ton of changes in the past few years to turn your life completely around. That must have been scary and difficult, but you did it. You're out of an abusive relationship, you've gone back to school, you're independent and raising a daughter who will be independent and healthy too. And now you're looking to tackle food and weight.
You most certainly have what it takes. If you could do all that, you can do this!
Cooking and recipes don't have to be difficult. Sure, there are lots of ways you can cook fancy meals. But there are also really easy, inexpensive and quick meals that don't take much prep work and that have a very shallow learning curve to master.
I will sometimes cook something more involved when I have people over, but most of the time at home I stick to my tried and true "5 ingredients or less, 5 minutes of prep or less" recipes.
Easiest thing in the world is to take some lean meat (e.g. chicken breast) or healthy fish (e.g. salmon) and just throw some herbs and seasoning and a tiny little bit olive oil on them and just put them in a foil pan in the oven for 45 minutes or so. Takes five seconds, voila, healthy meal. If you're worried about food safety, there are guidelines on the USDA website, or pick up a food thermometer if you want to be extra safe.
Chop up some veggies like broccoli, zucchini or bell peppers (or whatever is cheap or on special) with a bit of salt, pepper or vegetable spice and a teensy bit of olive oil and put them in another pan beside it and roast them while the meat is baking. There are endless variations on this theme and they're all healthy and satisfying.
Salads are good too, but don't bother with the pre-bagged stuff; you'll pay more, and, as you've noted, it will wilt quickly. Instead, just buy some greens and some veggies -- clip coupons and note what's on sale that week -- and throw them in a bowl. Put some protein on top, like canned tuna or grilled chicken breast, and voila, instant meal. Careful on dressing: I like to add just a teaspoon of oil and a teaspoon of vinegar to mine, I find it gives plenty of flavour without too many calories.
Stir-fry is another really easy one to master. Just throw everything into a wok or pan on the stove, mix it up until it's cooked, and voila, recipe!
Double or triple recipes so that you and your daughter can have leftovers for a few days. Just portion off the extra in tupperware or similar containers and store them in the fridge. Then you can take them for lunch to work, send your daughter to school with healthy lunches, or re-heat them the next nights for dinner.
Cooking doesn't have to be scary or cumbersome. You've done the hardest parts already. The rest is just a matter of building some new habits. Once you master one or two easy things to cook, you'll gain confidence; the rest is smooth sailing.0 -
true, and it just makes me more hungry.BodyByButter wrote: »Just remember, you cannot out exercise a bad diet.
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"Cooking doesn't have to be scary or cumbersome. You've done the hardest parts already. The rest is just a matter of building some new habits. Once you master one or two easy things to cook, you'll gain confidence; the rest is smooth sailing."
Your post was well said. Thank you.0 -
to go off that point.... I always double / triple cook then I have lunch for the rest of the week or dinner on some night that I don't feel like cooking. My fridge looks like a tupperware grave yard lol0
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Another good one: Soups. They're so easy to make and so delicious. If you cook up a big pot of soup on a weekend day, and portion it in single portions and freeze it. Then you can defrost and reheat it at home or work for days or weeks afterwards.0
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I am a fairly accomplished cook, but soups confound me. My daughter on the other hand, delicious! So I've been asking her for tips. Right off I found out I was simmering wayyyy too long. My turkey soup this year was not too bad if I say so myself. No leftovers!0
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Tupperware grave yard. lol Hopefully you don't have any mold growing in them. That usually happens to me when I have left overs. yuck.
My daughter will probably end up surpassing me in the cooking. She is only 11 and already likes to cook. She only knows how to make eggs though. But she will get excited when I let her make her eggs.0 -
I buy lettuce and chop it all on Sunday. As long as I keep it in an airtight container, it will not brown all week. I will prepare the salad the night before by transferring some lettuce to a smaller airtight container and I throw a little cheese in and meat, either chicken, turkey, or ham. Then I bring carrots, greek yogurt, apples, or a granola bar. Whatever I am in the mood for. It is pretty cheap to eat that way.0
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Awesome advice from everyone-I actually read all of it! 0
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tiffnkailey wrote: »I got in a weird habit of eating a huge bowl of capt n crunch in the mornings. That stuff is like a drug. Prolly all the sugar. I have one serving left and then I'm out. So I won't be buying anymore of that.
I too am a huge fan of sugary cereal. I have switched to rice chex and use a small amount of Silk Vanilla Soy Milk. That gives it a little sweeter taste.0 -
I don't let leftovers take over by either eating them the next day at lunch or freezing the extra. I must be honest with myself; if we didn't enjoy the meal that much the first time, it's not going to be any more fun reheated. Toss it already. It's still cheaper than eating out.0
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