Question about your leftovers

grace173

Hi all,

I was just wondering how you feel about leftovers and overall nutrition from them. Let me explain. Say you make a big pot of vegetarian chili or something like that. You have it for dinner that day but you have enough left in the pot to have it for dinner for the next 3 days. My question is do you freeze it or do you have it for days until it is gone.

The saying goes variety is the spice of life and I had a recent discussion with a friend who said that I should not have the same nutrition for days and that I should change my nutrition daily.

I was just wondering what you all do/think?

Thank you.

CasperNaegle

We save stuff all the time.. In fact we brown up our turkey and lean beef, grill things in large quantities to eat throughout the week.

WBB55

If it's something like chili, you could eat that for 3 dinners straight and not worry. Chili has a variety of things already in it. Beans, veggies... depending on what you make it with.

PERSONALLY, for me, leftovers get frozen in individual containers as work lunches.

DemoraFairy

I would personally just eat it each following day. I eat the same breakfast and lunch each day (each weekday at least, anyway) and have a small number of dinners that I eat.

I would say I never bother to freeze leftovers, but that's because I never have leftovers haha.

ExRelaySprinter

I would freeze it and have it again a few days later.
Changing your Meals daily isn't necessary at all!
It is good to have a variety of things to eat, but that's not always possible for some people.

KateTii

I feel that if you are happy to eat the same thing four days in a row, go ahead. If you want to freeze it and eat it over a month, go ahead.

The only reason eating the exact same things (breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks) day in day out would be bad is if it caused a lack of a certain nutrient/s. But having veggie chilli for dinner three nights in a row isn't going to hurt. You're bound to have a different breakfast/lunch/snack each day - so if the chilli is missing something your body needs, you're probably going to get it from some other food.

Your body doesn't know where the nutrients have come from, just it knows it needs them and that yep they are there/not there. It's not going to go "ugh chilli again?? Nope, can't do it, i'd rather get scurvy/starve/be nutritionally depleted"

lemurcat12

I don't think it matters. I usually don't bother freezing and just have it until it's gone (since I use it for lunches it generally doesn't take long).

My thought is that variety is good, but that over human history it certainly would have been common to eat the same basic things a lot -- whatever was locally available and in season, a large animal that was killed, that kind of thing. We shouldn't overthink it -- humans are really quite resilient.

If you'd get bored repeating it so soon, however, that might be a consideration. I don't really, since I get enough variety otherwise and will vary sides and so on.

DeguelloTex

Should not have the same nutrition for days and should change your nutrition daily, why, exactly?

Eat it for days or freeze it, whichever you like.

kshama2001

I only freeze stuff that I can't finish in 6 days. I'm currently working on a giant batch of Cuban Rice & Beans, nom nom nom.

arditarose

Whatever. I like eating the same things every day. I'm no cook.

grace173

Thanks guys. I don't think my friend was saying this because of it making me deficient I think they thought that it would affect my weight loss. From what I have heard from people in the past is if you do the same exercise over and over it is not as good a workout as if you change up your workouts. I have heard it is the same for nutrition and weight loss.

ki4eld

I prefer to vary flavors daily, so when I cook, I cook 20+ servings and freeze everything after one meal. Hubby could eat kielbasa and sauerkraut 5-7 days a week and be happy. It's a personal preference. As long as the nutrition is there every day, eat what you want.

SaffronSunrise

I'm meal prep on Sundays so I have the same lunch every day all week. If you don't like eating the same thing every day, just freeze it that way you always have something when you don't feel like cooking.

DeguelloTex

grace173 wrote: »

Thanks guys. I don't think my friend was saying this because of it making me deficient I think they thought that it would affect my weight loss. From what I have heard from people in the past is if you do the same exercise over and over it is not as good a workout as if you change up your workouts. I have heard it is the same for nutrition and weight loss.

No to both, in that context.

jemhh

It doesn't matter if you eat the "same nutrition" every day or not. My goal is X grams of protein, Y grams of fat. Not X grams of protein from chicken and Y grams of fat from butter. To me, protein is protein and fat is fat.

As for what we do with leftovers, if it's just enough for one or two servings, we put them in single serving containers and one of us ("us" being my husband and me) takes them for lunch. If it's more than that, we usually freeze it and use it for supper at a later date. Neither of us like to have the same thing for supper two days in a row but we don't mind having something for supper and then lunch.

arditarose

DeguelloTex wrote: »

grace173 wrote: »

Thanks guys. I don't think my friend was saying this because of it making me deficient I think they thought that it would affect my weight loss. From what I have heard from people in the past is if you do the same exercise over and over it is not as good a workout as if you change up your workouts. I have heard it is the same for nutrition and weight loss.

No to both, in that context.

+1

Francl27

I avoid huge batches because I like variety, and I don't have that much room in the freezer, and even with a husband and 2 kids I'm the one always ending up having to eat it (husband conveniently 'forgets' and buys himself lunch). But I eat it for 5 days, then it ends in the trash if there's some left (because by then it's usually not too good anyway).

Right now I have some grilled chicken, potatoes, and carrots, and I suspect I'll be eating a lot of those in the next few days.

I do tend to agree though that eating the same thing over and over doesn't exactly give you the best nutrition (obviously it depends on the dish), mostly though after a while I just don't find it as satisfying and I'm more likely to go off plan.

janejellyroll

grace173 wrote: »

Thanks guys. I don't think my friend was saying this because of it making me deficient I think they thought that it would affect my weight loss. From what I have heard from people in the past is if you do the same exercise over and over it is not as good a workout as if you change up your workouts. I have heard it is the same for nutrition and weight loss.

This sounds like a myth. Your body needs macro- and micronutrients. Provided you are getting these, there is no reason to switch up your foods just to be switching them.

We have lots of members here (including myself) who will either meal prep batches of the same food for multiple days or eat leftovers and have success.

Need2Exerc1se

WBB55 wrote: »

If it's something like chili, you could eat that for 3 dinners straight and not worry. Chili has a variety of things already in it. Beans, veggies... depending on what you make it with.

This ^^ Plus, you are probably not eating it for every meal for the next several days so there can be variety at other meals. I'm tired of canning salsa and tomatoes so we are making a large batch of chili tonight. Some will get frozen, the rest will be eaten over the next several days. I mix up the recipes though. Tonight we will have it with cornbread, tomorrow it may be in nachos or over rice or pasta. I may pour it over some beet greens and scallions for a lunch salad. Chili is so versatile.

GillianLF

I get bored with the same foods all the time so I freeze it. Or with something like chilli I'd have it stuffed in peppers, with a baked sweet potato, with brown rice, with salad so I mix it up.
But I hate wasting food so always consume the leftovers!

Owlfan88

I tend to eat the leftovers not the next night but two nights later, just so it's not a total repeat. For years when our kids were small, DH and I would cook on Sat and Sun and then alternate those leftovers the rest of the week, with one day out or something really quick. If I can, I still cook for an intentional extra meal.

JodehFoster

during the winter months we make a soup, chowder, or chili on Sundays to have for work lunches all week. Easy & warm, no brainer.

Lounmoun

grace173 wrote: »

Hi all,

I was just wondering how you feel about leftovers and overall nutrition from them. Let me explain. Say you make a big pot of vegetarian chili or something like that. You have it for dinner that day but you have enough left in the pot to have it for dinner for the next 3 days. My question is do you freeze it or do you have it for days until it is gone.

The saying goes variety is the spice of life and I had a recent discussion with a friend who said that I should not have the same nutrition for days and that I should change my nutrition daily.

I was just wondering what you all do/think?

Thank you.

My thoughts are that it is fine either way. I look at my whole day/week to plan out my nutrition not just one meal. I don't want to eat the same dinner every day but I often eat the same breakfast or lunch. I do freeze dinner leftovers but they are also used lunches.
I feel that people can be healthy without eating a huge variety. I think the idea that we eat a lot of different food is very modern. A lot of cultures we look at that supposedly have healthier diets and lifestyles are eating the same basic foods most days.
I don't think it would be a great idea to eat the exact same food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for a week unless it really did meet all your nutritional needs and you wouldn't get incredibly bored. A soup or stew that had a lot of ingredients could be pretty complete.

ald783

I think it's more about whether you'll get sick of things (which could ultimately affect how well you stick with healthy eating) rather than a lack of diversity in your nutrients. I have also never seen anything that says that your body doesn't benefit as much from the nutrients if you eat too many of the same things.

I eat leftovers throughout the week but usually not on subsequent days. So I might make something for dinner on Sunday night then have leftovers for Tuesday lunch, then Thursday dinner, etc. Sometimes I'll have it back to back, but I try to spread things out or see what I'm feeling that day.

nordlead2005

I will eat the leftovers until they are gone. If I have more than will be eating in ~3 days, then I put 3 days worth in the fridge, and the rest in the freezer for later.

This is just a personal preference thing. CICO is what is important for weight loss, and my foods are varied enough that 3 days of the same things don't matter. Also, the body stores a lot of the nutrients it needs. Plus you have breakfast/lunch to get other nutrients you need.

As for exercise, your body adapts to whatever you put it though. If you are running 1 mile, you can't expect to be able to run 10 miles. However, running 1 mile every day will burn the roughly the same amount of calories every single day.

cwolfman13

changing your meals out everyday isn't necessary at all...getting proper nutrition is...changing your meals everyday has nothing to do with proper nutrition.

for me it depends...sometimes i freeze my leftovers and sometimes i eat them over the course of the next couple of days...it really doesn't matter either way...not sure why your friend thinks it does. my guess is that your friend somehow thinks eating different things confuses your body or something....which is utter nonsense.

lemurcat12

grace173 wrote: »

From what I have heard from people in the past is if you do the same exercise over and over it is not as good a workout as if you change up your workouts. I have heard it is the same for nutrition and weight loss.

Not true.

mbaker566

depends. some days it will be frozen and other days it will be eaten for the next few days