Sustainable Weight Loss with Busy Schedule
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I think you may need to elevate the priority level you have on eating right. I'm not being critical because it's your choice how to live your life, but it seems like people are taking issue with you having an active social life, visit a leisure spot at least once a week, but are unwilling to spend 4 hours meal prepping. Just to use myself as an example, you get about 2 hours more sleep per day than I do, I'm 29 and have never been to Disney (I can afford it btw), I spend a minimum of 90 minutes a day in the gym, I work a minimum of 10 hours per day M-F, am the volunteer CEO at a private school campus and have had less than 10 vacation days including holidays in the last 12 months. You're coming across a little like you "want your cake and to eat it too". Again, your choice; I'm only trying to explain how it looks. "I like to live my life passionately and in the present but sometimes that makes weight loss and personal health a little challenging." As with anything, you need to decide what's most important to you.
Moving on to practical advice.
- Up your incidental cardio. Take the stairs, park at the far end of the parking lot, etc.
- Keep healthy snacks nearby. (I keep a tub of protein, protein bars, beef jerky, almonds and rice cakes in my truck.)
- It sounds to me like you eat great through the week and your eating out is derailing you. You could have a 500 calorie per day deficit M-F (2500 calories total) and easily eat 1,250 calories surplus on Saturday and Sunday, completely erasing any progress you made M-F. When eating out, reduce alcohol intake, choose lean meats, baked food instead of fried and eliminate sauces and other calorie dense foods.
I tried to keep this neutral...hope it comes across that way.9 -
I am a big fan of the easy-does-it approach. What's worked for me so far has been:
(1) logging everything I was eating for a while without changing my eating habits.
(2) figuring out approximately what my maintenance calories were based on logging and weighing myself regularly.
(3) picking off the "low-hanging fruit" one by one until I hit a calorie deficit. For me, that largely meant simplifying my diet - there are a handful of go to, no-cook dinners that I keep on hand in case my husband doesn't feel like cooking (I do not enjoy cooking myself). I rely a lot on pre-prepared deli food. It might be more expensive to buy pre-shelled hard-boiled eggs and pre-cubed cheese, but it's still cheaper than eating out, and removes almost all of the actual work from keeping my calories down. I keep a drawer full of that kind of thing, plus nuts, dried fruit, fresh fruit and veggies that can be eaten raw (cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, apples, etc), and preserved meats. I've also almost entirely cut liquid calories (except alcohol) as I just don't like juice/soda/lattes as much as I like eating more solid food. YMMV.
(4) remembering that any loss is a success, and maintaining isn't failure.
(5) eating less during the week so I can eat more on the weekends.
Good luck!3 -
liftingbro wrote: »I have met very few people who successfully lost weight over the long term without meal planning or some sort. Not every meal of the day but probably at least one. I typically only plan and prep lunches & snacks.
I've lost a total of 53 pounds in my life with no meal planning or calorie counting. It is not mandatory unless someone is struggling to find out why they aren't losing weight.
Like the OP.
I'm not saying it's not possible just not a common occurrence.0 -
To be fair, the forum sections are lacking. There is no "Weight Loss Discussion" or "Goal: Weight Loss" section like there are for maintaining/gaining. Really threw me off when I joined.
Very true. I'd say most of the regular forum posters are just always in "HELP MODE" because 99% of the posts here are asking for help. So when a thread like this comes along, we all go on autopilot and search our brain-libraries for helpful tips based on what the OP mentions.
So - nothing personal, OP.
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Jackibrazil wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Jackibrazil wrote: »This thread wasn't made to shame me or anyone else and point out excuses. It was made to exchange and share tips for making eating healthy and losing weight a little easier on people who don't have much expendable time. My time constraints aren't an excuse, they're reality. I go to work 40-50 hours a week and get home every day to a pile of homework that I work on til I fall asleep, get about 6 -7 hours of sleep and then start the process over again. Saturdays I volunteer because a certain amount of hours are REQUIRED for my degree and the one liesure day I have I am not going to spend for hours in the kitchen. It isn't healthy at that point. People need rest.
This is kind of confusing because you're also presenting a day walking around Disneyworld for eight hours as a regular or semi-regular thing for you, regular enough that it justifies consuming extra calories on the weekend.
You don't have to justify how you spend your time to anyone. If you want to spend a day off doing stuff like that, it's fine. It doesn't mean that you have challenges to weight loss that other people don't have, though. We're all dealing with a relatively limited amount of time and choosing what we want to do with it. Some of us are choosing meal prep/cooking/planning, others aren't. Weight loss is possible for all of us though -- it just requires a deficit.
I'm an annual passholder. I go every week. Sometimes twice.
Steps at a leisurely pace, really the only pace possible at Disney because it's so crowded, can help give you a little extra wiggle room but not necessarily a lot. To help with your planning, you can look at the info here. Be sure to take your MFP activity setting into account when looking at eating step calories so you don't double count them.
I usually whip up some quinoa on the weekend and portion it out right away. I do lots of frozen protein and veggies, so my daily meal prep is tossing stuff in a pyrex and hitting "tare" on my food scale a few times and blending a protein shake. Only takes me a couple of minutes. I buy most of my snacks through amazon and keep a pile at the office. I definitely don't spend hours in the kitchen.
It's up to you and whatever priorities you set. Everyone is busy and everyone has their responsibilities and other "stuff" that occupies their time. So if weight-loss is tough, it's likely because other things are currently more important. And that's OK--it's your life. You do you.
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Jackibrazil wrote: »I want to hear others stories about their life-friendly diet routines and how you keep your calories low and your food healthy amidst the busyness and social dinners, etc.
Please share tips, routines, challenges, etc!
I often have low prep foods for breakfast, lunch and snacks. I don't have diet restrictions or follow a special diet.
I prelog my food for the whole day every morning or the night before. I plan dinners.
Breakfast- things like Greek yogurt, granola bars, cereal with milk, sandwich, dinner leftovers, fruit, cottage cheese
Lunch- things like sandwich, salad, or dinner leftovers
Snacks- things like fruit, chips, popcorn, pretzels, chocolate, cookies, granola bar, carrots, celery, broccoli, trail mix, deviled eggs, pickles, cottage cheese
I eat a small breakfast and save more of my calories for later in the day.
When you cook, cook extra. It doesn't really take more time to double a recipe once or twice a week and you have food for several meals. A big pot of soup can be good for this.
Have a limited rotating meal plan.
Get a slow cooker.
Some foods are quick cooking. Eggs and pasta for example.
Some foods you can put in the oven and go do something else. It takes a couple of minutes to prepare a chicken breast and potato to bake in the oven.
Reduce portion sizes of higher calorie foods. Bulk out your meals with lower calorie vegetables.
Use frozen or canned vegetables and fruits.
Healthy food is food that meets your nutritional needs not a particular list of food. Don't feel like you have to radically change your whole diet.
Check nutritional information for restaurants you frequent and find items that fit your calories in advance. You don't have to get a triple bacon cheeseburger and large fry and extra huge pop. A regular burger with a side salad and vinaigrette dressing and unsweetened tea is pretty reasonable calories.
Everyone has challenges. Don't use busy as an excuse not to take care of yourself.
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joemac1988 wrote: »I think you may need to elevate the priority level you have on eating right. I'm not being critical because it's your choice how to live your life, but it seems like people are taking issue with you having an active social life, visit a leisure spot at least once a week, but are unwilling to spend 4 hours meal prepping. Just to use myself as an example, you get about 2 hours more sleep per day than I do, I'm 29 and have never been to Disney (I can afford it btw), I spend a minimum of 90 minutes a day in the gym, I work a minimum of 10 hours per day M-F, am the volunteer CEO at a private school campus and have had less than 10 vacation days including holidays in the last 12 months. You're coming across a little like you "want your cake and to eat it too". Again, your choice; I'm only trying to explain how it looks. "I like to live my life passionately and in the present but sometimes that makes weight loss and personal health a little challenging." As with anything, you need to decide what's most important to you.
Moving on to practical advice.
- Up your incidental cardio. Take the stairs, park at the far end of the parking lot, etc.
- Keep healthy snacks nearby. (I keep a tub of protein, protein bars, beef jerky, almonds and rice cakes in my truck.)
- It sounds to me like you eat great through the week and your eating out is derailing you. You could have a 500 calorie per day deficit M-F (2500 calories total) and easily eat 1,250 calories surplus on Saturday and Sunday, completely erasing any progress you made M-F. When eating out, reduce alcohol intake, choose lean meats, baked food instead of fried and eliminate sauces and other calorie dense foods.
I tried to keep this neutral...hope it comes across that way.
I get that. But my leisure activity requires hours and hours of walking. In my mind that actually enhances my weight loss experience AND my boyfriend and I have a fun date day. I'm not wanting my cake and eating it too. I have iterated multiple times that even when I splurge I keep my calorie level at maintenance or under. That's why I get frustrated with the numerous posts talking about how I am making excuses in my schedule. I'm actively losing weight and working out during the week. I maybe didn't mention that I do the gym before work M-F which is why my sleep is generally 6-7 hours and not 8. And I don't know why you had to highlight the difference in hours of sleep we get. It's generally accepted by the scientific community that men actually require less anyway.
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Furthermore, yes sometimes life makes weightloss and healthy eating hard. That doesn't mean I'm not still doing it! Just stated it's hard. Hard doesn't mean I quit...0
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I wish there were a GOAL: Weight Loss and/or Healthful eating. I by default posted here due to lack of such a category.3
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joemac1988 wrote: »I think you may need to elevate the priority level you have on eating right. I'm not being critical because it's your choice how to live your life, but it seems like people are taking issue with you having an active social life, visit a leisure spot at least once a week, but are unwilling to spend 4 hours meal prepping. Just to use myself as an example, you get about 2 hours more sleep per day than I do, I'm 29 and have never been to Disney (I can afford it btw), I spend a minimum of 90 minutes a day in the gym, I work a minimum of 10 hours per day M-F, am the volunteer CEO at a private school campus and have had less than 10 vacation days including holidays in the last 12 months. You're coming across a little like you "want your cake and to eat it too". Again, your choice; I'm only trying to explain how it looks. "I like to live my life passionately and in the present but sometimes that makes weight loss and personal health a little challenging." As with anything, you need to decide what's most important to you.
Moving on to practical advice.
- Up your incidental cardio. Take the stairs, park at the far end of the parking lot, etc.
- Keep healthy snacks nearby. (I keep a tub of protein, protein bars, beef jerky, almonds and rice cakes in my truck.)
- It sounds to me like you eat great through the week and your eating out is derailing you. You could have a 500 calorie per day deficit M-F (2500 calories total) and easily eat 1,250 calories surplus on Saturday and Sunday, completely erasing any progress you made M-F. When eating out, reduce alcohol intake, choose lean meats, baked food instead of fried and eliminate sauces and other calorie dense foods.
I tried to keep this neutral...hope it comes across that way.
Apologies for nitpicking a bit, but getting two hours less sleep isn't necessarily a great thing for one's overall health, and can actually make weight-loss more difficult. It's all well and good to try and find ways to find more hours in the day to do the things that are important to you, but cutting into a good night's sleep really isn't a great option.4 -
I kind of went based off the General Diet half of the title of the thread. Seemed to match most closely to what I was looking for...0
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I read the first few replies and wondered if they even read the original post... Wow..
It sounds like you have a great strategy in place! I can relate. Full time job, family, house, dogs, commute, studying on the side, and everything else that life throws at you can put time for fitness/health at a premium. This will be random but here are things that have helped me deal with being busy and staying on track with fitness:- Plan. Yea, I know it is contrary to the busy thing but it actually saves time
- Eating "fast food" on the go. I choose Chipotle, Boston Market, i.e. places that are macro friendly
- Intermittent Fasting... Just skip a meal. It frees up time and saves calories.
- Protein powder. I don't prefer supplements or substitutes but sometimes a shake is just convenient.
- Meditate. When life is busy you think you don't have time, but that is often when it is most needed. Even 5-10 minutes gets my mind and body under control and helps me not binge.
- Food environment. Try to not have a lot of calorie heavy foods around the house. Busy and stressful times make it easy to grab them if they are there..
I could go on but... That is a start. Hope this was helpful.
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I run around like a crazy woman most of the time and hate wasting the little time I have at home dealing with cooking and clean up. What's been working for me is to spend a couple of hours on Sunday making batches of food I can grab and go the rest of the week. I make some kind of breakfast thing (this week is smoked salmon wraps) and some kind of entree thing (usually a crock pot meal I get from a delivery service) and some kind of fruit/veggie snack (tiny oranges this week, last week was cucumber and hummus-cucumber already sliced from the grocery store salad bar). I make smoothies every couple of days to drink before my morning workout and that's about the extent of my cooking during the week.
Just about every day I have my smoothie, breakfast when I get to my office, either my snack or my other entree about mid-afternoon and whichever one I didn't eat I'll have for dinner. I'd say I eat out at least 3 or 4 times a week and most any leftovers I might have from my Sunday cooking go into the freezer. The freezer meals get used as needed or when I don't have Sundays to prep. I also keep nuts, protein bars and jerky types of stuff handy to fill in any gaps.
For me, the biggest challenge was the eating out. I had to actively decide that just because I was eating out, didn't make an "occasion". I don't generally get appetizers or else just have a bite or two of a shared appetizer. The majority of the time, I plan for my entree to be two meals and make the best choices I can for what that entree might be. For example, grilled chicken breast sandwich instead of a burger, salad instead of fries, street tacos instead of enchiladas...that kind of thing.
I think that dieting or not, we all have to meal plan to some extent. How would we shop for groceries if we didn't know what we were going to need? I just try to buy things as close to prepared as I can to minimize the time I have to spend messing with all of it. I've maintained a 50# weight loss eating more or less this way, am reasonably well nourished according to my bloodwork and can actually spend what time I do have at home doing something more productive or even (gasp) just relaxing for a bit!0 -
I read the first few replies and wondered if they even read the original post... Wow..
It sounds like you have a great strategy in place! I can relate. Full time job, family, house, dogs, commute, studying on the side, and everything else that life throws at you can put time for fitness/health at a premium. This will be random but here are things that have helped me deal with being busy and staying on track with fitness:- Plan. Yea, I know it is contrary to the busy thing but it actually saves time
- Eating "fast food" on the go. I choose Chipotle, Boston Market, i.e. places that are macro friendly
- Intermittent Fasting... Just skip a meal. It frees up time and saves calories.
- Protein powder. I don't prefer supplements or substitutes but sometimes a shake is just convenient.
- Meditate. When life is busy you think you don't have time, but that is often when it is most needed. Even 5-10 minutes gets my mind and body under control and helps me not binge.
- Food environment. Try to not have a lot of calorie heavy foods around the house. Busy and stressful times make it easy to grab them if they are there..
I could go on but... That is a start. Hope this was helpful.
Dude. THE MEDITATION THING. I completely forgot about this. I was doing this consistently before the semester and found that my cravings for sugar went down significantly after a 15 minute session! I fell off the wagon with it but now that you mention it I'm going to have to incorporate that back into my routine!
I agree with the food environment one. I have a shared household but I don't buy calorie heavy foods myself and try not to eat the snacks my aunt and cousin bring in. Most of them I can't have anyway because I have Celiac disease so that helps.
I pretty much only do Chipotle or El Pollo Loco (chicken breast with guac and side of broccoli) on the rare fast food day.
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liftingbro wrote: »Jackibrazil wrote: »This thread wasn't made to shame me or anyone else and point out excuses. It was made to exchange and share tips for making eating healthy and losing weight a little easier on people who don't have much expendable time. My time constraints aren't an excuse, they're reality. I go to work 40-50 hours a week and get home every day to a pile of homework that I work on til I fall asleep, get about 6 -7 hours of sleep and then start the process over again. Saturdays I volunteer because a certain amount of hours are REQUIRED for my degree and the one liesure day I have I am not going to spend for hours in the kitchen. It isn't healthy at that point. People need rest.
I have met very few people who successfully lost weight over the long term without meal planning or some sort. Not every meal of the day but probably at least one. I typically only plan and prep lunches & snacks.
Never meal prepped. Lost 35lbs and maintaining just fine.0 -
Jackibrazil wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »Jackibrazil wrote: »This thread wasn't made to shame me or anyone else and point out excuses. It was made to exchange and share tips for making eating healthy and losing weight a little easier on people who don't have much expendable time. My time constraints aren't an excuse, they're reality. I go to work 40-50 hours a week and get home every day to a pile of homework that I work on til I fall asleep, get about 6 -7 hours of sleep and then start the process over again. Saturdays I volunteer because a certain amount of hours are REQUIRED for my degree and the one liesure day I have I am not going to spend for hours in the kitchen. It isn't healthy at that point. People need rest.
This is kind of confusing because you're also presenting a day walking around Disneyworld for eight hours as a regular or semi-regular thing for you, regular enough that it justifies consuming extra calories on the weekend.
You don't have to justify how you spend your time to anyone. If you want to spend a day off doing stuff like that, it's fine. It doesn't mean that you have challenges to weight loss that other people don't have, though. We're all dealing with a relatively limited amount of time and choosing what we want to do with it. Some of us are choosing meal prep/cooking/planning, others aren't. Weight loss is possible for all of us though -- it just requires a deficit.
I'm an annual passholder. I go every week. Sometimes twice.
I would love to have a day or two free to relax and go play.
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Pre-logging is helpful for me. I also have a busy life but eating delicious whole food is important to me. I have to figure out the day before at least where and what I will be eating the next day. I don't work at an office so I am able to do a fair amount of cooking most days of the week. The two days that I work during dinner time are the most challenging to me. (And thank goodness I will not have that schedule anymore--I will be working during lunch but it is easier to eat a quick snack midday). Some days I will just not have the brain power to deal with bringing dinner, so I will plan to buy a fresh made chicken breast sandwich at the deli or a salad with protein. It is an extra expense, but to me it is worth it because it is one less thing to think about, yet I still eat a decent meal within my calories. I have a Bento Box that I can pack when I am able to get it together to bring a meal--usually it will be a leftover from the night before. (I don't like leftovers more than one day after, so I'm not one of those people who makes a big pot of whatever and eats that everyday--I also like variety). I have usually 2 breakfasts I'll make and lunch is a real meal at home.
I will also buy some fresh pasta, like ravioli or tortellini (with veggies/meat inside) and I partition it into servings and that makes for a quick lunch or dinner, along with a sliced tomato and 1/2 teaspoon olive oil. Sometimes I will poach a couple of chicken breasts and I can pull them out to make a quick meal with rice (made in the rice cooker so I don't have to watch it) and veggies, or potatoes and veggies. Fish is another good choice since it cooks very fast. Cod is my favorite and whenever that's on sale I'll pick it up, freeze it and easy enough to take it out the day before and have a quick meal, with veggies, potato/pasta/rice.
Sometimes I'll buy a prepared meal that just needs to be microwaved and take that for lunch.
Eating out I always check the menu of the restaurant and know what I'm going to get to fit into my calories AHEAD of time. I will log it before I get to the restaurant.0 -
I think planning ahead was/is a big necessity for me. I worked full-time while going to university full-time for a chemistry degree. And now I’m in my third year of a chemistry PhD. Free time is non-existent, but I squeeze out an hour or two of time a week to food-prep. Even if that consists of throwing something in the oven and studying/writing while it’s baking.0
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I have 4 go to meals
My breakfast is scrambled egg with a toasted bagel. Takes about 3 mins to make
For lunch and dinner I use 'batch cooked' meals. By this I mean, couple times a week I cook 10 to 12 portions of food in a slow cooker overnight. I weigh everything that goes in, calculate total calories and divide equally to get a portion of the correct size (calorie count). I make chilli, curry, stews, casseroles... you can make any 'one pot' recipe.
I serve these with rice that Have pre-cooked. I just weigh out the portion and heat the food up at lunch. All the time consuming stuff is the shooping, preparation, chopping, entering into the recipe calculator, weighing up and freezing. Get into the routine though and it saves a bunch of time in the long run. You can buy all your ingredients ready prepared if you want, that would save even more time.
My fourth meal of the day is usually a bowl of berries & cherries cooked in the microwave for 3 or minutes with a tub of 0% Fat Greek yoghurt. Takes a few minutes to prepare.
There you go. Four tasty meals done in minutes a day.
Hope this can help you come up with smart ways to fit in with your schedule0 -
I work full-time, have 2 kids, volunteer at cat rescue twice a week, and am a competitive powerlifter.
Want to know my secret? I'm up by 5:30am most mornings (at the gym by 6:15). On the weekends, I'm up by 6:30 and at the gym by 8:30.
Crockpots make life easier too.4 -
Jackibrazil wrote: »I just want to do something sustainable and easy that can be incorporated into my daily busyness. I used to be a whole foods only, food prep twice a week type but that took away from me actually enjoying my life. I was food obsessed! I'm trying to just do healthy easy meals during the week. Eggs or oatmeal or yogurt and fruit for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, and chicken and veggies and sweet potatoes or something similar to those meals during the week and maybe splurge for a meal or two on the weekends (while I'm spending whole days walking around Disneyland or going for beach bike rides to offset).
I want to hear others stories about their life-friendly diet routines and how you keep your calories low and your food healthy amidst the busyness and social dinners, etc.
I usually go out to a restaurant once or twice on the weekend. I tend to have my longer workouts on the weekend too (although sometimes I work a lot on the weekend so it's more challenging), but I still eat a bit lighter during the week to allow me to do this without stress. (I do local restaurants so no calorie counts.)
I normally have a breakfast I can do without thinking about it and will have the stuff on hand. What it is varies, but I tend to be repetitive -- vegetable omelet for weeks, then smoothies for weeks, so on. I have a few places near my office I can buy lunch if I need to (Snapkitchen or a favorite salad or a few things at Pret -- the nutrition is good, but the cost is annoying, so I avoid this most of the time, but it's nice to have an easy backup if I want it). More often when I'm making dinner I make extras and pack a couple of days of lunches ahead. I will usually do this when cooking and so I will have a quick dinner available if I need it.
I prep on Sunday evening (usually), but not a big thing that takes hours. I might make something that takes longer like a bean dish or slow cooked chicken or turkey or stew or whatever or prepare some things I can use for the week like a whole roasted chicken or roasted winter squash so I will have it on hand.
I know what I need for dinners and work with what I have. I usually decide during the day what I will have, but it's based on what I have on hand and can make fast. I learned this when I was first cooking from a farm box (which I still do from late spring through fall), as I'd have to make what I had. Now I buy whatever produce looks good when I shop and work with that. Knowing how to cook from what you have and not worry about following recipes is, IMO, one of the best ways to make everything easy. I also have some fast "can always make from what I have on hand" meals.
Just some thoughts.1 -
deputy_randolph wrote: »I work full-time, have 2 kids, volunteer at cat rescue twice a week, and am a competitive powerlifter.
Want to know my secret? I'm up by 5:30am most mornings (at the gym by 6:15). On the weekends, I'm up by 6:30 and at the gym by 8:30.
Crockpots make life easier too.
Amen on the crockpot thing! I made a slow cooker soup to get all my lunches in this week! I'm already up around 6 most mornings for my quick workout but since I'm usually doing homework til 11:30/12 the night before my boss would kill me if I got up any earlier. I'm tired enough as is!2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Jackibrazil wrote: »I just want to do something sustainable and easy that can be incorporated into my daily busyness. I used to be a whole foods only, food prep twice a week type but that took away from me actually enjoying my life. I was food obsessed! I'm trying to just do healthy easy meals during the week. Eggs or oatmeal or yogurt and fruit for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch, and chicken and veggies and sweet potatoes or something similar to those meals during the week and maybe splurge for a meal or two on the weekends (while I'm spending whole days walking around Disneyland or going for beach bike rides to offset).
I want to hear others stories about their life-friendly diet routines and how you keep your calories low and your food healthy amidst the busyness and social dinners, etc.
I usually go out to a restaurant once or twice on the weekend. I tend to have my longer workouts on the weekend too (although sometimes I work a lot on the weekend so it's more challenging), but I still eat a bit lighter during the week to allow me to do this without stress. (I do local restaurants so no calorie counts.)
I normally have a breakfast I can do without thinking about it and will have the stuff on hand. What it is varies, but I tend to be repetitive -- vegetable omelet for weeks, then smoothies for weeks, so on. I have a few places near my office I can buy lunch if I need to (Snapkitchen or a favorite salad or a few things at Pret -- the nutrition is good, but the cost is annoying, so I avoid this most of the time, but it's nice to have an easy backup if I want it). More often when I'm making dinner I make extras and pack a couple of days of lunches ahead. I will usually do this when cooking and so I will have a quick dinner available if I need it.
I prep on Sunday evening (usually), but not a big thing that takes hours. I might make something that takes longer like a bean dish or slow cooked chicken or turkey or stew or whatever or prepare some things I can use for the week like a whole roasted chicken or roasted winter squash so I will have it on hand.
I know what I need for dinners and work with what I have. I usually decide during the day what I will have, but it's based on what I have on hand and can make fast. I learned this when I was first cooking from a farm box (which I still do from late spring through fall), as I'd have to make what I had. Now I buy whatever produce looks good when I shop and work with that. Knowing how to cook from what you have and not worry about following recipes is, IMO, one of the best ways to make everything easy. I also have some fast "can always make from what I have on hand" meals.
Just some thoughts.
I think lunches are my hardest thing really. Dinners are usually great because my boyfriend has committed to help me and we cook together each night Monday-Friday. Breakfast is easy because eggs are cheap and quick, but lunch I struggle with. My office is nowhere near anything I can run and grab. My take out choices are limited because of celiac restrictions and making lunch each morning is hard when you can't make sandwiches easily. I don't usually take the leftovers because we cook at my boyfriend's and he usually buys the food so it's his for lunch. I tried a slow cooker tuscan soup recipe today for lunches this week so we'll see how I do on that. Might have to get up early and stop at the grocery store to get some fruits and veggies for the office fridge for snacks. They always have chocolates and chips and candy around. Hard not to eat!1 -
I feel ya girl. What I took from what you said, wasn’t that you’re busier than anyone else, but you recognize that being busy and wanting to not spend any free time that you have slaving over meal preps etc. poses a little bit of a challenge. I’m the same way. Meal prepping for an extended period of time doesn’t work well for me. I do good for a few weeks the something happens and throws me off schedule.
What works best for me is meal planning (not prepping necessarily) for a month. I do this mostly cus there are days when my son has Muay Thai or basketball that we get home from school, do homework and then have to be out the door. By the time we get home we’re starving and if I didn’t have something planned, prepped, or leftovers to heat up, we ended up eating out. A lot. Like embarrassingly too much. So I meal plan for the month and make sure I estimate for the meals how long they’ll last. Certain dinners are a one night only thing. Some crock pot or bigger recipes can last two or even three days as leftovers. So I schedule to make a bigger meal on the day before a really busy day or stretch of days and that helps make sure we don’t slip by going out to eat.
Lunch is hard for me too. I don’t really like lunch, I’m more of a snacker anyway. I eat a pretty good breakfast (similar to the ones you have! Egg whites wheat toast, low fat cottage cheese and fruit, steel cut oats etc) and that usually tides me over til the afternoon. Then I have a list of low cal snacks that are easy to toss together & take with me and that keep me full. Carrots & homemade hummus, low fat cottage cheese & fruit, raw almonds, apple w a tbsp of almond butter. That kind of stuff. Since I’m not too hungry at lunch that holds me over til dinner!
. Planning out my meals has changed so much for me. I have quite a bit more free time than you do, so cooking every night isn’t too difficult for me but I just finished an internship & will be starting work in the EMS field so I expect it will get busier soon. I hope this is kinda what you were looking for!! Good luck with everything!!1 -
I like choosing two or three easy breakfasts and three or four easy lunches I enjoy, and alternate off between them on a weekly basis. That way I can save time for other things, and it's easy to shop and log because I'm often consuming the same meals.
Example:
Breakfast 1: microwave 1/2 cup rolled oats in 3/4 cup almond milk for 3 min and 30 seconds. Stir in some cinnamon, brown sugar, and half a diced apple.
Breakfast 2: whole wheat toast topped with peanut butter and banana, glass of milk/soy milk/almond milk
Both of these come together in minutes and require no pre-prepping.
Lunch 1: can of vegetable soup, soy yogurt, sliced veggies, piece of fruit
Lunch 2: salad topped with choice of protein, piece of fruit
Lunch 3: canned refried beans on whole wheat tortilla, salsa, avocado, piece of fruit
Lunch 4: microwaved baked potato topped with homemade or canned chili
You can save yourself some time during the week by prepping the sliced veggies or burritos while you watch TV on Sunday night, but that's a matter of a few minutes, and you can put the rest of it together while your toast toasts in the a.m. or your oatmeal microwaves.
I suspect dinners are your least predictable meals given your active social life, but if you control breakfast and lunch well, you'll have more flexibility in your dinners if you want to order out. Also when you DO make time to cook, use it to save time later. Make a double batch of things like soups, chilis, and stews, as these freeze well and actually improve with time. Likewise tomato based pasta sauces. You can make a huge amount for a special meal, and then freeze in portions you'd eat over pasta or chicken breast or something like that. I also make sure I always have stir fry veggies and meat replacements in the freezer. I struggle with depression from time to time, so although I don't often eat those, even if my prepped stores run out, I always have an easy, healthy meal to fall back on.
I meal plan pretty carefully because I was only working part time for a while and I got into the habit to save money and avoid waste, but now that I'm back working full-time, these strategies allow me maximum flexibility with minimum time.1 -
My go to for lunch that is super cheap and quick...a can of vegetable soup from Lidl that is like 50 cents. It might not be the 'best' ingredients, but it's 2 servings of vegetables, 160 calories, cheap, and easy.
Other options that require no food prep: fruit and yogurt or bread and a slice of cheese with fruit. I am unwilling to put the effort into lunch and consider it purely a 'fuel'. For me, lunch doesn't have to be particularly exciting - just enough to get me through the day.
Breakfast - I always do the same thing (oatmeal with a banana). Lunch (see above). Dinner - I do dinners which are easy a.f. Like some rice, a veggie burger, and either boiled or roasted veggies. Following a routine helps me set myself up for success.
I'd also consider the impact of eating out on the weekends (these meals often have so many more calories than people estimate) and I know I could wipe my weekly deficit out easily in one meal.1
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