Does anyone else not enjoy cooking as much as I do?

gratefulgb

I realize that meal prep and cooking is essential to successful weight loss and maintenance but I truly dislike cooking and I'm terrible at it! My family doesn't like my cooking and I don't like my cooking! It's so frustrating!

kommodevaran

No, it's not essential, a consistent calorie deficit (balance) is essential. What are you making, nasty "healthy recipes"? Don't do that. Make meals you want to eat. You do get better with practice.

gratefulgb

I'm trying to eat at a deficit and bump up exercise to keep my metabolism moving since I am a woman over 50 and that's been the biggest hurdle. Weight just doesn't want to come off. Cooking is not my forte and all the meals I make are either meh or a disaster. We hardly ever eat out because it's so expensive.

janejellyroll

Cooking isn't essential to weight loss (although it can truly be helpful). What did you do for meals before you were trying to lose weight?

Chunkahlunkah

What kind of foods and flavors do you like?

springsweet

I do not enjoy cooking either. It gives me anxiety. Plus, our kitchen is absolutely horrible and tiny. Luckily we are moving in a couple of months, so I look forward to that.
It's really made eating healthy and attempts at weight loss a huge challenge.

RadishEater

Are you or your family okay with eating leftovers? I spend a fair amount of time cooking on the weekend for food for the week. I don't mind eat tasty meals 5 days in a row. I don't spend alot of time on both lunch and dinner usually one is a quick meal to make. Then during the week I just chop up any fresh veggies and scoop out what ever I made.

This week
lunch :
greek salad ( i chop up my veggies at work, and measure out some cheese the night before, toss on some red wine vinegar for dressing)
Mujaddara (middle eastern spices and lentils and rice slowly cooked in a pot)

Dinner:
greek buddha bowl ( precooked ground beef and couscous, premade tzaziki sauce, then chopping up cucumber and red onion each night) takes ~5 mins to throw together each night

mutantspicy

As long as you're keeping track it shouldn't matter. In fact, a lot of your information will be more accurate than those of us who cook. If you're getting meals from restaurants, and pre packaged dinners that information usually available and accurate in the database. It may increase your sodium in take quite a bit tho.

amelialoveshersnacks

I had to chuckle at this..... Hubby wants me to help him lose weight. I told him he needs to take charge of himself. Then I relented and said "Well, get in the kitchen and I will help you to whack up some lunch in about 10 minutes." He made out boiling a few frozen veges was difficult - did he need a measuring cup? how much water? does the lid need to go on? what temperature? etc and then started to lecture me about the dangers of using a microwave for 2 minutes. Yes I know his points were valid, however between the both of us we would only use it twice a month at most.
He had a steamfresh bag of rice, quinoa and mixed veges to which he added brocolli, beans, peas and chickpeas. Also a cucumber and homemade beetroot hummus, prunes and dried figs. Easy lunch and two snacks. Good attempt for a guy who detests cooking and good on me for not taking over.

toxikon

I don't mind it. Following a recipe is easy. I like using my Instant Pot for a lot of my meal-prepping. Less cleanup, faster cook-time, great results.

amgreenwell

Cooking can be challenging for folks who haven't done it much or have a hard time with recipes. My advice is get yourself a crock pot or instant pot and look up recipes online and start making those for your family.
You literally dump all the ingredients into the pot and come home from work and its done. You might have to make some pasta or rice or something to go along with it but in the end it is cooking made easy. You can choose what meat you want, or go vegetarian, what veggies you want or make pasta and sauce, etc. I use my crock pot and/or instant pot multiple times a week and I consider myself an excellent cook (when not using those devices)... it's just so easy to use!

snowflake954

I agree that cooking at home saves money, but if you hate it and aren't good at it, sometimes it's best to just admit it and look at other options. Does anyone else in your family cook? Have them do it. You'll have to learn to eyeball ingredients and estimate calories--it can be done. Can you throw together a salad? Do you like to eat them? Can you grill a piece of meat? Maybe do simple things, but it sounds like you need help with the cooking.

Lounmoun

Having a calorie deficit is essential to weight loss. Cooking or following a particular diet is not.

I love to cook but it has nothing to do with weight loss.

RodaRose

I hate cooking. Hubby does all of our cooking.

Gisel2015

RodaRose wrote: »

I hate cooking. Hubby does all of our cooking.

I hate cooking too. I do all the cooking , although hubby takes care of breakfast. So one less worry for me.

@amgreenwell

Cooking is not challenging for me, I do well on my own and I am very creative without the need to follow any particular recipe. I have been cooking for 55 years and I still don't like it but I do it anyway. The reality is that we may be good a something but not necessarily like or enjoy doing it. So I feel for the OP.

r3488

I hate cooking, but I had to learn to do it to follow the diet the doctor put me on. I've had to throw out a few things that turned out just plain nasty and inedible (and ate my "backup" meal instead). However, I've gotten pretty good with a few things and now like to eat them a lot better than prepackaged or restaurant versions (still hate cooking them, though). Research (YouTube videos and recipe blogs), practice, practice, practice, and keeping a log of what worked/didn't work/ideas to try next were the keys for me.

shaumom

I do not like cooking. It's one of those skills that feels really frustrating, because some people obviously love it, and some don't, and yet unless we are independently wealthy, most of us have to do it, or marry someone who will. :-/

One thing that I have heard can help is that once a week cooking thing - where you take one day, get all the food prepped, cooked, and put in containers that you either refrigerate or freeze, and then you just take it out and thaw it, reheat it, on the day you eat it.

So while there is still cooking, it's only one day a week, so there is less irritation on that front. There are specific recipes for people who do it. The ones I have seen are often called 'meal prep' ideas, like this site - https://www.budgetbytes.com/category/extra-bytes/budget-friendly-meal-prep/

Don't know if your cooking skills are up to the recipes, but it might be worth looking at, maybe?

Or crock pot cooking - so you just dump it in a pot and walk away, and that's it, you know?

Francl27

I have to be in the mood to cook, which doesn't happen a lot, lol. The reason I do it though is because I can make what I crave for much less calories than restaurants (and more taste than frozen meals), so that's worth the effort.

And if I see more than 8ish ingredients on a recipe, I slowly walk away...

gratefulgb

Thanks for all the replies! Still frustrated. After cooking for almost 30 years I'm just out of ideas of what to even try. No one in my family likes salads for dinner. My husband does manual labor and works outside a lot so he's starving when he comes home. Also, my daughter is special needs and unfortunately we are always trying to get her to GAIN weight! UGH! A crock pot works maybe once a week and no one eats leftovers. We both come from old-fashioned meat and potatoes families. I don't think either one of our mothers were especially good cooks either.

RadishEater

Can you try alternating leftovers at least? Make two batch meals then MWF eat one meal, T,TH eat the other so it isn't the same thing every night but less cooking.

Or try making a batch of ground beef for a couple of days and do the first night spaghetti with ground beef, the next night tacos, then one after throw it in a casserole dish with some eggs and sweet potato and now u have a frittata you could left over spaghetti in that too.