Cooking turned my life around

Seffell

My life has bern turned around by cooking reguralry.

I'm puting the post in this forum as opposed to the nutrition one because I want to emphasise the benefits in terms of weight loss and not the benefits in terms of nutrition.

Here's where I currently am. I lost with the help of MFP several years ago all the weight I wanted. I was counting calories and logging for almost 3 years. Then I got unwell and was practically bedbound for 15 months and also very depressed because of that and it all came back. Now I started again. This time I didn't want to count and log but mind you after 3 years of daily food weighing it is easy for me to eyeball calories. What I started doing this time is I started cooking and I started cooking new recipes. I stocked on pots with fresh herbs and a ton of dry herbs. I stocked on jars of nuts, seeds and other healthy and tasty bits.

For the past several months we've been eating the most delicious food in our entire lives and I've never felt so satiated and happy mealwise. I lose at a good rate of 2kg per month (4lbs) which is faster than when I was only focusing on how much and not on what. The "what" matters so much in terms of your satiety and in terms of feeling of deprivation it is crazy! I no longer crave food. Ever. Everything is so tasty and so satisfying it is insane. It is also not high in calories because it is mostly vegetables. I am neither vegan nor vegetarian but I just don't like meat much so eat it rarely. I eat a lot of dairy though. Here is a list of the food items I ate just yesterday (in no particular order):

banana
oats
chia seeds
yogurt
milk
cocoa powder
bran
spinach
peas
potato
cauliflower
carrot
onion
garlic
courgette
breadcrumbs
lemom juice
olive oil
avocado
sugar
bread
dill
parcley
eggs
flax seeds
vanila
lemon zest
salt
pepper
sour cream
coconut milk
mint leaves
sweetener

Everything was home made.

1. We had a thick smoothie for breakfast made of porridge (oats, milk, cocoa powder, vanilla, sweetener, boiled and refrigirated the night before), soaked chia, yogurt, bran, banana. It is super filling, thick and tasty and 400ml in size. About 500kcals. You can boil the porrige in a larger quantity and refrigerate.

2. For lunch we had a chunky veg soup with the veg and herbs you see above and with sourcream. A huge amount, like 500ml at least. Very filling. About 200 kcals cos no oil just veg and a tbsp sour cream. We cooked a huge pot so we'll eat it for several days.

3. For dinner we had zuchhini fritts made of grated zuccini, eggs, breadcrumbs, bran, dill, garlic, flax seeds, salt, pepper. With a sauce of yogurt, salt, pepper, lemom zest, lemon juice, mint leaves and garlic. With some bread. About 500kcal. We made the mix in a larger quantity and refrigerate it to only pan fry in breadcrumbs before dinners. Had 3 days worth.

4. For desert we had avocado pudding made of blended avocado, coconut milk, cow milk, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, lemon juice. About 300kcal. Made 2 days worth.

That all came to 1500 kcals for me and a bit more for my husband as his portions are larger. I measured some of the stuff and eyeballed the rest. I maintain on 2000 for the moment because I try to walk about 8000 steps per day (on deliberate walks).

The menu including breakfast varies every couple of days.

I have never been a whole food evangelist. I'm one of those people who claim Snickers and Macdonalds is healthy. I do believe so. The problem is you need a lot of those and often and it is so high in calories. And with the food I've been cooking you just don't. You feel always full, always satisfied cause it's so damn tasty and filling.

I don't measure much and don't log at all BUT like I said I have been doing it for 3 years streight in the past. If you don't have the experience and confidence, I suggest that you measure and log.

I know it requires time to cook so of course not everyone can afford to do it. Also I'm not cooking it myseef. We're cooking it together with my husband.

In terms of money, the initial spend when I stocked on stuff (spices, herb pots, seeds, nuts, dryfruit, other cupboard stuff) was a bit larger, otherwise we don't spend more than before on average. We're relatively poor by the way.

If you can afford the time, please try. Please don't eat stuff you don't like. You're wasting years of pleasure!

Try new recipes. Try new herbs and spices (zaatar was a huge discovery for me). Try new cuisines. Eat tasty!

Good luck.

neanderthin

Yeah, I promote a whole food diet pretty much around here, ad nauseum. Anyway good for. The only thing I'll mention is it looks like there's not a lot of protein going on, which is important. Cheers.

Seffell

neanderthin wrote: »

Yeah, I promote a whole food diet pretty much around here, ad nauseum. Anyway good for. The only thing I'll mention is it looks like there's not a lot of protein going on, which is important. Cheers.

Yes, I'm trying to do my best with protein but it is not always easy. Turns out oats and seeds of which I eat quite a lot are good in protein. Obviously pulses. I also eat fish a couple of times a week and sometimes meat. Every day is different. This was just an example day to showcase the variety and hence taste while keeping calories low. This particular day wasn't that bad in terms of protein I think. I aim for 20-25%.

ETA: Today I had tuna mayo salad and bread for breakfast. I decided to not just mix tuna and mayo but lift it up a bit and also put set greek yogurt, lemon juice, red onion, chives, chickpeas and pepper. Served on lettuce. Super tasty. I've never been able to cook mind you. So that sorta thing is completely new to me. I'm totaly hooked.

neanderthin

Yeah, excellent. Keep up the good work.

sugarfreesquirrel

Yeah, I need help with this stuff

yirara

Aww, wonderful! One note of warning though: If your weightloss continues to go this fast then try to slow down a bit. Add more cooking oil, nuts, seeds, other things with high calories as a fast weightloss is not good in itself. You'd probably lose a ton of muscle, which is not what you want as regaining muscle is super difficult.

On that note: I love cooking! And I have a ton of cookbooks. Yesterday I cooked something called Indo-chinese chilli tofu. Turns out it tastes like a British take-away meal, but with tons of veggies and no readymade products Also fit my calories as I decided on the amount of rice once I had most ingredients sorted

kshama2001

Seffell wrote: »

neanderthin wrote: »

Yeah, I promote a whole food diet pretty much around here, ad nauseum. Anyway good for. The only thing I'll mention is it looks like there's not a lot of protein going on, which is important. Cheers.

Yes, I'm trying to do my best with protein but it is not always easy. Turns out oats and seeds of which I eat quite a lot are good in protein. Obviously pulses. I also eat fish a couple of times a week and sometimes meat. Every day is different. This was just an example day to showcase the variety and hence taste while keeping calories low. This particular day wasn't that bad in terms of protein I think. I aim for 20-25%.

ETA: Today I had tuna mayo salad and bread for breakfast. I decided to not just mix tuna and mayo but lift it up a bit and also put set greek yogurt, lemon juice, red onion, chives, chickpeas and pepper. Served on lettuce. Super tasty. I've never been able to cook mind you. So that sorta thing is completely new to me. I'm totaly hooked.

That's my kind of tuna salad!

Here is something similar: https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/white_bean_and_tuna_salad/

My grandmother frequently plagiarized Julia Child:



I learned to cook from "The Joy of Cooking." Each new edition is my new favorite. I like to borrow cookbooks from the library to help me decide if I should buy them.

I also get inspiration from a number of email subscriptions to various cooking sites. Lots of time something will sound good and then I will use the recipe from my JOC. I prefer how the JOC recipes are formatted and I trust it.

For people who prefer to learn from videos, I highly recommend Ethan Chlebowski:

https://www.youtube.com/@EthanChlebowski

elisa123gal

Great post.. thank you. I agree that cooking in and not eating out is a key to losing weight. And it is amazing how healthy and tasty so called "diet" food becomes when you learn to prepare it at home..and pack it to take with you for the day. I loved the examples you gave..it all sounds delicous.