Feeling burnt out...food ideas needed

Cracken99

I LOVE My pinterest boards for food ideas. BUT I also found that keeping it simple and eating a lot of the same foods everyday is the best way for me to lose weight. With that being said, because you have so much on your plate you might want to consider Sundays as your cooking days and freeing what you make, making lunch in Tupperware for grab-n-go (Quinoa, grilled chicken, roasted broccoli, saracha). You could make a Turkey Meatloaf, slice and freeze for a really easy weeknight meal. Same with Soups, most are freezable. Message me if you want my Pinterest name to see my boards (and I want to see yours if you have any).

cardbucfan

I use half ground turkey and half ground beef in any ground meat recipe (spaghetti, tacos, chili). The slow cooker is great for lean beef roasts or lean pork. Pork tenderloin is wonderful in the crock pot, marinated and grilled or sliced into medallions and sautéed with a sauce. I use that mayo/Parmesan cheese recipe with tilapia (preparing to be skewered for using the dreaded tilapia). Shellfish is quick and easy to cook and low cal. Check out skinnytaste.com for some more recipes. I'm with you on having to mix it up. Boredom is the death knell for eating healthyfor me.

When I first started on here I just made my regular foods substituting lean meats as mentioned but eating smaller portions. It take a a bit of time up front to enter your recipes into MFP but now almost everything I cook is already in my database so it's easy to adjust the recipe and add it to my diary.

Good luck!

LeeLee2412

Also, for snacks: the small pots of greek yogurt are super useful (especially if you can stir honey and some fruit into them). They're not the cheapest at $1-$2 a pop, and are kind of wasteful.. but, these days you can find them everywhere and they provide a serious hit of protein to tide you over until dinner.

Also in the ~$1 serving range, Larabars are usually accessible. They're calorie dense, but at least it is calories from nutritionally valuable foods (generally dates). Actually, if you can access a big bag of dates, those make a good high-fiber, high nutrient snack. I also like putting a couple of squares of strong dark chocolate in a baggie as a treat.

I'll have to try the Larabars. I can't stomach yogurt no matter what I do to it unfortunately. Dark chocolate would be a good one. Do you have a specific brand you buy?

LeeLee2412

Fish? Lots of fish are really simple to cook either by sauteing or baking.

Also, theres not much simpler than steaming a few muscles or clams in white wine with garlic and chopped tomatoes.

Wow, how did I miss fish as an option??? I used to be so big on fish until I made the mistake of bringing it as a lunch and had my coworkers a little ticked off at me. Guess it would make a great dinner option though. I've never cooked fish by sauteing it, any recommendations?

Antiakrasia

Hi again-

For your questions:

1. Storing cut veggies. I usually just store veggies in the fridge in closed Tupperware containers. Carrots, butternut squash, zucchini, etc all seem to keep pretty well for a few days. I've heard that storing veggies in water can help avoid wilting in veggies that are prone to that, like celery. Also, frankly, I'll just eat the wilted veggies anyway. One or twice a week, I usually pull up a podcast or some music and go to town chopping for an hour or so. Anything that i think we won't use within 3-5 days, I label and throw into the freezer.

2. For dark chocolate, I love the 85% Valhrona chocolate that Trader Joe's stocks but it might be a bit much for you. Trader Joe's also does relatively inexpensive huge bars, if you think you can trust yourself to portion them out and not go to town. Lindt is everywhere these days and has a good 72% dark chocolate... and you sometimes see 2 for $4 sales, which helps the cost.

If you find that you like Larabars, it's supposed to be quite easy to make your own version at home and significantly cut the cost per unit. Apparently you basically toss dates, nuts, and whatever dried fruits you want into the food processor at a 1:1: .5 ratio, then press the result into a pan. Lots of cooking blogs have recipes. Personally, I've never made them, but only because I'm not sure that I could trust myself with easy access to a pan full.

Another good snack if you're out and about are the tubes of peanuts that you can find in most drugstores and vending machines. As with the larabars, they're calorie dense (a tube might run you 260 calories if you go through the whole thing... but 260 calories of peanut are much more likely to keep you full for longer than, say, 260 calories of packaged cupcakes.)

Antiakrasia

For lunches, I've learned that opening a pouch (or two) of tuna and mixing it with 2 Tb of mustard and 1 Tbsp of olive oil or mayo makes a satisfying and hearty protein.

joan23_us

1. Protein sources

marinated meat cuts from the supermarket is all good i usually look for the fat content, no more than 15grams per serve of a good 25-30 grams of protein, watch out for the carbs content as well, not sure how much is your intake but i usually go for no more than 20 grams of carbs built in the marinated meat cut to allow for other carb sources for that meal.

2. Snacks

i usually use this to balance out my macro intake, what that means is I usually lay out my 3 main meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner first thing when my macronutrient intake is still untouched so i can FIT the foods i want to eat first thing then sort of find foods that is easy to weigh like powder or liquid hence the protein powder for most people to balance out. Food sources example yogurt, skinny cow, ice cream low in fat.

3. carb sources

I usually choose carb sources that are high on fiber built in so as to hit my fiber intake while hitting my carbs requirement for the day. vegetables are a good example of this, quinoa, sweet potato, all kinds of rice, bread high in fiber etc.

As you can see this is more of a principle rather than a recipe, put your biggest contributing food first on MFP so you can see how much is left with for the day and balance it out with healthy snacks. START READING FOOD LABELS, you will be surprise how many food choices you can eat.

MinMin97

I get that way sometimes. When I do, I go out to eat at a gourmet-but-healthy restaurant. It refreshes me for preparing foods. Love french or italian food. Or a local upscale bistro. Our town has a locally owned upscale grocery store that is good for ideas, especially in their bakery/deli/gourmet cheese section.

Maybe some protein smoothies with frozen fruit?