So I need to change ALL my food choices...

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I don't have time to cook. But I see now I need to find a way to make things work to were I can cook some simple things for myself. Can anyone give me a hand with simple things I can prepare for myself either everyday or for like a week's worth of meals?

I have zero experience cooking. Seriously. If it doesn't come in a box with directions I generally can't say I've ever tried doing it. :/

I intend to go grocery shopping as soon as possible to get things going so please please help me out!? I'm totally lost here. Also, I have no problem eating the SAME thing everyday. I really don't. Variety at this point may make things too complicated for me here and I'm already stressed enough as it is. :(
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Replies

  • angeliqueann
    angeliqueann Posts: 213 Member
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    6 oz of Chicken Breast prepared with any seasoning you want

    2 servings or veggies
    and a quarter cup of rice.

    that's what I eat all the time.
  • dakotababy
    dakotababy Posts: 2,406 Member
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    I just finished reading your last thread - I am proud of you!

    When i first started this journey, I made the effort to make sure every meal was at least 50% or more of fruits or veggies. I also made all of my snacks into fruits...this gives me a chance for something "sweet". I also occasionally have a fiber 1 bar as a treat.

    Quick Low-Cal Foods

    Sugar Free Jello topped with Lite Cool Whip. - 1 cup of jello+3table spoons of cool whip = less than 100 calories!
    Baby carrots and broccoli with Zesty Italian dressing. (just throw it all in a container and VOLIA!)
    Baby carrots and ranch dressing
    Thin bagel with Tuna/mayo (lite). I just rip pieces of bagel and spoon on a bit of tuna - yum.
    Cucumber chopped into romaine lettuce with creamy cucumber dressing.
    Boil broccoli - drain - melt 1 slice of cheese onto it - stir - enjoy.
    Tuna wrap/pita with lettuce
    Sugar snap peas
    Egg whites! (fried, put on 2 pieces of toast, a slice of cheese and tomato)
    Yogurts!
    Sugar free pudding
    Occasional Lean Cuisine.
    Fruits!
    Protein smoothie. Grab some frozen fruits, vanilla whey protein, water - blend - and done!
    A bun or pita with cucumber and lettuce and butter - Yum.
  • pig2twig1992
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    baked potato! a monkey could cook it.

    find a potato, rub it with a little salt and oil then wack it straight into the oven for an hour!

    then choose a healthy topping :) I like tuna mixed with light mayo and spring onions, or cottage cheese with pineapple, or low fat coleslaw, or baked beans and a light sprinkling of cheese, or leftover chilli/ spag bol/ curry ANYTHING!
  • velmaisvelma
    velmaisvelma Posts: 90 Member
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    We eat a lot of processed foods, here. We are, basically, a microwave family. I try to choose organic products, when I can. Raw veggies for snacks, and Michelina's Lean gourmet foods ($1 per boxed dinner) I always choose lean hamburger with less than 5% fat. The only veggies I like (cooked) are green beans, so I eat a lot of them. There are times when I just can't get veggies in (time, money, etc...) I ended up buying Vegetarian low cal broth (near where the chicken of beef stock broth would be in the soup section. ) I've noticed increase in energy when I use that.

    I can't see what your food journal is, but I understand about being stuck on processed foods. Good luck!
  • envy09
    envy09 Posts: 353 Member
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    Places to find recipes:

    www.SkinnyTaste.com
    www.yummly.com
    http://allrecipes.com/
    http://www.snack-girl.com/
    http://www.foodiefiasco.com/
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    Yay for cooking! I suck at it. I do what I like to call "preparing food". It's like cooking, but with less excitement.

    Put 4 or 5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a glass casserole pan. Brush each one with olive oil and shake on ready-made Italian seasoning (find it in the spices/baking aisle at the store). Bake for 35 minutes at 375. If semi-frozen to start, bake 45 mins at 375.

    Then, have those chicken breasts cut up on a salad, on their own, diced and tossed with some stir-fried veggies, chopped up as chicken salad for a sandwich or wrap. Or make up some honey mustard sauce using mayo, mustard and liquid honey. YUM!

    Absolute staple in my diet.

    Or easy chilli: ground chicken, turkey or beef, two cans of whatever beans you like - I use white kidney beans and black beans, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of corn, some chopped onion and celery, a package of ready-made chilli seasoning.

    If you like stir-fry, take a frozen chicken breast and slice it thin while frozen... then stir-fry the meat... it will kind of shred in the pan. Add some broccoli, shredded cabbage, bean sprouts and teriyaki sauce.

    Other basics...

    Tuna with mayonnaise on high fiber crackers (ryvita, triscuit etc.)
    Eggs on a piece of toast with onion & chive cream cheese

    Just a few ideas to share...
  • babeinthemoon
    babeinthemoon Posts: 471 Member
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    My weekly grocery list looks something like this:
    bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, 1/2 green cabbage, green beans, broccoli, carrots, (lettuce & cucumber if I feel like salads), chicken, eggs, skim milk, greek yogurt, apples, strawberries (in season, frozen if not), pineapple (in season, canned w/ no added sugar).

    My monthly (every 6 weeks) grocery list adds the following:
    Ground Beef, steak or potroast, turkey lunchmeat (low sodium), potatoes, protein powder, coconut milk (unsweetened), brown rice, black bean burgers.

    I buy other stuff too... but it's mostly for the kids, or for myself but less frequently.

    What do I make with all these goodies?
    First off, I cook several chicken breasts at a time (in the oven at 350, until done). I eat what I want for my meal, then dice up the rest and put in individual snack sized zipper bags. I specifically portion these out at 80g, 90g, & 100g quantities.

    Ground Beef. I brown the whole package (usually buy at cost-co). Then I portion out 1/2 pound and 1 pound "recipe quantites" to have available for cooking with later on. I package some of the ground beef in 60g & 70g packages for individual meals too.

    Both the pre-cooked meats are invaluable for making quick dinners for just me. (I have a family of 4, but I don't always subject them to my healthy eating habits :laugh:) After packaging them in the small ziploc packages, I put them in larger gallon freezer bags, and toss in the freezer for later.

    Eggs. I love making omlette's. If you don't know how to do that, then do egg scrambles with diced veggies.

    Brown rice takes forever to cook. So, cook a batch, and portion it out into servings, and freeze in those snack size zipper bags too!

    Veggies: I use these most often in basic soups, stirfrys, & omlettes.. or just steamed or raw with my meal.

    Basic stir-fry: heat up 1/2 tsp oil and some minced garlic in a pan. Add diced veggies (2-3 c total) and saute (cook stirring often) until the veggies are tender, sometimes I need to add a little chicken broth (a splash) to get the veggies to soften faster. Add a serving of chicken or ground beef and cook until the meat is hot. Maybe a few hot-red pepper flakes, and a little soy sauce (to taste). Put a frozen portion of rice onto a plate, and warm it up in the microwave. Once your dinner is done cooking, add it to the rice, and you are done!

    Another favorite, that you don't actually need a recipe for is veggie soup. Again, take a bunch of veggies... all that you like, and dice. Cook them in the soup pot with a little oil & garlic until softened (watch the onion to go translucent). Add 2-3 cups of chicken broth and and equal amount of water. Bring to boil, then simmer for at least 30-45 minutes. Portion the soup into the "disposable gladware type containers," for single servings. Then when you are ready to eat, add what type of protein you would like along with the bowl of soup and you have a basic meal. Adding rice, or cooked pasta, or even cheese is yummy too.

    Good Luck!
  • InPieces3
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    Yay for cooking! I suck at it. I do what I like to call "preparing food". It's like cooking, but with less excitement.

    Put 4 or 5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a glass casserole pan. Brush each one with olive oil and shake on ready-made Italian seasoning (find it in the spices/baking aisle at the store). Bake for 35 minutes at 375. If semi-frozen to start, bake 45 mins at 375.

    Then, have those chicken breasts cut up on a salad, on their own, diced and tossed with some stir-fried veggies, chopped up as chicken salad for a sandwich or wrap. Or make up some honey mustard sauce using mayo, mustard and liquid honey. YUM!

    Absolute staple in my diet.

    Or easy chilli: ground chicken, turkey or beef, two cans of whatever beans you like - I use white kidney beans and black beans, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of corn, some chopped onion and celery, a package of ready-made chilli seasoning.

    If you like stir-fry, take a frozen chicken breast and slice it thin while frozen... then stir-fry the meat... it will kind of shred in the pan. Add some broccoli, shredded cabbage, bean sprouts and teriyaki sauce.

    Other basics...

    Tuna with mayonnaise on high fiber crackers (ryvita, triscuit etc.)
    Eggs on a piece of toast with onion & chive cream cheese

    Just a few ideas to share...

    That totally is what I do!!! Your food looks a lot like mine. lol. GREAT choices actually. high in protein too.
  • michelleal90
    michelleal90 Posts: 6 Member
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    I saw your last post, don't listen to the A-holes! look at nutrition labels, and if you don't have much experience cooking i'm guessing you don't have good cooking tools, invest in some of these and life will be easier. Use your day off to make your own frozen meals (cooked whole wheat penne noodles and vegetarian pasta sauce, chopped garlic onion and parsley and shred some of your own good quality romano cheese is easy and microwaves amazingly for a five minute fix). Also find some recipes for pretend bad food to make the transition easier, for example: frozen banana puree, with .5tbs peanut butter=peanut butter ice cream at around 200 cal and 0 guilt. Its something you can pig out on, and still feel okay because hey its fruit!. Invest in spices and go for some in season vegetables, roma tomatoes with a tiny bit of mayo on toast is an excellent breakfast, beets or sweet potato sautéed in 1tsp olive oil with salt and pepper is also easy as crap, let it crisp a little and don't cover the sweet potatoes. Again, invest in spices! I would recommend buying dried for the beginner, because using raw garlic onions and herbs can be intimidating.

    by far the best advice i can give you is that its hard to change your diet in one day or one week, don't feel bad if you need to fix a craving, do it! just think it through beforehand without beating yourself up about it. I used to have horrible evil cravings for cheese balls and onion rings, which continued until I started eating better and eventually disappeared. Don't buy anything you don't want to eat for groceries. I personally love ice cream cones, but if I want one I will have to walk two miles back to the grocery store before I can have it.

    good luck!
  • sheepy23
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    i'm pretty much in your boat when it comes to experience with cooking, however i have been making wholewheat fusilli pasta with tuna and a tiny drop of "lighter than light" mayonnaise. makes a good lunch meal. also, here's a nice soup recipe for you, which i made last night, it's absolutely delicious and very low in calories.

    Spicy Mexican Broth

    1 Courgette (cubed)
    1/2 cup Jalapeno, raw (sliced)
    1/2 cup Red Chilli Peppers, Raw, (sliced)
    1 Red Pepper
    2 Roasted Red Peppers (or mix up the colors to make it look nicer :P)
    0.25 cup Coriander leaves (dried)
    2 Vegetable Stock Cube
    1 Red onion (sliced)
    1 lime (squeezed)
    200g Tinned Chopped Tomatoes
    Medium Cloves (4g) (crushed)

    just chuck it all in to a pot and put it on a medium heat for about 10 -15 minutes. add or remove items if you don't want them, it's pretty versatile. good for vegetarians and only works out at about 120 calories per serving! i put mine in a blender afterwards, but it really is quite nice when you leave it chunky

    Please also note, it's a bit spicy, so if you don't like heat, it's not for you.
  • anifani4
    anifani4 Posts: 457 Member
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    Anyone can learn to cook basic meals of meat or fish and vegetables along with some starch (like bread, pasta, rice)....either all separated or mixed together is a stew or stir fry.

    It's great to make a big pot of vegetable soup with beans , or a skillet full of tomatoes, peppers, onions, pasta and ground beef or turkey. Eat some now and put the rest in the fridge for the next day.

    You could watch some cooking shows to get familiar with cooking terms, techniques, and utensils.


    You could borrow a basic cookbook from the library(or buy a used one in a thrift store, on Ebay, or Amazon). Betty Crocker comes to mind and a fairly comprehensive and simple one. Spend some time reading the general information as well as the recipes.

    It's fine to use some of the boxed ready to fix products too. Read the labels and know what you are eating.


    There was a thread on here a couple of days ago about what people keep stocked in their kitchen which might help you with your shopping list.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/809638-things-you-must-have-in-fridge

    Other responses have given you some basic directions and recipes. So experiment and have fun. Fixing food is fun, it feels good to feed yourself healhty food.
  • AggieFan2011
    AggieFan2011 Posts: 551 Member
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    6 oz of Chicken Breast prepared with any seasoning you want

    2 servings or veggies
    and a quarter cup of rice.

    that's what I eat all the time.

    I was going to say this exact same thing!
    I always have a bag of frozen chicken breasts in the freezer. They come in very handy and are super quick and easy to make. I usually cook mine in a skillet. You just put some olive oil to coat the bottom of the skillet and turn the stove on to let it get warm. Then put some spices on the chicken breast and put it in the pan (spiced side down) on a medium to medium-high heat depending on how your stove cooks, mine gets super hot so I leave mine at medium. Then after about 5-7 minutes you put spices on the chicken again and flip it over. Make sure it's cooked all the way through though before eating it! I typically cut it in half when I think it's done and see if there is any pink in the middle, if so then I leave it in there a little bit longer. Some of the spices I really like are Mrs. Dash's southwest chipotle, garlic and herb seasoning (this is technically for steak but it works), and then just italian seasoning and some garlic and onion power.

    Another thing you can do with it is cut it up and throw it in a salad. That way I get a good helping of veggies in while still getting a lot of protein.


    Other options are wraps on whole wheat tortillas. I've become obsessed with them since trying to eat healthier. You can make so many different things too. You can put chicken in them or a lot of the time I make turkey wraps for lunch. This is one of my favorite ones to make: http://thecollegeculinarian.blogspot.com/2012/07/grilled-hummus-and-turkey-wrap.html The only changes I've made are I only use 1 tbsp of hummus and I add some shredded cheese in place of the red peppers. Also, use the cooking spray with no calories to cook it!

    Another meal that is really good is baked spaghetti. I promise that you can't really mess this up! If you can boil noodles and turn on an oven then you're fine. Haha It heats up really well as leftovers too which is nice because you can use it as a meal for multiple days. I think my roommates and I ate off of it for at least 3 nights last time, and that was multiple people.
    http://kidsinthesink.com/2012/03/19/baked-spaghetti/
  • libbymcbain
    libbymcbain Posts: 206 Member
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    Good, easy quick snack: An apple and an individually wrapped portion of cheese or 15g of nuts

    Tomato sauce- good with chicken or beans: 1 tin plum or chopped tomatoes, 1tsp olive oil, a couple of cloves of garlic or an onion, dried spice or herb of your choice (roughly 1/2tsp), squeeze of lemon juice. Chop the garlic or onion finely, heat oil in pan, sautee onion/garlic until soft, add tomatoes and herbs/spices, simmer for 1.5 hours. Squeeze in some lemon juice. Adaptations: Add vegetables (carrots, celery, peppers~)of your choice, either finely chopped with the onion/garlic or roughly chop them, add at same time as tomatoes and blend til smooth when fully cooked.

    Roast a chicken: Heat oven to 200C. Cut an orange, a lemon or a lime into quarters, stuff into the chicken cavity. Turn chicken upside down and place directly onto oven rack. Place a roasting tin with a little water in on the shelf below the shelf the chicken is on. Roast for 20-25 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes. Use white meat for meals, brown meat for sandwiches and carcass to make soup.

    Chicken soup- place chicken carcass in cold water with an onion, a carrot and stick of celery (all finely chopped). Bring to boil and simmer for 1 hour. Let cool. Bring to boil again, strain, discard bones and vegetables and simmer again to reduce a little. Add pulses and vegetable of your choice (add a little reserved chicken meat if you like).

    This way a chicken does 4-6 meals.

    Brown lean ground meat and add the tomato sauce above. Serve with wholewheat pasta. Add chilli and beans for a chilli, serve with rice.

    Omelette- good breakfast item or easy lunch/supper. Whisk 2-3 eggs (or your choice of whole egg/egg white combination) season with black pepper. Wipe a pan with a little olive oil or use an olive oil spray. Heat pan. Add eggs. Cook until set. Add your choice of cheese, cooked meats, cooked vegetables. Fold omelette over, slide onto plate and enjoy.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Delia Smith is a well known cook over here and wrote and presented a "how to cook" book/TV series.
    Goes right back to how to boil an egg!!

    Search on Amazon for Delia Smith How to Cook.
  • sunshinefrei
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    bump i wanted recipes lol
  • t_rog
    t_rog Posts: 363 Member
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    Lots of good ideas up there!

    Also, I recently discovered brown rice cups. Just pop them in the microwave and they're ready in 60 seconds. Amazing for the lazy/inept like me :)
  • dab52776
    dab52776 Posts: 536 Member
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    Bump....so many good ideas here!
  • rachelroma
    rachelroma Posts: 22 Member
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    The best thing I've done recently for improving the kind of food I'm eating was to buy a steamer (they run about $30 on Amazon).

    I seriously use it at least twice a day during the week. Twice a week I steam a tray of eggs in it (12 minutes for perfectly hard boiled eggs) and take two of them to work with me for breakfast with a piece of fruit.

    In the evening I use the three trays to make dinner and the next day's lunch. Example day:

    Dinner: top tray - salmon, middle tray - two sliced apples sprinkled with cinnamon and cloves for dessert, bottom tray --two cups of broccoli. I just put everything in there and turn it on for about 20 minutes.

    When that's done, I eat and then start the next day's lunch: top tray - chicken breast with some kind of spices, middle tray - a sweet potato, bottom tray - another veggie like cabbage or asparagus ....which I put into a tupperware and pop in the fridge for the next morning.

    I snack on raw veggies throughout the day and add a green salad with oil/vinegar and walnuts to my meal pretty often.

    It has to be the easiest, fastest way I've ever made a variety of food and it works well for me. You have to find what works for you. A lot of good ideas here. :)
  • chrisdavey
    chrisdavey Posts: 9,835 Member
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    Experiment. Cooking is great fun.

    All of my recipes are here. Most are high protein but some are higher carb for my refeed days. You can see the macros anyway.
    http://tinyurl.com/8435c82

    This channel has some great easy stuff IMO
    http://www.youtube.com/user/MichaelKoryFitness/videos?view=0
  • blackiris49
    blackiris49 Posts: 128 Member
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    Bump. Some great ideas here.