Eating healthy when you hate cooking

Hi! Anyone have any tips for someone who hates/sucks at cooking? I really want to eat healthier but its hard for me to find the motivation to cook things, I even dislike going to the grocery store. I feel like I end up going out to eat/getting take out a lot which isn't always as healthy. Suggestions?

I hate cooking, too... that's basically how I got overweight. I would eat takeout, eat out, or eat junk. I'm a Junk Food Queen of the First Magnitude. Most of my meals are at home now, though. They're healthy.

I'm eating a simple diet based on brown rice, lentils, and veggies, with boiled eggs and apples for snacks. Every 2-3 days I cook a batch of brown rice in the rice cooker (it cooks itself, I don't have to watch it), cook several cups of lentils, and store them in the fridge. I add steamed or blanched veggies to those meals. I also cook up a batch of steel cut oats and add diced apple and have that for breakfast for several days -- I just add water and heat it up. I use tamari and toasted sesame seeds for condiments and drink a lot of filtered water with lemon slices. I've cut out all junk food and 99% of processed food.

So far, with meal planning, my meals take 5 minutes or less to put together, I'm losing weight, and meeting all my protein, etc. requirements. If I can do it, you can do it, too. Find healthy food you know you will eat, cook batches of it ahead of time, and always have some easy snacks around.

Hungry Girl has a lot of relatively healthy options that usually take 5 minutes to make. Many require nothing more complicated than a microwave.

Buy a blender

My favourite breakfast is 2 handfuls of spinach, half a cucumber, strawberries, half a banana, greek yogurt and a teaspoon of honey. Blend together and drink! Obviously this is 4 of your 5 a day before you've even left the house.

MichaelKoryFitness on YT has some quick and easy recipes.

Learn to like cooking.

Seriously. It's fun.

As someone said above the slow cooker is brilliant - throw it in, go and do some exercise, (or work) come back and portion it up. Job done.

Or do you have a George Foreman grill (or similar)? Stick a piece of meat or fish (salmon works well) with some veg - bell pepper, onion, mushrooms - until done and eat with a green salad, or some boiled new potatoes, or mix it into a portion of pasta with a tin of chopped tomatoes.

WW did a recipe book "Food in a flash" which had simple and healthy meals in it.

For quick meals you can't beat an omlette, or how about some steamed asparagus with poached eggs and rocket salad?

I have this cookbook of "20-minute meals", and they really are. So it's cooking, but it doesn't take hours like some of the fancier stuff I make sometimes does. Maybe look for something like that, a book of quick healthy recipes.

Also, I live by myself and usually make things that are supposed to serve 4, so some days I eat leftovers instead of cooking something new every day.

This was my exact problem when I began. So when i decided i wanted to get healthy i searched for the easiest recipes i could find and basically I ate raw food most of the time, raw veg and fruit and nuts in as many variations as i could find and then i would grill some chicken in the oven when i could be bothered. it was a good way to start and I felt full and the weight started coming off. Then as my confidence and energy grew I slowly started to research recipes and now i'm teaching myself to cook and enjoying it a lot. Even though I hated it before and never used to cook, i'm loving it now.

Might work for you as well..

I started by swapping lunch at work for a lean cuisine, and I bought bags of frozen veggies. There calories are almost all int he 250 - 350 range. I know the sodium in pre-packaged meals isn't perfect but it still beats eating out. Once I made a habit out of not eating out, I realized I wanted more variety and started cooking my own meals. It is about making life style changes so focus on finding something that works for and you can stick to it! Good luck!