Any Serious Cooks Who Have Lost Weight?

I love to cook, too. Instead of being a hinderance, I really feel that cooking gives people more options in losing weight, kwim? A friend of mine lost weight by (for example) eating a Wendy's chili, baked potato, and diet pop every day for lunch for god knows how long. Dinner was probably some gross something from a box/frozen bag that said "low fat" on it. That's just not for me. I think there are plenty of magazines/websites for people that do like to cook and want real food (and real flavor) but not all the fat. I love skinnytaste.com, cooking light and those sorts of magazines, I get a lot of ideas from the WW site (I'm a member).

I definitely use less butter than I used to, I use leaner cuts of meat, less pasta (and if we have it, its brown). I love fresh produce and tend to leave it pretty much alone (I don't butter my corn on the cob; I roast almost any veggie for great, natural sweetness; I squeeze lemon on almost everything). In the winter I make a lot of broth-based soups and add grated parm into my bowl, roasted winter squashes don't need nearly as much butter or sugar or things like that (or any, IMO).

Anyway, I wish you luck. Keep cooking!

I think you're actually ahead of the game because you love to cook. It's so easy to make your favorite recipes just a lighter. I love to cook; there's nothing that I love more than coming home and having a glass of wine while I cook. It's a time for me that is just as important as my gym time.

Bobby Flay is a very health conscious person and I am sure that he has some great cookbooks out there, as do a lot of the chefs from Food Network. I also love going to the bookstore and looking through cookbooks to find which ones I love ( I then buy them on amazon because it's cheaper). I think it's been more of a benefit rather than a hindrance.

I love to cook, and I've found it really helpful in losing weight. When I first started on MFP (and was aiming for a paltry 1200 calories a day) a checked a few books out of the library with low fat recipes. Not that I was particularly aiming to be eating low-fat, but it's an obvious thing to cut down on if you're looking to cut calories. Anyway, I learned some good, simple dishes from those books that I'm still using today.

Mostly though, I don't try to cook "diet" food. I use real butter, cheese, oil etc. I sometimes pan-fry food. I am much more aware though of which ingredients will add serious calories. I know just by glancing at a recipe where I can cut things down if necessary. I tend to make choices about what to cook based on how many calories I have to use on a meal. I will generally save higher calorie dishes for days when I've gone for a long run, or when I've eaten very lightly the rest of the week. I cook a lot of things like salmon/chicken with vegetables and couscous/quinoa, or stuffed peppers, or homemade soups. If I cook a risotto, it's going to have plenty of real butter and parmesan, but knowing the calorie count, I wouldn't cook something like that on a regular basis.

I cook for family, and I like being the one to cook because I'm in control and can omit or substitute ingredients to make the meal fit my goals. Being knowledgeable about food and cooking means that I can make adjustments while still making the food taste good. I have a good idea of when keeping the butter in a recipe is important, and when it's not, if you know what I mean.

I also love to bake, and have made some adjustments there. I try to bake more bread now rather than sweet things. I also try to time a baking session with going to a party or something, where I can offload a lot of the goodies. I've also learned which baked goods freeze well, and learned to adjust recipes to yield smaller amounts. For example, I baked cupcakes the other day, but made 6 rather than the 24 in the recipe. There were three of us eating them, so we had 2 each, and I had mine over 2 days.

So, really I use a combination of approaches. I definitely do smaller portion sizes, and I have started cooking a lot of lower calorie dishes that I didn't cook before. I still cook the old favourites though, I'm just a lot more aware of how they fit into my overall diet.

I love to cook, but as the only cook in the house, I get free rein over the kitchen, which makes it easier to make decisions based on my dietary needs.

I tend not to use many substitutes in my cooking. Instead I use small amounts of tasty but fatty ingredients, and only cook the real calorie busters once in a while.

Baking is my real passion, but I have scaled right back on that. I try and bake only for special occasions, and give a lot of it away!

I love cooking too, as does my boyfriend. When I am cooking recipes, I don't look for ones that are low calorie, I pick what sounds good. If a recipe calls for heavy cream (although I don't usually pick these kinds of recipes, it's just an example) you use half n half or cram cheese use fat free cream cheese. Just cut where you can and any recipe can fit into your calorie budget.
I actually look at it as a challenge to make something that is usually thought of as decadent and off limits into something that is healthy without sacrificing the good taste.

I really like the recipe ideas on eatingwell.com and hungry girl is pretty creative too.

Remember, a recipe is just a blueprint, change and substitute to make it your own and designed to your tastes (and calorie needs).

I highly suggest Vegetarian Cooking for Everybody.... I have all of Deborah's cookbooks. I'm not vegetarian but I get highly inspired to cook more seasonal produce! Yummy stuff. My favorite spinoff recipe is Ratatouille....using whatever produce needs eaten. Last batch had a tomato base with oyster, crimini and portabella mushrooms. The calories for a large bowl....were well under 200! Plus mushrooms are potassium rich.

Being a good cook makes it so much easier to lose weight. You will know how to modify meals in a creative way and make them tastier than if you only new how to grill a chicken breast. You can add seasonings and interesting veggies etc to make things more appetizing.

I do, too...my job makes gaining weight an occupational hazed, but some of it is my own self-control, too.

Some things that worked well for me in the past, and am using again this time around...I once worked with a dietician whose thesis was: if everyone ate the recommended amount of fiber and drank the recommended amount of water, there would be no obesity. There may still be overweight people, but no obesity. I have no idea what grade she got on this paper, but i decided to give it a go. Within the first three weeks, I lost 4 pounds each week. After that, encouraged, I began trimming sugar and refined carbs, making changes to the types of meats and fats I was taking in and controlling my portions. I lost 122lbs in 12 months that way.

I've regained 40lbs due to some issues in the last 5 years, but I am well on my way to changing that!

I love to cook, too. My tracker says 15 pounds lost, but I lost 30 before joining MFP, eating much the way I do now.

What I'm doing is making this a fun new experience for myself and taking this opportunity to compile a recipe book that reflects my new lifestyle. To me, it's incredibly important that the food tastes good. If I don't like it, I don't care HOW good it is for me, I won't eat it. On the bright side of that, I happen to like most fruits and vegetables with a very few limited exceptions. Being vegetarian doesn't exactly simplify things, but I make it work.

I also prefer "heavy" foods, so I tend to look for things that have a lot of bulk with very few calories so I can eat more and feel full without going "over budget," so to speak.

Every time I bring a new item into the kitchen, I try it, make a copy of the nutrition facts for my recipe book, weigh it so I can have a visual concept of what I'm dealing with and make a list of possible meal ideas that could incorporate it if I'm going to continue using it. It also has a list of fruits and vegetables and various other foods I like and the nutrition info per 100 grams, so it's very, very easy to calculate per serving.

Short and sweet -> Portion control, lower calorie ingredients and water or green tea as beverage. I am French and the French live to eat, not the other way around.

I also agree with Erik's Mom's co-worker (did I get that right?) that if it doesn't taste excellent, I am not eating it.

PS. I also walk 8.5 km (most days) and attend a brutal Pilates class twice a week.

Google blogger.com and then "cookin with evilone" NOT "cooking" as that will give you a different blog.

I dont use anything low-cal, (well, except the general low-cal cheese thats the food lion or kroger brand thats the cheapest on the shelf) Nothing fat free.. things of that nature. I dont use anything hard to get either.

Basically, i try to just make things "better" and CHEAP too! NOW, my blog can still be seen, but i need to make a new one. It got hacked last year & i havent had time to make a new one because my mom fell & i have spent all of my extra time taking care of her... however there are several in there that are useful & maybe you will like! They are all portion controlled also!

Hope you enjoy them!

I love good food and am an avid amateur cook. Dinner party meals are easily 800 cals before counting wine. I make room for them by doing enormous cardio workouts beforehand. Besides special social events, I agree that being a keen cook probably helps with day to day weight management. Good luck, happy cooking and any cooks should feel free to friend me.

for sure!
hubs and I love to cook,,
we just have to pay closer attention to things now
anyone can add me,

Very serious baker ... I make it work. Lost 100+ almost two years ago!

we have changed a lot of things we cook with because of my husband's diet, but I also map out my recipes and make sure I'm putting the correct serving size in, and also measuring portions so that I'm getting a real picture of how many calories I"m consuming. We cook nightly, most dinners requiring prep work, a lot goes into it and I love it. I would never be able to stick to any diet that I couldn't cook for my family.