I need to know what to eat :/

Crockpot food is pretty easy to make. There are tons of threads in here with recipes. Toss in some frozen chicken and a few cans of whatever (beans, soup, tomatoes, etc). Set it on high for a few hours and it is done.

For easier stuff, I eat a lot of sandwiches, pre-made salad kits (careful with salad dressings-hidden calories), greek yogurt and canned soups.

When I'm feeling ambitious I'll bake some chicken or fry up fajitas.

Hope that helps. I found it easiest to work on portion control first and than work my way to healthier foods.

Take a small peice of meat/chicken and then fill your plate with veggies...cooked or raw make them fill 2/3 of your plate...try not to add salt to your food or sauces/butter. Your children will learn to like veggies and will learn good eating habits from watching you eat right not by watching you snack on food as they eat a nice meal.
Get yourself on hungry girl.com for some nice recipes that fit well into your eating plan. You can do this just make up your mind and put yourself first.

A good way to start out and not feel overwhelmed is to simply eat what you've been eating but cut back the portion sizes. Then you can move on to dropping out the empty carbs (packaged foods, cookies, candies etc.) and begin to add in a bit more green veggies to your meals. Then perhaps when you've gotten your family used to some fun salads (add fruit to green salads and they are very tasty! Plus you don't have to eat salad 24/7, honest!)

Drinking more water than you've been drinking will help, preplanning meals does help a lot so you can wake up and know what's for breakfast and not stress over it. Same with lunch if you pack your lunch, yes many on here have shared they cook up dinners over the weekend. If you make a variety and then freeze in containers to heat up later that will take care of dinners so you don't have to rush around while start out with all these changes.

Keep it simple starting out or it can overwhelming, trust me I was where you were once and had no clue where to begin but I eased into it and that makes it much easier on everyone in the family.

Snacks can be anything from string cheese, sliced apples, raw almonds, raisins, a nice carb/fat/protein combination works well for each meal.

The new sodium guidelines have recently been changed to 1500mg per day so I've set my sodium intake to that and rarely get anywhere near it. It does help cooking at home and not buying frozen meals etc., they have tons of sodium in them and some are very in fat with little protein.

Well I don't want to overwhelm you with too much information but wanted to share something.

Welcome & enjoy the ride!:drinker:

EDIT: Yes the Crockpot threads (recipe section) as well as the recipe section in general you'll likely find some very simple recipes to start out. The Crockpot meals you really can't mess up as they cook on their own.

You'll get the hang of it, keep watching the thread as ideas are shared and you'll begin finding all sorts of fun new ways to create meals your family will love! Healthy food doesn't have to taste like diet food (rabbit food:laugh: )

there are some awesome websites with healthy recipes[just google and they will pop up] and you can pretty much tweek just about anything that most people eat and make a healthy version. i have just about anything i want to eat but choose healthier ingredients and cut or replace the bad things. i cook all major time consuming meals on Sunday and then i have no excuse to have to stop for convience. we have ground turkey in place of ground beef....whole wheat pastas- brown rice-skim milk-fat free cheeses-lots of fresh fruits and vegies....you get the idea.
hope this was some help....good luck on your journey!

kathy

skinnytaste.com also has great ideas. I have a Weigh Watchers cookbook from when I did it a few years ago and I get a lot of meals from there. I love black bean burgers (lowcaloriecooking.com) with sweet potatoe fries. We also make chicken tacos with reduced sodium pinto beans, and stir fry with Iron Chef orange ginger sauce (only 100 mg of sodium).

One more thing and I will stop posting, lol!

I made the switch from white flour, bread, rice, etc to brown rice, whole wheat bread and flour, quinoa and at first my family was very reluctant but now we eat it and don't think twice about it. I still have a hard time getting my daughter to eat veggies but she eats plenty of fruit and protein. The point I'm trying to make is that you may not care for certain healthier foods at first but keep eating them and your sure to replace them with their unhealthier counterparts. Good luck, I know how hard it is to get started especially when you have a young family.

I have a hard time eating "healthy" things as well. My husband can eat whatever he wants and whatever time and doesn't bother him. My son needs all the extra calories he can get he has always been little sooo yes I feel ya it's tough. Also, I have never ate very healthy before, but I have trained myself a little. I work 12 hour shifts and have a typical day like this: breakfast: oatmel, banana, boiled egg. lunch: lean cuisine, yogurt: yo crunch greek yogurt. dinner: whatever I can make somewhat healthy for me and my fam like whole wheat spaghetti noodles +sauce+ and meat, chicken chilli, baked chicken breast, baked potatos, green beans. whole wheat lasagna, whole wheat rice> and most of the time my hubby doesn't even notice the whole wheat if I don't tell him! and finally I have got him to eat honey wheat bread and 2 % milk. You can find all kinds of great recipes online! For snacks I like natures valley peanut crunch bars, nuts, yogurt, celery or carrots and ranch, nutella, apples. Morning star makes some awesome veggie burgers that are way better than you would ever think!

There are a lot of ways to adjust to this. Here are some of the things that worked for me...

Start with the cooking. Eliminate anything fried and move towards a healthier approach like grilling, and steaming.

Next thing I'd do is look for those hidden calories. Start shopping labels. Look for lower calorie products ( i.e. Kraft light italian (30 cal's per tblspn) vs Great Value Light Italian (7 calories per tblspn), milk vs cream, Low fat Frozen Yogurt vs Ice Cream)

Look to whole grain foods instead of gummy white processed flour products. They taste great and are filling for longer.

Most people are pleasantly surprised at how little they actually do have to give up if they look at the labels... comparison shop.

The next thing to look at is portions. I used to sit down and have a 16 ounce porterhouse, and fries and shove the garnish( aka veggies) off the side of the plate. It took me a while to realize that a portion of meat is about the size of a deck of cards, and to eat the veggies.

Veggies should account for at least half of your dinner plate. A third should be starches and the remainder is lean meats.

If you want to introduce non-salad eaters to salad, you might try butter lettuce. It comes in green and red; I buy the mixed Fresh Express Butter Lettuce blend. My family, who don't care for salad, went WILD for it. My ten-year-old declared that if I would always make salads with butter lettuce, she would always eat them.

It doesn't solve all of your problems, but it might be one easy way to introduce more vegetables into the family diet. And "trying new things" is very much part of a healthy lifestyle.

Good luck!

I know how you feel! It's overwhelming at first to change your cooking, shopping and eating habits. And I hate lettuce. Just can't stand iceberg and the rest of them aren't much better.

One thing that helped me was the book "Glorious One Pot Meals" - it's not crockpot cooking, but dutch oven cooking. If you've got a heavy, oven safe pot with lid you're all set. (If not you can get a good dutch oven at Walmart or a discount home store for a pretty low price.) All the recipes take less than an hour from prep to finish. Everything goes in one pot and the recipes are designed to be nutritionally balanced with plenty of veggies, whole grains and lean protein. I generally double her spice amounts, but otherwise the food is tasty, quick to make, and nobody thinks I'm serving them diet food. I've gotten some really positive responses from people who are dead set against anything that's labeled healthy eating.

Another thing is to start buying low fat dairy products - skim milk, non-fat yogurt, etc. It cuts a lot of fat out of your diet and you won't miss the flavor. I actually prefer skim milk to the full fat milk I was raised on.

Also, keep applesauce cups, cuties (those little tiny oranges), lean cheese, reduced fat ritz crackers, and cottage cheese available all the time for snacking. I don't generally buy foods labeled "lite" or diet because they either taste bad or they have replaced the fat with sugar, but the things I listed make great low cal snacks for when you really need an energy boost or just have a tiny craving that needs satisfying without blowing all your calories.