The lazy dieter
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I don't particularly like to cook, especially if I haven't eaten in several hours and I'm very hungry! My biggest complaint about frozen meals is that eating them makes me feel like I'm on a diet, which is doom for me. I try not to eat those things that make me feel dissatisfied.
That being said, Trader Joe's has some decent frozen meals that don't have a lot of crap in them. I think Kashi's also has gotten into the game. Look for meals with very short ingredient lists and not a boatload of sodium. Alternatively, you could get big bags of frozen veggies (that you will actually eat) and good frozen chicken. That is super quick to cook up a proper portion of, as long as you have a food scale. I've also found Trader Joe's Brown Rice & Quinoa Fusilli with some high quality jarred sauce and a bunch of frozen veggies is a quick meal that beats the pants off of "a box of something."
http://www.whatsgoodattraderjoes.com/2014/02/trader-joes-organic-brown-rice-quinoa.html
http://www.cookinglight.com/cooking-101/essential-ingredients/taste-test-tomato-basil-pasta-sauce
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Kaydana123 wrote: »
I don't use several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken, because I don't need several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken. I measure out the amount I need, and use that. There's very little left in the pan, so I don't need to worry about that any more than I need to worry about what's left in any other pan when I've finished cooking. Most things don't need oil adding to them at all, adding several tablespoons of olive oil to a recipe is completely unheard of in my kitchen.
QFT.
"several" tablespoons of olive oil, OP? Bloody hell ...
I cook proper meals every night (in my cooking week, then the next week my bf cooks). It's really not difficult to log. Meat from supermarkets generally has a calorie count on the side anyway, so does rice, pasta, etc. I weight everything raw - including vegetables - I measure out my (MAX) one tbsp. of olive oil between two, I log it all before it gets cooked and I divide the result into two - one for me, one for bf. Easy. Takes just one minute. Sometimes I have my phone with me in the kitchen, so that if I'm altering what I originally thought I was going to do (I made mac n cheese last week, and realised I'd overestimated how many breadcrumbs I was going to need, for example) I can change it on the app. Or if I'm following a recipe I've found online, and entered into MFP, I have the app open next to me so that when I'm weighing I can remind myself how much I'm weighing out.
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Plus, as a foodie, I find it exciting to experiment with making recipes healthy. I like finding naughty Nigella recipes online and tweaking a few things to lower the calorie count. It's fun!0
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I would probably call myself a lazy dieter as well... However, I've always been lazy when it comes to cooking and eating, which is part of the reason I became overweight in the first place.
My healthy laziness now includes making different choices when inevitably eating out (Subway instead of McDonald's, salad instead of pizza, etc...) and finding new "easy" home-cooked meals that aren't mac and cheese or ramen or something equally unhealthy. This combined with some frozen dinners here and there. It's been working for me.
The home-cooked meals aren't necessarily that hard to log, either. I also stick to a couple of meals that I eat again and again. Also, there's a lot of salads and soups in my diet as we speak. I tend to follow recipes quite strictly and not go too freestyle, though, and then I make a big batch and save single servings that I can bring out when I don't feel like cooking, or bring to work. Maybe the spices aren't completely accurate for a "pinch" or "dash" or whatever, but I believe the differences are minor enough, and I don't think they're 100% correct in a frozen dinner either (even though they may come closer!). Dividing the portions may not be completely identical in the end, but I'm the only one who eats my meals - so if I have, say, 120 grams of something listed as a 100 one day, then the next day I'll have 80g and it's listed as 100g and it evens out. I look at is as a weekly calorie allowance rather than a daily, but that's how I feel comfortable and what works for me, we're all individual
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I do get lazy too, but usually that means I'm eating the same thing over and over, which makes for easier logging.
^^^ This for me. My version of lazy is eating the same thing over and over. It's already all in my food list, so I just go through and check it off...takes only a few minutes. Then when I get tired of eating those things, I come up with some new ideas. I try to avoid processed foods as much as possible. The dinners just don't taste good to me, and aren't as filling as things I can make on my own.
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I prefer to cook because I don't find the frozen entrees very satisfying. Healthy eating can be a lot of work at first but it doesn't have to be forever. Once you get familiar with healthy portion sizes and understand your ingredients, etc. you don't have to place every pea on a food scale and it won't all be so tedious and time-consuming.0
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I wanted to throw this out there... It may be a bit like chum in the water for some, but maybe food for thought to others.
I love to cook. It's fun. I haven't earned any Michelin stars yet, but I like the the food I cook. I can, and often do, cook food healthier and fresher than any processed meal or fast food.
HOWEVER, when I want to be lazy and drop weight, I switch to almost 100% processed food.
Why?
Because I can buy a load of Lean Cuisine frozen dinners (or some equivalent example of the same idea) and a bunch of flavored bottled water and keep track of all the nutrition and calorie information with a quick swipe of the barcode on the outside of the box with my smartphone.
No guesswork. No weighing. No measuring. No calculations. No muss. No fuss.
Does anybody else switch to processed food from healthy, fresh homecooked meals in order to loose weight or am I even weirder than I thought? Any thoughts on this tactic?
i do this to a degree now its cold in the northern uk.
i add plenty of fresh veg and supplement protein with an added chicken breast or quorn fillet.
i also have half a fresh carton of soup an hour before to slightly full me and add more veg/ nutrients to my diet.
many supermarkets do leaner,calorie counted meals for the calorie conscious,time pressed singletons who are savvy enough to balance a diet and look after macros.
for meals for one with a sauce,like hunters chicken or cod mornay,they fit perfectly WITH the added nutrients 2/3 x weekly for dinner.
iifym.
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Clif Bars, Clif Bars, Clif Bars.
Clif Bars are some of the cheapest, healthiest, tastiest options available for a packaged food. Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread flavors are out for the holidays, so stock up at Sam's or Costco.0 -
well
the best question to ask is "hows that working for you?" have you been able to maintain your weightloss? how is you health? have you had a physical?
more importantly its not just about losing weight its about taking care of your body. and you body needs nutrients as well which I'm sure you are not getting 100% of eating processed foods 100% of the time.0 -
I love Lean Cuisine. I have a freezer stocked with them right now. They're the go-to when I don't have time/energy, plus they actually taste better than most things I can cook. I'd say I eat one for lunch or dinner about 3-5 times a week. Other than that I eat "real" food, drink lots of water and exercise, so I'm not too concerned about sodium.0
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Just do whatever works for you. I'm not a lover of the pre-packaged diet foods but I can see why they work over a short period of time. I would just worry about weight gain when you go back to normal eating, as with anything.
Whether it is lazy, easy, simple, who cares. Just find a way that works for you and that you can sustain for longer than a few weeks.
I'm the first to admit that I am lazy, I also have little interest in cooking that requires too much effort or ingredients. I want to be able track my calories with as little effort as possible. I buy things in single servings so I know exactly how many calories I am eating. Single servings of cereal, mini cheeses, small packets of cooked meat, mini servings of houmus etc etc.
I need to make this easy for myself as possible!0 -
battybecks wrote: »Kaydana123 wrote: »
I don't use several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken, because I don't need several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken. I measure out the amount I need, and use that. There's very little left in the pan, so I don't need to worry about that any more than I need to worry about what's left in any other pan when I've finished cooking. Most things don't need oil adding to them at all, adding several tablespoons of olive oil to a recipe is completely unheard of in my kitchen.
QFT.
"several" tablespoons of olive oil, OP? Bloody hell ...
I cook proper meals every night (in my cooking week, then the next week my bf cooks). It's really not difficult to log. Meat from supermarkets generally has a calorie count on the side anyway, so does rice, pasta, etc. I weight everything raw - including vegetables - I measure out my (MAX) one tbsp. of olive oil between two, I log it all before it gets cooked and I divide the result into two - one for me, one for bf. Easy. Takes just one minute. Sometimes I have my phone with me in the kitchen, so that if I'm altering what I originally thought I was going to do (I made mac n cheese last week, and realised I'd overestimated how many breadcrumbs I was going to need, for example) I can change it on the app. Or if I'm following a recipe I've found online, and entered into MFP, I have the app open next to me so that when I'm weighing I can remind myself how much I'm weighing out.
To be fair, recipes calling for several tablespoons of oil to saute onions, sear meats, etc is the norm. It's pretty unusual for published recipes to consciously use the least oil possible unless the recipe is from something like Cooking Light. That said, I've found that I almost never need more than a tablespoon of oil for those kinds of things unless I'm doing a pan fry.
For the record, I'm probably 50/50. 50% prepackaged meals & things that don't need recipe building like this morning's English muffin with hard boiled egg, and 50% meals that are cooked from scratch.
OP, you can make this pretty easy on yourself and still cook and have great tasting food. Simplify your meal, cook simple recipes with fewer ingredients so logging is no big deal. For example, last night for dinner I grilled a pork chop (only ingredients: chop, salt, pepper jelly, apple cider vinegar) and had steamed butternut squash. Or, you could cook more complicated recipes that freeze well as already suggested. It's even better if you have favorite recipes you make all the time. Then you only need to create the recipe once - and modifying it if you want is easy.0 -
I am starting to get the sneaking suspicion that all those guys and gals that only eat fresh, non-processed home cooked food, really don't bother with keeping track of calories or nutritional content at all (or at best they are completely guessing most of the time).
I kinda get the sense that they are really just ballparking it. Like guessing that their caloric intake for the day was roughly somewhere between 1,500 and 1,800 calories (uhm, give or take about 1,000 calories in error one way or the other).
I can't prove that is the case, just a sneaking suspicion.
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I log all of my food and I do not eat anything prepacakged for the most part. Perhaps some diced tomatoes or something. It takes time to log it, and it is not easy. I use the recipe builder to build my recipes and log everything I eat. I have lost 48 pounds in the last year, most of that in the last 15 weeks because I finally "figured 'it' out" for ME. It takes time and effort and life changes. It all depends on how badly you want something I guess. I do understand the frozen meals as I used to use them a long time ago, but for me...I can not go over 1500 mgs of sodium a day or the scale will not budge, the lower the better...so nothing packaged for me anymore. Good luck on your journey, no matter how YOU choose to do it. It has to work for you, not the rest of us.
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I think you should just try to moderate it - I use the 70/30 rule. As long as I do the right thing 70 percent of the time. I do buy processed foods - like chicken steaklets and oven french fries, I eat one steaklet and five fries - but I make sure they only fit into the bad 30 percent with my other guilty pleasures. I also stay away from processed foods if I`m ill, because they do nothing to help build up a weakened immune system.0
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My two cents: Just cook like always and limit the amount you eat. If you normally eat 2 cups of pasta, just eat one - and yes, you'll WANT to eat more but hey, no pain no gain!0
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Oh, I agree, it's a lot easier to scan a label. And sure, those Lean Cuisines may help you lose weight.
But I guess the weight loss phase wasn't really that important to me.
What was important to me was learning to live my life in a healthier way so that I could *maintain* my weight loss. For me, that meant continuing my love of cooking and great food, but learning more about what I was eating. I learned to adjust my recipes and weekly menu to meet the nutrition goals I set for myself.
I've logged a Lean Cuisine or similar exactly 0 times in the 1,200+ days I've been on MFP. On the other hand, my recipe builder here has more than 400 recipes entered - some low calorie, some indulgent, but all delicious.
So sure, your way is simple and "accurate" (did you know that nutrition labels are often off as much as 20%? And don't get me started on restaurant calorie counts...). But unless you're going to eat Lean Cuisines every day for the rest of your life and stop cooking - something you enjoy doing -
well....good luck to you in keeping off the weight you lose.
Yep, my logging takes some time. I probably spend an hour on the weekend planning a menu, making a shopping list, and entering the recipes into MFP. And while I cook, I adjust the quantity of ingredients based on what actually goes into the pot, so that probably takes another 5 minutes. Logging maybe takes me an hour or two a week.
I'm pretty damn willing to give those hours to a healthier body.
but not everyone is, and I'm glad you have your Lean Cuisines.I am starting to get the sneaking suspicion that all those guys and gals that only eat fresh, non-processed home cooked food, really don't bother with keeping track of calories or nutritional content at all (or at best they are completely guessing most of the time).
I kinda get the sense that they are really just ballparking it. Like guessing that their caloric intake for the day was roughly somewhere between 1,500 and 1,800 calories (uhm, give or take about 1,000 calories in error one way or the other).
This made me laugh. A lot.
I cook dinner 99% of the time. From scratch. The fact that the barcode scanner on the MFP app's recipe builder app is currently missing doesn't matter to me, because the vast majority of what I cook with doesn't have a barcode to scan. It's primarily meat (from a farmer, so no labels), produce, grains (usually bulk bin purchases, so again no label). I weigh every ingredient that goes into a recipe and record it.
This is not the definition of "ballparking".
And, for what it's worth, I lost more 130 pounds in 15 months. I've been maintaining it - very easily - for more than two years. I'd say my method is pretty accurate, don't you think?
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I never ate much processed food in the sense of packaged stuff from the grocery. My weakness was more for ordering Indian when I didn't feel like cooking (which definitely means more calories). But I'm the opposite in that logging makes me more committed to cooking myself (which like you I enjoy doing), as it makes me pay attention to what I'm doing and gives an added incentive to meet my goals, as I write down what I did.
I don't find that logging home cooked food is difficult or unreliable, maybe because my way of being lazy is to cook really simple meals most of the time. Veggies, meat, and something else -- more veggies, a starch, fruit, dairy. Indeed, that I'm logging it encourages me to make the effort to make extra veggies and make sure I'm getting a good variety and so on.
I know it's imperfect when I log -- I do include all the olive oil and so on (usually use spray, but log something for that too), but also get my meat from a farm so have to guess on calories based on the cut and the USDA information, but so far it seems to work fine. Logging becomes kind of a step in cooking and I enjoy weighing and noting it down.
I do kind of hate the recipe maker (although the old one is much better than the new one, which I can't figure out) and when I'm forced to use it, for stews and such, I tend to estimate the resulting portions rather than get all precise and weigh the final product and each bowl. Again, I think it's close enough, and would note that there are imprecisions to the grocery store stuff too.
Edit: Shannon's point about focusing on creating a sustainable way to live after weight loss rings true for me too, although unlike her I'm not at goal yet. I came to this from the experience of having lost and maintained in the past without logging and I'm mostly eating the way I know worked then, but adding the logging in on top of it, as an added incentive and since it ends up allowing me to be less strict. So it simply wouldn't have been possible for me to eat in a different kind of diet way, even if I thought the logging was easier (which I don't, really).0 -
Nobody's logging is ever perfect, but 90% accurate is better than nothing. And I'd rather stick a fork in my eyeball than eat Lean Cuisines. If you enjoy cooking and you like food, learn how to adjust just a little bit and you can continue to eat good food and still lose weight.
It's really not that difficult to use a spoon to measure out olive oil, or to weigh your chicken and veggies on a scale. I don't have any issues that would require me to worry about sodium, so I don't bother keeping track of salt. I'll weigh things that are calorie-dense, but I don't worry about weighing things like salad greens.
The bigger issue with eating only prepackaged foods to lose is that you're not going to keep doing that once you've lost the weight. (Some people eat like that normally -- that's fine -- but you're not going to, right?) You're not learning how to moderate your normal intake, so once you go back to eating your home-cooked meals, you're going to gain the weight back.0 -
battybecks wrote: »Kaydana123 wrote: »
I don't use several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken, because I don't need several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken. I measure out the amount I need, and use that. There's very little left in the pan, so I don't need to worry about that any more than I need to worry about what's left in any other pan when I've finished cooking. Most things don't need oil adding to them at all, adding several tablespoons of olive oil to a recipe is completely unheard of in my kitchen.
QFT.
"several" tablespoons of olive oil, OP? Bloody hell ...
I cook proper meals every night (in my cooking week, then the next week my bf cooks). It's really not difficult to log. Meat from supermarkets generally has a calorie count on the side anyway, so does rice, pasta, etc. I weight everything raw - including vegetables - I measure out my (MAX) one tbsp. of olive oil between two, I log it all before it gets cooked and I divide the result into two - one for me, one for bf. Easy. Takes just one minute. Sometimes I have my phone with me in the kitchen, so that if I'm altering what I originally thought I was going to do (I made mac n cheese last week, and realised I'd overestimated how many breadcrumbs I was going to need, for example) I can change it on the app. Or if I'm following a recipe I've found online, and entered into MFP, I have the app open next to me so that when I'm weighing I can remind myself how much I'm weighing out.
I do use several tablespoons of olive oil and so does anybody else who sears their meat in a skillet. Many of them also add things like wine or butter! Yikes!! I don't do that, but I'm making an effort to cook healthy.
You really have never heard of searing meat in a hot pan? Oh well, for those of you who don't know what searing meat is, here's an article to check it out:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-sear-meat-47333
Put one tablespoon of olive oil in a 12 inch skillet and try and get that to evenly coat the entire surface of the pan and then cook anything. If it works out well for you, let me know what black magic you used to get that to work and I'll give it a whirl.
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SherryTeach wrote: »This is why I batch cook and freeze single portions of several different main dishes. Then I can go through spells of being lazy and still be eating good food made with real food ingredients.
This! When I first started last year, that was my approach, to make it easy for myself. However, those meals get old so fast and you just don't get enough. I make my lunch meals a week or two at a time and freeze them. There's no excuse and I can watch what goes into them. Plus, they taste so much better! I feel full and happy after a 500 calorie lunch that 2 Lean Cuisines couldn't touch. I promise you, if you like to cook at all, you may start out with frozen meals but you will eventually end up making your own.0 -
battybecks wrote: »Kaydana123 wrote: »
I don't use several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken, because I don't need several tablespoons of olive oil to cook chicken. I measure out the amount I need, and use that. There's very little left in the pan, so I don't need to worry about that any more than I need to worry about what's left in any other pan when I've finished cooking. Most things don't need oil adding to them at all, adding several tablespoons of olive oil to a recipe is completely unheard of in my kitchen.
QFT.
"several" tablespoons of olive oil, OP? Bloody hell ...
I cook proper meals every night (in my cooking week, then the next week my bf cooks). It's really not difficult to log. Meat from supermarkets generally has a calorie count on the side anyway, so does rice, pasta, etc. I weight everything raw - including vegetables - I measure out my (MAX) one tbsp. of olive oil between two, I log it all before it gets cooked and I divide the result into two - one for me, one for bf. Easy. Takes just one minute. Sometimes I have my phone with me in the kitchen, so that if I'm altering what I originally thought I was going to do (I made mac n cheese last week, and realised I'd overestimated how many breadcrumbs I was going to need, for example) I can change it on the app. Or if I'm following a recipe I've found online, and entered into MFP, I have the app open next to me so that when I'm weighing I can remind myself how much I'm weighing out.
I do use several tablespoons of olive oil and so does anybody else who sears their meat in a skillet. Many of them also add things like wine or butter! Yikes!! I don't do that, but I'm making an effort to cook healthy.
You really have never heard of searing meat in a hot pan? Oh well, for those of you who don't know what searing meat is, here's an article to check it out:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-sear-meat-47333
Put one tablespoon of olive oil in a 12 inch skillet and try and get that to evenly coat the entire surface of the pan and then cook anything. If it works out well for you, let me know what black magic you used to get that to work and I'll give it a whirl.
You really shouldn't sear meat over high heat with olive oil, as olive oil has a low smoke point.
I usually use a spray of coconut oil, which is sufficient. Even before I was logging I used about a tablespoon, though, and just picked up the pan and moved it back and forth to coat before I added the meat. I thought that was standard--it's how my mom did it, etc.
Not sure why cooking with wine or butter gets a yikes. Cooking with wine isn't remotely unhealthy and doesn't even add many calories (I usually don't have wine on hand, so generally don't myself), and butter has about the same calories as oil. I mostly just use it for dishes where it makes a difference, though, like the occasional fish in brown butter. Yes, I always log it all.0 -
Why are you so defensive? People are giving you good advice about how to keep cooking the foods you like while still losing weight. If you just want someone to support your "lazy diet" plan, I'll do it:I do use several tablespoons of olive oil and so does anybody else who sears their meat in a skillet. Many of them also add things like wine or butter! Yikes!! I don't do that, but I'm making an effort to cook healthy.
You really have never heard of searing meat in a hot pan? Oh well, for those of you who don't know what searing meat is, here's an article to check it out:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-sear-meat-47333
Put one tablespoon of olive oil in a 12 inch skillet and try and get that to evenly coat the entire surface of the pan and then cook anything. If it works out well for you, let me know what black magic you used to get that to work and I'll give it a whirl.
Go ahead and just eat Lean Cuisines until you lose the weight.
It seems less desirable to me than adjusting how you cook, but that's just me.
Just make sure you come up with a plan for how you're going to keep the weight off after it's gone.
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I will say that I understand where you are coming from for this as you are still trying to lead a healthy lifestyle by counting the calories and what not.. I will admit that when I have had the option of choosing something that has a barcode and I know the calorie amount vs something that doesnt have a barcode and no-calorie amount when I am out...I will usually choose the barcode for simplicity sake. Although..i personally do a lot of cooking and try not to each too much processesed food.0
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Why are you so defensive? People are giving you good advice about how to keep cooking the foods you like while still losing weight. If you just want someone to support your "lazy diet" plan, I'll do it:
Go ahead and just eat Lean Cuisines until you lose the weight.
It seems less desirable to me than adjusting how you cook, but that's just me.
Just make sure you come up with a plan for how you're going to keep the weight off after it's gone.
I think a better question would be, how in the world do you read that post as defensive???
It was written (like all of my posts) with a bit of humor and somewhat tongue in cheek.
I think for some, writing on internet forums is a bit like looking at Rorschach cards.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Rorschach_blot_01.jpg
^^^ what do you see?0 -
Is it possible people here are stressing a bit too much about this? I'd go crazy if I was trying to measure every single dang ingredient of everything I was cooking for MFP. Instead, I look in the database for what I am eating (or something similar) and input approximately the quantity I ate.
This, combined with a good amount of exercise, helped me reach my goal weight. I don't consider what I did lazy. But I didn't see a real need to get SO incredibly granular in order to lose weight.
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Sweet lean cuisine diet bro.
Going to be even sweeter when you switch back to cooking and load it all back on because you didn't learn how to cook better or manage your nutrition.
Sounds good.0 -
It sounds like that subway diet where he only ate subway sandwiches.
It sounds like your meals are much better than lean cuisine. Have you tried using the app? You can store recipes so if you make something more than once you already have it calculated. I am the laziest person I know and I like using the app. And, you are going to want to be able to know how to maintain your weight.
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So, let's shift gears a bit and turn up the heat. I see I've got most of Team Anti-Processed Food (aka TAPF) warmed up, so let's take it to the next level.
Why, EXACTLY, is it about "processed food" (that is specifically tailored for people who are diet conscious) bad? I'm not talking about frozen pizza and ice cream. I'm talking about... oh, you all already know exactly what I'm talking about.
So why is it bad?
Does their meat come from different animals?
Are their vegetables grown in different soil?
What is it specifically?
Or is it just dogma? Just something people have repeated over and over and you swallowed it all hook line and sinker without questioning? Was it something that used to be true years ago, but has changed over time? Is it something that only applies to some processed food, like Twinkies, but not others?
What are your thoughts. What really got TAPF angry enough to respond? What is it about responding with thoughtful, if not a bit facetious, responses to your posts instead of mindlessly agreeing with TAPF made you the most angry??0 -
Go research it and tell us.
Also, please, report your success over short and long term with lean cuisine, I'm quite curious. 0 -
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