Same meal everyday.will it work??

miacoleamore
miacoleamore Posts: 15 Member
edited August 2015 in Food and Nutrition
It would be so much easier for me to eat the same things every single day for at least 1 week so that I don't have to spare the moment find something clean to eat.any simple few ingredient ideas that I could purchase weekly for 40 or less dollars and have already prepared for that week?? Please help..I don't have much time to meal prep but I do want to get the necessary nutrients to stay healthy and lose weight.something that simple modifications could maintain weight in the future as well.
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Replies

  • mccindy72
    mccindy72 Posts: 7,001 Member
    There are a lot of foods that don't take much time to prepare. You don't have to eat the same thing every day, and in fact if you try that, you're likely to get bored and stop doing what you're doing. If you have one day where you have free time, a lot of people find success making meals ahead for the week and just reheating them when time is short.

    Try reading the first post in this thread also: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here
  • miacoleamore
    miacoleamore Posts: 15 Member
    mccindy72 wrote: »
    There are a lot of foods that don't take much time to prepare. You don't have to eat the same thing every day, and in fact if you try that, you're likely to get bored and stop doing what you're doing. If you have one day where you have free time, a lot of people find success making meals ahead for the week and just reheating them when time is short.

    Try reading the first post in this thread also: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1235566-so-you-re-new-here

    Thank you. That's very helpful
  • mathandcats
    mathandcats Posts: 786 Member
    I eat the same dinner for many days in a row and don't get bored. I usually switch up what I'm eating for breakfast. Sometimes I'll be eating the same thing for lunch as well, but not always. As long as you are meeting your calorie goal you will lose weight.
  • LaVidaDeNiki
    LaVidaDeNiki Posts: 22 Member
    So I meal prep the same meat for my Monday thru Friday lunches, mostly because I work a lot and rather not worry about it on a daily basis. For example, this week I'm using salmon. But, I season them differently even tho I'm prepping at the same time. A few will be lemon pepper, a few teriyaki, etc... That way you're prepping all at once, but allowing variety throughout the week.
  • V_Keto_V
    V_Keto_V Posts: 342 Member
    There's no big problem eating the same thing everday. Out of boredom, I will just use different spices and seasoning.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    I have the same breakfast,lunch and snacks every single day. I'm surprised I haven't got sick of it yet.
    I do prefer routine and structure though :lol:
  • 999tigger
    999tigger Posts: 5,235 Member
    yes, it all depends on the person and whether they get bored with food. I cna if need be go months, but soemtimes I like variety. Oats is a good staple breakfast and then you cna do 100s of variations to jazz it up.

    An alternative can be to pre plan and pre prepare suff, so its ready or just needs warming up.
  • glovepuppet
    glovepuppet Posts: 1,710 Member
    the less variety in your diet, the less chance you have of getting all the nutrients you need. does that meal plan contain absolutely everything?
  • katesmithnn
    katesmithnn Posts: 7 Member
    I believe with any weight loss plan it is really important to keep at it long enough to experience the benefits, see the results, and form new habits. Keep in mind that it takes about 3 weeks to structure a habit. Weekly food prep is no different. Don’t drop idea if it doesn’t work out the first time. Or the first few times.

    Adjust and rise above. Expect to make adjustments along the way. Food prep is about making your life easier. Sure it takes a little effort and time upfront but it is worth it. It is so rewarding to open up the refrigerator door and see healthy delicious meals and snacks ready to eat.

    Look for simple and easy quick meal plans to prepare.With a littile extra effort, you can manage weekly meal plans and you will find easy afterwords.
  • becalee26
    becalee26 Posts: 185 Member
    My lunch and breakfast are pretty much the same. I like it that way.
  • Soopatt
    Soopatt Posts: 563 Member
    I also have a lot of repetition in my diet, mostly because I am only prepping for myself and it saves on waste. If, for example, I buy a punnet of apples, I pretty much have to only eat apples as my fruit for days until they are finished. If I bought apples and bananas at the same time they would go bad before I got to eat them. Same pretty much applies to all my fresh food, but a lot of it freezes if I prep it.

    Overnight oats is really easy and has changed my breakfast routine. It takes 5 minutes to make my batches for the week and I freeze 3 of them. I have probably 6 or 7 meals that I eat and rotate. I am so used to making them that I do it almost robotically, so it is no big deal.
  • Pinnacle_IAO
    Pinnacle_IAO Posts: 608 Member
    It would be so much easier for me to eat the same things every single day for at least 1 week so that I don't have to spare the moment find something clean to eat.any simple few ingredient ideas that I could purchase weekly for 40 or less dollars and have already prepared for that week?? Please help..I don't have much time to meal prep but I do want to get the necessary nutrients to stay healthy and lose weight.something that simple modifications could maintain weight in the future as well.

    Part of pushing through is finding the discipline to take action and reach a goal.
    Most fail.
    And even those who lose the weight, again, most gain it right back. They stop working.
    Winners who see this journey to the end and maintain the results are workers with passion, attention to detail and discipline. The failures are the ones who won't break lazy habits and look for short-cuts.
    This is my observation.

    Best of luck to you :)
  • kazminchu
    kazminchu Posts: 250 Member
    I think it depends on the person. For example, 8 months of the year I will have tuna salad for lunch every work day. The other 6 I have soup. I still really enjoy my tuna salad every day, but my colleague is horrified because she gets bored after eating the same thing for 2 days running.
    Do what works for you. You can always try having prepping the same thing for a week's worth of meals and seeing how you get on. If you get bored, try something else.
  • supersocks117
    supersocks117 Posts: 169 Member
    It depends on you. I LIKE to eat mostly the same thing, for many days, and then when I am bored, I switch it for something else I eat for many days ;) I have eggs every day for breakfast with similar fillings (omelet), fairly same snacks (unless I find something new I feel like trying), 1 of 2-3 lunches (leftovers, salad, a frozen burrito) and then dinner is whatever DH feels like, or my Mom made (I eat there 2-3 days per week usually), or maybe something I felt like trying - but DH and I rotate the same few meals once per week. Then my dessert/night snack is one of a few things. I might try different flavors. I might eat out once in a while. But mostly it's the same food and I find it easier and I am not bored.
  • sixxpoint
    sixxpoint Posts: 3,529 Member
    edited August 2015
    I don't understand how people can eat the same thing every single day. like sheep in a pasture. Maybe it is due to a lack of creativity in the kitchen, but that type of monotony would drive me crazy.

    Eating like this can also restrict nutritional variation in a diet or lead to a build up of contaminants or an overdose of certain vitamins and minerals depending on the foods you consume, e.g. liver, brazil nuts, canned tuna, etc.
    kazminchu wrote: »
    8 months of the year I will have tuna salad for lunch every work day.

    Yikes! Congrats on your Mercury contamination goals of 2015!
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    Soopatt wrote: »
    I also have a lot of repetition in my diet, mostly because I am only prepping for myself and it saves on waste. If, for example, I buy a punnet of apples, I pretty much have to only eat apples as my fruit for days until they are finished. If I bought apples and bananas at the same time they would go bad before I got to eat them. Same pretty much applies to all my fresh food, but a lot of it freezes if I prep it.

    This is what I do/think too, but I can have 3-4 different sorts of fruit at any time, because I eat 3-4 sorts of fruit every day. I do the same with spread for crispbread, cheese, yogurt, anything: Finish old before open new. I use a lot of the same vegetables; some are very versatile and keep well: carrots, cucumber, onion, garlic, chili, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, parsnips, peppers, celery. I buy the more perishable vegetables, like asparagus and lettuce, and fruit like fresh figs and berries, less often, because I need to eat them so fast. The freezer is my friend. I cut/portion and freeze stuff like bananas, meat, bread, and buy frozen vegetables and berries, and single frozen meat. I live alone too, and I don't find it hard to feed myself well and have a fresh and varied diet of all my favorite foods, and the waste is almost non-existant. It just takes a litle bit of planning.
  • Reinventing_Me
    Reinventing_Me Posts: 1,053 Member
    Try baking a salmon fillet or boneless skinless chicken breasts. You can freeze some of it and thaw/warm it when you want it. You can pair it with salad or veggie...or make sandwiches or wraps. You can also make tuna salad.
  • Shannakay87
    Shannakay87 Posts: 1 Member
    edited August 2015
    I suggest meal prep a few meals. I'll eat the same meal for 2-3 days then i get bored. I use my oven a lot for seafood and chicken breast. steam veggies and make salads in advance. I never repeat the same breakfast.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    I'm not sure it would be very balanced.
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
    I nearly always have the same breakfast. my lunch and snacks are similar day to day. dinner is different
    spices make all the difference. prep some chicken. add spice per the sort of meal you are pairing it with=rice, veggies, noodles
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    kazminchu wrote: »
    I think it depends on the person. For example, 8 months of the year I will have tuna salad for lunch every work day. The other 6 I have soup. I still really enjoy my tuna salad every day, but my colleague is horrified because she gets bored after eating the same thing for 2 days running.
    Do what works for you. You can always try having prepping the same thing for a week's worth of meals and seeing how you get on. If you get bored, try something else.

    Your years have 14 months! ;)

    I get bored easily, so I make a lot of one pot dishes (soups, stews, chili, curry, beans, burritos, stuffed peppers, etc) and separate them and freeze them in portions labeled with the date and calorie count. That way I can eat something different everyday without much effort, but I also don't have to cook everyday.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,603 Member
    It's not a strategy that would be ver healthy long-term. You need a variety of healthy foods if you want a balanced diet. But a week won't make or break you, so if you wish to eat the same thing every day for a week, go for it.

    As far as eating healthy and making things quickly...I couldn't do it. If you want healthy foods that taste good, you have to put some time into it. Learn how to prepare those foods in the ways you like best. Experiment with different food combinations and different herbs and spices. There are just many different spices out there.

    You can cook daily or cook weekly and freeze, but you're going to have to cook some food if you want healthy ones.

    Some people assume that eating healthy means plain, baked chicken every day, but there are so many ways to prepare chicken. You could go a month and never eat the same chicken dish twice. And chicken isn't the only healthy lean meat, either.

    Don't fall into the trap of thinking that healthy food must be plain and not taste good, lol. It's not true. You just have to learn how to make it taste good. Then, you get to eat foods you love AND eat healthy ones. And that is a wonderful thing! :)
  • lucys1225
    lucys1225 Posts: 597 Member
    kazminchu wrote: »
    I think it depends on the person. For example, 8 months of the year I will have tuna salad for lunch every work day. The other 6 I have soup. I still really enjoy my tuna salad every day, but my colleague is horrified because she gets bored after eating the same thing for 2 days running.
    Do what works for you. You can always try having prepping the same thing for a week's worth of meals and seeing how you get on. If you get bored, try something else.

    Your years have 14 months! ;)

    I get bored easily, so I make a lot of one pot dishes (soups, stews, chili, curry, beans, burritos, stuffed peppers, etc) and separate them and freeze them in portions labeled with the date and calorie count. That way I can eat something different everyday without much effort, but I also don't have to cook everyday.

    Queenmunchy, You seem to have the whole food prep process down pat. Do you have a blog? If not, you should!! :)
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    edited August 2015
    lucys1225 wrote: »

    Queenmunchy, You seem to have the whole food prep process down pat. Do you have a blog? If not, you should!! :)

    My sister in law keeps asking me to make one too. When my daughter was eating solids (she's almost 8 now), I would make and freeze her baby food. After doing that maybe two weekends, I realized that I should apply the same thing to me. I started by making things like habichuelas rosadas and separating them into two portions, or four portion casseroles for me and my ex husband to eat. I would cook things like instant brown rice to accompany my beans when I had them for dinner.

    After a few months, I started freezer cooking and making things in muffin tins, sauces, one pot meals, burgers, burritos, breakfast sandwiches, empanadas, wontons, egg rolls, calzones, pizzas, frozen fries, nuggets, meatballs, and even cooked portions of rice, pasta, chicken, or steak.

    Every single one of those recipes was PACKED with vegetables right into them and was made healthier.

    The years I spent as a single mom with a demanding job, taking care of all house responsibilities, yardwork, carting my child around to her many activities were really rough, so I made sure that I used my time the best way I could.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    Kalikel wrote: »
    It's not a strategy that would be ver healthy long-term. You need a variety of healthy foods if you want a balanced diet. But a week won't make or break you, so if you wish to eat the same thing every day for a week, go for it.

    As far as eating healthy and making things quickly...I couldn't do it. If you want healthy foods that taste good, you have to put some time into it. Learn how to prepare those foods in the ways you like best. Experiment with different food combinations and different herbs and spices. There are just many different spices out there.

    You can cook daily or cook weekly and freeze, but you're going to have to cook some food if you want healthy ones.

    Some people assume that eating healthy means plain, baked chicken every day, but there are so many ways to prepare chicken. You could go a month and never eat the same chicken dish twice. And chicken isn't the only healthy lean meat, either.

    Don't fall into the trap of thinking that healthy food must be plain and not taste good, lol. It's not true. You just have to learn how to make it taste good. Then, you get to eat foods you love AND eat healthy ones. And that is a wonderful thing! :)

    Getting out of that trap was my gamechanger :star:
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
    It would be so much easier for me to eat the same things every single day for at least 1 week so that I don't have to spare the moment find something clean to eat.any simple few ingredient ideas that I could purchase weekly for 40 or less dollars and have already prepared for that week?? Please help..I don't have much time to meal prep but I do want to get the necessary nutrients to stay healthy and lose weight.something that simple modifications could maintain weight in the future as well.

    I find something that works well for me I can eat it daily for years and have been that way for years.

    For months now eat at the local Huddle House daily between 3-5 pm unless I am out of town. If I get into the parking lot and staff see me my coffee and ice water will be at my table and even my 5 fried eggs and 6 pieces of bacon of I get to talking to someone in the parking lot. :)

    I seldom trade cars, lived at the same place 30 years, had the same wife for 35 years, etc so eating the same thing for breakfast and dinner works well for me.

  • lucys1225
    lucys1225 Posts: 597 Member
    lucys1225 wrote: »

    Queenmunchy, You seem to have the whole food prep process down pat. Do you have a blog? If not, you should!! :)

    My sister in law keeps asking me to make one too. When my daughter was eating solids (she's almost 8 now), I would make and freeze her baby food. After doing that maybe two weekends, I realized that I should apply the same thing to me. I started by making things like habichuelas rosadas and separating them into two portions, or four portion casseroles for me and my ex husband to eat. I would cook things like instant brown rice to accompany my beans when I had them for dinner.

    After a few months, I started freezer cooking and making things in muffin tins, sauces, one pot meals, burgers, burritos, breakfast sandwiches, empanadas, wontons, egg rolls, calzones, pizzas, frozen fries, nuggets, meatballs, and even cooked portions of rice, pasta, chicken, or steak.

    Every single one of those recipes was PACKED with vegetables right into them and was made healthier.

    The years I spent as a single mom with a demanding job, taking care of all house responsibilities, yardwork, carting my child around to her many activities were really rough, so I made sure that I used my time the best way I could.

    That's great! I've been doing this for my breakfast and lunches for awhile now and, since my son and husband eat very differently than me, I just started doing it for my dinners. Makes dinner time much less chaotic!
  • If you get paid monthly or have a little money to spare to start, would you be able to prep a few different things to start off with, so you have some variety?

    I've just moved house, and on my first weekend I made four different meals, each 4-5 portions. So now I have four veg-packed options to choose from, and I can build on that each weekend. I'm not money-poor though, just time-poor! A short shift is 10 hours, and by the time I finish work I'd rather stick pins in myself than cook a meal from scratch, so if I don't have healthy options in the freezer I know I'll eat crap - it's part of how I got fat. I need to have enough options that when I'm doing a 12-day run at work I don't have to prepare anything and I still have choices at the end of the run.

    I cope fine with having the same breakfast and/or lunch every day, but I would get bored very very quickly eating the same dinner. I generally make a couple of lunches at a time - I find salad gets a bit sad if it's chopped more than about two days in advance - but that's usually done and sorted in the time it takes my dinner to heat through.

    I don't eat "clean" though - breakfast, especially, can be anything quick to eat, low-cal, and preferably high protein but I'm less worried about that one in the mornings - I just wouldn't get my 5 a day in without some homemade meals. So YMMV on that, too.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    I'm a variety girl. But I know people exist who like the same thing day in and day out. As long as you get a variety every day you should be fine.

    Eggs are great; high in protein, lots of fat soluble vitamins, and compact. You can hard boil a full dozen at a time and eat them through the week.

    The same thing with chicken breasts. Cook up a whole bunch at once and freeze them. You might want to cut them up and preseason the way Costco does, and then you can put them in a wrap with ranch dressing, or put them on a salad.

    For salad, try making up a bunch of mason jar salads. The jars help keep them fresher longer. You should be able to make at least four at a time.

    Apples are terrifically portable, and great with peanut butter.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    The rubbermaid three ounce take-alongs are great. I can fill them with peanut butter, cottage cheese, yogurt, or hummus. Crackers too, as go-with.