Actually it’s not the cooking I mind as much as the dishwashing, and it’s not quite as frivolous as it sounds: I have a plumbing problem in my kitchen that would require major surgery to fix and I really don’t want to pay for that just yet (I will when I get ready to sell the house, but not until) and that makes any kind of dish washing a major chore. I also have something of an erratic work schedule so I don’t want to come home and cook dinner at midnight then fix any kind of breakfast 8 hours later and the like.
OTOH, I do need to eat a healthier diet, first to lose weight and then for blood sugar reasons. (I’m not diabetic, but it’s common on both sides of my family and I don’t want to get there.) I considered Nutrisystem- all of the food is prepackaged (though you need to buy things like fruit and vegetables to supplement it) but the reviews are really mixed, there are lots of stories of beign rooked by them when it comes to cancelling once you’re enrolled, and I don’t want to make that kind of commitment until I actually taste the food. (I’d gladly pay them for about a 3 day supply just to see what it tastes like and all, but the smallest quantity I’ve seen was 14 days.)
So, does anybody have any suggestions for healthier diet style foods that does not require getting a lot of dishes dirty? Frozen foods, things that don’t require a lot of warming in a pot, anything microwaveable or steamable (I have a good steamer), that at the same point tastes at least good enough you don’t dread it and is reasonably filling? (My ultimate goal is to weed out processed foods, but for now baby steps, and eventually I’ll fix the plumbing.)
There are lots of frozen meals that are pretty good and pretty low calorie. The best part about them to me is that if you stick with their portion sizes, you’ll be doing well (the smaller meals, of course, not Hungry Man or something). When I cook, I definitely tend to eat bigger portions.
And since you’re interested in Nutrisystem meals, another option is the Weight Watchers brand called Smart Ones, because you can buy those at the grocery store in whatever quantity you want. The Fiesta Quesadillas are really good.
Also, I hate cooking too, and a lot of the food I eat doesn’t require much preparation. I’m a vegetarian though and I don’t know how you feel about vegetarian food. I make a lot of vegetable and cheese sandwiches, honey mustard, no mayo. Pita bread is good and you can stuff it with healthy things. I’ve just noticed lately how filling oatmeal is compared to similar quantities of other food. Rice mixed with peas and some spices (not sure what spices exactly, it was a packet that came with some ravioli) is a good meal to me, but I have kind of weird eating habits. The way I make frozen peas is just running it under hot water in a colander, super easy. And I like those little fruit cups because they feel like a real snack or half of a meal or whatever but they’re only about 30 calories. Hummus with vegetables is also good. Hummus seems about as indulgent as peanut butter, but it has far less fat and calories.
I’ve been on a diet for a while that doesn’t require you to change what you’re eating. It’s called the No S Diet. The gist of it is, you don’t eat sweets, snacks, or seconds at meals except on Saturdays, Sundays, and special days (holidays and the like). The main difference comes in how much and when you’re eating, not what you’re eating, so anything you eat now is OK. This can be combined with changes in what you’re eating, once you’ve gotten used to not snacking and all that.
Another one I did before I was pregnant is the Nine Inch Diet. You buy some 9" plates and use those instead of your bigger plates. The idea is that less food looks like more, because it’s on a smaller plate. I combined this one with No S with some success. I went back to my bigger plates when I got pregnant.
One thing I’ve tried doing is to make sure I bring my lunch to work (instead of going out) at least 2 days a week. I figure a frozen meal or leftovers is generally going to be lower in calories, sugar, and sodium than a restaurant meal. I also eliminated trips to the vending machines (except for diet sodas). You can also save some money doing this.
If you eat out a lot, or eat a lot of fast food, Eat This, Not That might be helpful.
I track habits, not weight, so I can’t give you a number of pounds I’ve lost.
If you do go for pre-packaged foods, keep an eye out for sodium if your family has a history of heart disease. Sodium in frozen foods is crazy high.
I like to go to the Lean Cuisine web site and search for products with under 600mg of sodium then look for those in the store. That’s easier than standing there searching through all the freezers.
Please don’t come bash me about how sodium is not bad and we should eat copious amounts of it. I don’t give a shit. This is just friendly info for the OP.
Another thing you could do is get one of those single-serve blenders that you drink out of. Make yourself a protein shake in the morning with Greek yogurt, protein powder, honey/sugar/Splenda/agave nectar and frozen fruits. Drink it on the way to work or at work, then rinse the cup out at work.
Cottage cheese is an amazing food for a healthy diet. You can dress it up as savory or sweet, and either way it’s basically pure protein. Just dish it out and put in fruit, or cocoa, or cinnamon, or hot sauce, or seasoned salt or whatever. Dump it on a bag of salad.
Quick oats can be eaten raw, mixed in applesauce. I really like them this way: chewy.
I also cook a bunch of boneless skinless chicken breasts once a week and eat off them all week. That takes some cooking, but just once a week.
Do you need a lot of variety in your diet? This seems to vary a lot from person to person and really affects what plan is best for you.
[QUOTE=Manda JO]
Do you need a lot of variety in your diet? This seems to vary a lot from person to person and really affects what plan is best for you.
[/QUOTE]
Not really. I do need to be allowed to cheat once in a while- and I mean in moderation, but once or twice a month I’d like to be able to have a “fried everything with extra cholesterol” infidelity.
I remember eating cottage cheese and chicken last time I dieted and I lost a good bit of weight and it wasn’t bad at all.
Please explain the plumbing problem. Do you have a laundry tub? A bathtub? Any way to wash dishes?
I am not sure how one even eats (let alone changes one’s diet) without washing dishes. (My mind is boggled.)
Honestly, if having working plumbing will help you to cook at home and cook healthier, it may be the best investment you make. (Sadly, you are too far from me to offer up my and my husband’s help).
Anyway, things that I do when trying to lose weight that involve few dishes: fresh fruit and lots of it. Cottage cheese was already mentioned. I like the pre-packed salmon portions and I put them with a pre-packed salad for dinner.
The big thing for me is too not eat lunch too early. If I eat breakfast at 9:30 (on most days, this is the case) and then lunch at noon, I am starving by 4pm and no snack is going to cut it. I need dinner. If I hold off on lunch until 1 or 1:30, I am good until 7 or 8.
Also, night-time snacks are a problem for me. I find the only solution is to not keep bad things in the house and to only allow myself one of the light snacks I do keep.
Prepackaged salad mixes, along with those small packets of cherry tomatoes and shredded toppings like carrots and broccoli, are real time savers. They allow you to throw a fresh salad together in minutes. and salads don’t require cooking, so that cuts down on the dish washing you have to do as well.
Cottage cheese + tun or chicken + salad + fruit for dessert = filling, healthy, low calorie meal (as long as you use lower-fat cottage cheese and don’t drown the salad in too much dressing).
I’m curious about exactly how problematic your dishwashing situation is, too.
When I lived in a graduate dormitory with no cafeteria and no kitchens and a no-heating-element policy, I had a rice cooker that went in the microwave. I would put in the rice and water and top it with some frozen veg and pre-cooked protein (shrimp, chicken, tofu) or cracked eggs, and microwave till it was done, then apply sauce as needed. It was the only time in my life I’ve lost weight without trying.
My dishwashing situation then, with no kitchens and a no-washing-dishes-in-the-bathroom policy, was a spigot over a drain in the utility room floor. That was pretty off-putting but at least I only had one pot and a spoon to wash.
Depending on how culinarily adventurous you are (and I note that you aren’t very), cooking meals en papillote really cuts down on cleanup as does lining roasting pans with foil. There are disposable liners for crock pots, too, and the world of crock pot cooking is vast and glorious.
It’s actually a drainage problem from the sink that, near as I understand it, necessitates going into the wall to replace a pipe and that gets pricey. (I have a newish dishwasher, but if I try to use it the kitchen floods due to the drainage problem- it’s not a Drano type clog but something wrong with the pipe itself.)
I have bathtubs and the like upstairs but I’m not going to do dishes in them.
I minimize dishwashing by boiling up slop in a big microwave bowl, eating out of it, then washing the bowl (and the spoon.) Dishwashing is a snap!
The microwave is a godsend for slobs like me! I’ve gotten really good at boiling up bulk pasta, bulk rice, spuds, etc. Not very healthy; lots of starches. But I toss in a can of mixed veggies now and then and pretend it’s good for me. The best thing about this all is it’s cheap!
Lazy, cheap, and it hasn’t killed me yet. I’m cool.
I lost quite a bit of weight using the lean cuisine meals. I’ve managed to keep that weight off by adding some moderate exercise and by using portion control. Nothing is off limits now, but I only splurge on the weekends.
Walking has been of tremendous value to me. I highly recommend it.
How about a George Foreman grill and paper plates/plastic forks? You could stuff your freezer with bags of lean chicken breasts and make a couple of them for dinner every night. As long as you don’t go back and forth between meat types, you don’t need to “wash” it between uses. You just put a couple wet paper towels between the grill plates while it’s hot, and wipe it down when it’s cooler (but still warm). You could use alcohol or a degreaser or soap and water every week or so if you feel compelled to, but it won’t get gross if you paper-towel it religiously after every use. You could also use this method to clean it, which I found on youtube (looks clean to me!).
I wouldn’t go between beef and chicken because of potential cross-contamination, but those grills are pretty much MADE for chicken grilling. Delicious!
Not sure if this line is regional or not, but if you like Indian/Middle Eastern food, the Saffron Road line of frozen dinners is pretty tasty and not very high calorie. Tandoor Chef brand is good too. Also, Amy’s I know is national and it is pretty good in general. They have some great microwavable “bowls”: http://www.amys.com/products/product-categories/bowls
How do you feel about soups? Throwing together a batch of soup leaves you with a cutting board, knife and a big pot to clean, but you can freeze single serve portions to eat off of all month, and homemade soups are fantastic for weight loss (canned soups are obscenely high in sodium, which may or may not be a medical issue for you.) None of the following take more than 15 minutes prep work.
WW Jerk Turkey Soup - this recipe is for a slow cooker, but you can just as easily throw everything into a pot on the stove and simmer it for an hour.
WW Vegetable Soup - a classic recipe, which takes very well to tweaking to your taste in ingredients and is essentially “free” for any reasonable diet plan. It’s filling with exactly the sorts of foods you should be eating, and hardly more calories than a spring breeze.
It’s a cliche by now, but Subway worked for Jared, and it’s working for my husband. When he’s working (especially nights - 5pm-5am,) Tony grabs a footlong (wheat, lean meat, loaded with vegetables,) and eats half for lunch, half for dinner. Five bucks, 2 meals, no cooking or dishwashing. That’s 1000 calories, and his breakfast (cereal usually,) a couple of protein bars, and some other small nibble keep him at about 1800-2000 calories per day. Sure, he “cheats” now and again, and he isn’t very good at judging portions, but he has lost a slow and steady 75 pounds over the past year. (It would be more if he exercised more, but he’s becoming more able and active, and spends about 8 hours a week training his dog. That helps, and it’s much more than he was able to do at his heaviest.)
Maybe a combination diet, using frozen meals from the market and healthier restaurant fare could work for you? I will say that Tony says that the protein bars are the key to his success, since they save him from late-night candy bar temptations. My own experience matches his: when I lost 80a pounds several years ago, I did best with small, high fiber, protein rich meals 4-6 times a day.
