I have found that not keeping junk food in the house is extremely helpful. You don’t need it, and if it’s not in the house, laziness becomes your ally in your diet.
If I want something sweet, or salty snacks, I buy a small package of whatever it is I want (ideally a single serving) and eat it. Then I get what I want, but not too much of it. More of something that you shouldn’t be eating much of for less money is not a good deal.
The No S diet allows this.
Round out your frozen dinners with steamed veggies to make them more filling for pretty much no extra calories.
You know those bags of pre-washed vegetables? I always get the bag of brocolli spears and baby carrots. What I do is snack out of it, potato chip-style, while the rest of my dinner is cooking in the microwave. That way I’m guaranteed to get my vegetables and also fill up a little.
Sunflower seeds make salads delicious.
I did Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating for a week when I decided I needed to eat more healthfully. The food was solidly decent, and the copy Seattle uses on her menus is delightfully unhinged (there’s frequent reference to the supposedly trendy character of some the items: trendy petite carrots, trendy pizza toppings, trendy breakfast muffins(!) ).
The downside is that it’s not a cheap program. It’s pay as you go, so it might be a more non-commital version than NutriSystem. I didn’t have any trouble not continuing after a week.
I would add that I occasionally contemplate resuming the program (and I ain’t a fatty or nothin’), but at $130 to $150 a week, that’s very steep.
There’ve been some nice improvements in the frozen/microwave foods areas. You might have to experiment a bit, and see what you like, but there are a couple of the Marie Callendar’s Steamer line that I love so much that I eat them several times a week, and I do like to cook and have time and room to do it! And I still like them a great deal. But…only a couple. My favourite is the garlic chicken one. Fills me up perfectly, and tastes quite, quite good,http://photos-ak.sparkpeople.com/nw/3/9/l393116178.jpg for 410 calories, though I tend to add pepper and spices to it, but that’s another thing about frozen stuff: you can add your own add-ins quite easily, to make them just how you want. But 410 calories may only seem acceptable to me 'cause that may be the only ‘meal’ I eat the whole day, snacking on other stuff the rest of the time.
But that’s MY preference. There are so many things out there now I suspect you will just have to read some labels and see what you like.
And I second the frozen veggies area; that has improved GREATLY, and is amazing.
Frozen veggies in the steam-able microwave bags are fantastically good, and incredibly easy.
Breakfast for me is a banana and greek yogurt. Lunch is usually goat cheese and crackers and either popcorn and some veggies. Dinner is a small sandwich on a take and bake ciabatta roll, some cheese puffs, and yogurt covered pretzels. I use paper plates, plastic spoons and knives (I can’t abide the feel of yogurt on metal). No dishes, and it’s gotten me about 155 pounds along so far. There’s multivitamining going on, of course.
I live pretty much off stove free healthy foods.
Use paper plates and bowls to wash even less dishes.
Breakfast - scrambled eggs mixed with spinach or other frozen veggies (defrost veggies first) - scrambled eggs cook fine in the microwave, top with salsa or tomato sauce.
Lunch - wrap with deli tuna or precooked chicken pieces or faux chicken grillers miked or toaster ovened, with lettuce or sprouts. Companion pre packaged soup and or salad.
Dinner - any of the above. Or general stir fry type dish made of microwaved frozen or fresh veggies, precooked meats or faux meats, your choice of sauce for theme flavoring.
For healthier meals use fresher ingredients, organic, meat free, etc. For lazier meals get pre prepared/packaged, or make larger amounts of the healthy stuff once or twice a week and eat the leftovers.
In terms of diets, I think the 4-hour body diet makes the most sense and is pretty easy to follow.
Moving from IMHO to cafe.
I’ve been buying bagged fresh broccoli slaw to top my salads with at work and it’s delish. I also second the sunflower seeds – and try thawed frozen edamame (soybeans). They make a great snack too.
Slight hijack (but I started the thread): I love edamame, but I can never get it quite right. Do you find the best results from the microwave or a steamer or- how, exactly?
From the sushi place down the street. 
I lost 40 lbs last year simply by counting calories. I found the most important thing was having a 400 calorie breakfast and lunch and two 100 calorie snacks before I left work. If I had 1000 calories during the day, I’d have a hard time eating the rest of my calories when I got home (I ate 1500 calories per day) because I just wasn’t hungry.
I say this because perhaps if you are not really hungry when you get home, then you can avoid having to cook dinner at all and can eat more things that don’t require using a lot of dishes (ie - packs of tuna, some cottage cheese, veggies or Amy’s frozen meals).
For breakfast I had Nature’s Path Optimum Slim cereal or steel cut oatmeal (which you can make a batch of in a slow cooker, take a Tupperware dishful to work, wash the dish at work!), milk, or sometimes a hard boiled egg.
I had the luxury of being able to eat my breakfast and lunch at work along with the ability to wash a dish or two there. Maybe you can focus more on what you’re eating during the day so that you don’t have to cook much or at all when you get home.
Also, you can cook a mess of chicken breasts in a slow cooker, as well and then use them thru the week (or maybe freeze?).
Do you have a toaster oven? Perhaps you can cook using it (and it’s smaller pans and racks) using tin foil to avoid dirtying a toaster oven-sized pan?
I don’t cook it at all! Just thaw and eat.
If you want to eat out of the grocery store freezer with your microwave you can mix-n-match any of the Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, Smart Ones, Kashi meals and be fairly safe. Just read the labels so you can watch your protein/carb/fat/sodium numbers.
I suppose the easiest no-dishes diet would be fruitarian. No dishes needed: you buy fruit, and you eat it.
