How much time to prepare meals if you're trying to lose weight/maintain weight loss?

[displace]

I've been thinking about all the time it takes for me personally to plan, cook, and prepare meals when I'm trying to lose weight or eat healthy/maintain my weight, vs when I don't really care much and I'm usually eating unhealthy or gaining weight.

 

Per week if I'm trying to lose I probably research recipes for an hour, go to buy groceries and put them away 3 hours a week, prep and cook 7 hours a week, for a total of 11 hrs or so a week.

 

If I'm not eating healthy or don't care much, I would guess as little as 5 hrs per week. I know this is one reason I have a hard time. I'm a slow cook and it's time consuming for me to cook new recipes but I need that when I'm trying to lose weight for the variety. Some things I streamline when eating heathy like bagged salads or precooked chicken, but I still feel like making the chicken into a recipe or adding stuff to the salad to make it yummy. For instance I could eat a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables but I get bored and want to make smoothies or sides or something. I do get more take out than is heathy most weeks, and can switch to heathier options but after eating the (expensive) fast food salad option once or twice I'm already bored with it.

 

I'm wondering if others find it more time consuming to eat healthy as well?

 

Eta- also the kids end up with many separate meals when I'm cooking much from scratch, so there's even more time added. But we're working on expanding our tastes with the kids.

[Katy]

Way less time consuming to eat healthy food.  I cook elaborate meals when I'm not dieting.

 

When I am eating healthy, 90% of the time I make baked chicken breasts in bulk in advance, freeze them individually, and then either get frozen veggies in microwavable bags from Sam's or premade salad mix with reheated chicken.  Or smoothies with canned pumpkin or frozen berries.  Or egg white omelettes with pre-separated egg whites.  Or "protein pancakes" with preseparated egg whites and whey protein powder.  Much simpler to buy food in bulk at Sam's every couple months, fill the freezer, and thaw as neeeded.

 

Granted, we live in Oklahoma now, and it tends to be dramatically harder to find edible FRESH fruits and vegetables in the heat of summer here.  It's so hot, stuff gets cooked and wilted in shipping, and molds much faster than in the Rockies, Midwest or New England..  Freezer trucks, however, those veggies are always good.  It probably took a little more time to prep veggies when we lived in areas with decent produce all year round.

[fairfarmhand]

honestly, the more I've cooked, the quicker I get at it.

 

I streamline stuff. I use the grill. I base meals upon "1 protein, 2-3 veggies" and life is simple. So this could take the form of grilled pork chops/chicken with a premade seasoning mix + salad + steamed corn on the cob. Or a crock potted roast + steamed green beans + applesauce.

 

Soups are also very simple and very healthy.

 

I think the key is finding a repertoire of easy, quick, tasty meals and just rotating through them.

 

(I don't have picky people, and my 2 pickiest ones can eat what they like or have a sandwich. I don't concern myself too badly with trying to cook to please EVERYONE. There are 6 of us, so chances are that someone is not going to like or have their favorite every night. I've come to terms with that.)

 

So food prep for dinner, is often 30-45 minutes per day or less.

 

Re-examine your kitchen layout if you want to increase your efficiency. Cook 2-3 meals often enough that you typically have them memorized. Or just stick to protein + veggies for quickest and easiest.

[kiana]

I actually think that a lot of this is time spent in change rather than time spent losing weight, if you know what I mean?

 

If you have healthy and easy-to-modify-from-boredom recipes that you have cooked many times and are proficient at, it won't take much time. But if you're researching food that you don't eat much, or ways of cooking that you don't use much, it's going to take a lot longer.

 

It takes virtually no time for me to eat healthy *now*. It took a lot more when I first started. 

[displace]

Interesting that it may take less time to cook healthy. I've never been a big food planner, just once a week or so. But maybe if I had a larger base of easy healthy recipes to rotate through it should be significantly faster. As I'm trying to incorporate the kids I also put in a lot of effort into sneaky recipes for them.

[regentrude]

I do not find it time consuming to eat healthy. (ETA: I do not try to lose weight. I simply eat healthy.)

 

My cooked meals during the week take no more than 30 minutes from beginnig to table. I cook in my lunch break. Those 30 minutes are not all hands-on time.

On weekends, I sometimes spend more time to cook something special, but again, most of the time is not hands-on prep, but time on the stove/in the oven. Besides Thanksgiving, I can't think of a meal I make that takes more than 30 minutes hands-on time.

 

Breakfast is easy. It takes one minute to cut some fruit and throw it into a bowl of yoghurt, or to pour some muesli, or to throw some eggs into a pan to let them cook (while I wander off and do something else). I can do this while the coffee sits in the French press.

Dinner is sandwiches/salads/vegetables. A salad may take a few minutes to assemble (I do not buy bagged; cutting up a head of lettuce is no big deal). Cheese and bread, veggies and hummus etc get set out on the table.

Snacks: fruit/veggies. Grab and go.

 

Now, baking my own bread takes time; about an hour per session. I make several loaves at once. But this is a luxury.

 

I do not spend any time researching recipes (except for special occasions) or meal planning. I go to the store, look for what is looking good, in season, on sale, buy it and then assemble meals with what I have purchased. Easy.

 

ETA: With picky kids: I always make modular meals so that there are components for the picky eater to select and leave out as he chooses. So, instead of casseroles and stews, we would have rice, meat, salad, stir fried veggies as four separate dishes to accommodate everybody. It does not take any extra time. Or leaving the pasta sauce on the side for the kid who only wants grated cheese on his pasta.

[Pawz4me]

I don't really understand why it would take any more time to eat healthfully.  But I'm the type who can eat the same few things day after day w/o getting bored.  The overwhelming majority of my food time is taken up by shopping (especially when oldest DS is home).  That's what two teenaged boys will do for you. ;)  Meal prep is comparatively very easy.  :lol:

[displace]

In the past I have eaten lean meat + veges, but I get bored quickly this way. I'm not creative in the kitchen but I love variety, so one week I'll make spaghetti squash with homemade pasta primavera, or homemade minestrone with a gazillion ingredients. I tend to make a lot and then have leftovers but so much I get bored with it. I'm picky too I think! 😀

[fairfarmhand]

You might benefit from batch cooking. Toss half of each batch into the freezer. Then after 2 weeks of cooking 4-5 nights a week, you probably could take a few weeks off of cooking and eat from the freezer.

[regentrude]

In the past I have eaten lean meat + veges, but I get bored quickly this way. I'm not creative in the kitchen but I love variety, so one week I'll make spaghetti squash with homemade pasta primavera, or homemade minestrone with a gazillion ingredients. I tend to make a lot and then have leftovers but so much I get bored with it. I'm picky too I think! 😀

 

Lean meat and veggies can be presented in so many different forms:

piece of meat + veggies on the side

stir fry

wrap (lettuce leaf if grain free)

Thai curry

Indian curry

soup

cold salad with strips of meat

as a pasta sauce

as a thick stew over brown rice

 

you can also prep the meat in many different ways:

spice rub

with herbs

marinated in balsamic+soy

marinated in yoghurt

in wine

grilled

 

and there are so many different veggies which can alter the character of the dish completely

[kiana]

If you're a slow cook and find learning new ways of cooking time-consuming what I'd actually do is take your favorite recipes that you already do and work on making changes in them that you can live with. Minestrone, for example, can be extremely healthy if appropriate choices are made. You probably won't have to change most of the ingredients much, but look at some extra veg and reduced pasta or something like that. 

[Guest]

Because I cannot eat what my family eats, every meal is two meals. So even if it only takes twenty minutes, that's added onto the multiple hours I'm already spending in the kitchen each day. And mentally it is fatiguing to always have to be worried about allergies, diet guidelines, portions, preparation, etc. I tend to keep my own eating very deconstructed for just that reason. I'll eat avocado, a salad, some cheese, and a tin of sardines. Or I'll broil a steak with onions and mushrooms, and nuke some broccoli. This is fast, much faster than making low carb recipes, and makes it easier for me to stick to my guns than when I start getting fancy. I live on simple food, or it wouldn't happen at all.

[Carol in Cal.]

I can only lose weight if I don't cook much at all.  Just about anything I make is more tasty, more fattening, and less healthy than just noshing.  So the easiest way for me to, for instance, stick to WW is to buy 4-5 kinds of cheese and lots of fruits and veggies and an assortment of thin, little crackers, fill up on produce and water, and then eat just a little cheese or liverwurst or hummus and crackers and a small glass of milk.  I also skip breakfast except coffee.  Every once in a while I splurge on a Banquet chicken nuggets meal, which is relatively few points and very satisfying.  

 

One of my main problems with dieting is how much I miss eating with others, but these days DD is in college and DH eats dinner at work several days per week so it's not as hard as it would have been in previous years.

[Joanne]

Cupcakes, and more than. I have not quantified it. I know that eating healthy takes a considerable amount of time of planning. That is in part because my scheduling needs are unique.

 

It is MUCH easier to buy Dream Dinners, or throw together a burger and sides, or crockpot meal, or some such.

[MBM]

Our home meals don't vary too much which makes everything easy. The main threebies:

 

Tofu scrambles. Tofu, why have you been hiding from me all these years? So good and so easy to make. Anyway, the key is to squeeze out as much water as you can, like with a sieve, and then season it without using soy sauce or sesame seed oil. I use 2 Tbsp brewer's yeast, 1/2 tsp each of cayenne, cumin, turmeric, and kalan amak (sometimes called Indian black salt but it's more of a pinkish color and has a sulfur-y taste). Throw in onions, garlic, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes -- just about anything.

 

An open-faced sandwich. Whatever's hiding in the fridge. Plus some fruit.

 

Vegetables, cheese and eggs all scrambled together. If you eat it in the morning, it's called scrambled eggs. At night it's a frittata.

 

Prep work is minimal especially if I toss in frozen veggies.

[PeachyDoodle]

It takes more time for me to cook now that we eat healthy -- but that's because before we ate out A LOT. I was not a good cook. I'm still not very good, but I have improved.

 

I managed to streamline by making quarterly meal plans. There are six weeks of meals for each season (spring, summer, fall, winter). We rotate through the menu twice per season. Each week includes recipes and a shopping list for six dinners. I eat the same breakfast every day and usually eat leftovers for lunch. I keep a few veggies and other things on hand for when we don't have any leftovers or I'm sick of them. I would say dinner prep takes less than 5 hours per week now that the menus are complete.

 

The rule in our house is pretty much eat what's on the table or go hungry. But we do sometimes let the kids make a pb&j or cereal if we don't feel like arguing.

[SamanthaCarter]

Per week if I'm trying to lose I probably research recipes for an hour, go to buy groceries and put them away 3 hours a week, prep and cook 7 hours a week, for a total of 11 hrs or so a week.

 

 

Honestly, I don't think you're that slow with 7 hours of prepping and cooking per week. That's on average an hour per day for three meals. Don't sell yourself short. 

[Night Elf]

We got around this by simplifying our meals. We are poor, unimaginative cooks. Our meals are usually one meat, one starch and one vegetable. An example would be broiled chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas. We keep portions down. DH eats more than I do because he exercises a great deal each week but he's still mindful of his portions. We cut out the fattening foods too. We don't eat bread with meals anymore. We don't have dessert after every meal. We do keep pie, cake, and ice cream in the house, but we can have a very small portion and be totally satisfied. It did take some getting used to, but it's second nature now that we're both maintaining and no longer losing weight.

 

I rarely cook meals that have ingredients mixed together. I do spaghetti and shepard's pie. Everything else is served individually.

[DawnM]

Well, chopping vegetables does take more effort than popping the pizza in the oven.

 

Not that I have ever done that.   ;)

 

 

I don't really understand why it would take any more time to eat healthfully.  But I'm the type who can eat the same few things day after day w/o getting bored.  The overwhelming majority of my food time is taken up by shopping (especially when oldest DS is home).  That's what two teenaged boys will do for you. ;)  Meal prep is comparatively very easy.  :lol:

 

[displace]

These are great tips. I'm feeling inspired. I may even prep chicken for dinner before going to the gym so all I have to do is bake it when I get home and just microwave some veges. I think I tend to go all out sometimes too.

[DawnM]

seriously?  cupcakes is an option?  Shoot, now I want to go make cupcakes.

[Pawz4me]

Well, chopping vegetables does take more effort than popping the pizza in the oven.

 

Not that I have ever done that.   ;)

 

See, that's exactly why it's hard to respond to threads like these!

 

Popping a pizza in the oven is something I've done maybe three times in my life.  I did NOT like it!  So it's something that hasn't happened in my world in decades.

 

Now sending DH out to get one, or having one delivered . . . yeah, chopping veggies takes a lot more time than that. ;) :lol:

[LucyStoner]

Planning includes shopping for me so that takes some time.

 

Honestly the biggest thing is that when I am on the eating well wagon, I am not buying take out except very rarely. Take out results in way less time planning and cooking.

 

I am also factoring in cooking 3 meals most days, not just dinner.

 

That's easily 10+ hours in an average week just for fairly simple, from scratch, things. I also braise meats and make a lot of soup which is time consuming but not all hands on.

[DawnM]

You must have had the wrong kind of pizza.  The cheap garbage is nasty.  

 

 

See, that's exactly why it's hard to respond to threads like these!

 

Popping a pizza in the oven is something I've done maybe three times in my life.  I did NOT like it!  So it's something that hasn't happened in my world in decades.

 

Now sending DH out to get one, or having one delivered . . . yeah, chopping veggies takes a lot more time than that. ;) :lol:

 

[displace]

Honestly, I don't think you're that slow with 7 hours of prepping and cooking per week. That's on average an hour per day for three meals. Don't sell yourself short.

It feels like forever though :), especially compared with driving though fast food ðŸ˜

[displace]

seriously? cupcakes is an option? Shoot, now I want to go make cupcakes.

I almost put "don't eat cupcakes", but I didn't want to be controlling. I think I'll switch to a heathy food option too.

[DawnM]

:lol:

 

I almost put "don't eat cupcakes", but I didn't want to be controlling. I think I'll switch to a heathy food option too.