Day 20: Find Weight-Loss-Friendly Meals | 30-Day Weight Loss-athon
Welcome to Day 20 of the 30-Day Weight Loss-athon.
All tasks in the 30-Day Weight Loss-athon are adapted from my 52 Weight Loss Missions program.
Read the steps first, then take 10 minutes to complete them.
Move fast, act quickly and stop over-thinking. Ready?
What You Need:
- Recipe books
- Take-out menus
- (Online) menus for restaurants, cafes or other eat-in places you frequent.
Step 1
Today and tomorrow we’re going to focus on preparing meals that support your weight-loss goals.
Today we’ll expand the repertoire of healthy, weight-loss-friendly options on your menu. Then tomorrow we’ll set up a super-smart recipe system the whole household can use.
Note: Don’t worry if you don’t cook – neither do I. Toast is as Master Chef as I get. There’s help here for those of us who are domestically disabled, too.
First, we need to find a range of recipes that support our weight-loss efforts. This will probably mean recipes that are both:
- Generally ‘healthy’ – reasonably low in calories, high in nutrients, etc,
- Supportive of particular diet actions you chose on Day 4: Tweak Your Diet – such as eating more protein and vegetables or less fat.
How do you find recipes like this? You’ll need to do a little research and perhaps build up your library over time. But get started today.
Places to look include:
- Healthy-cooking or low-fat recipe books
- Healthy-cooking classes
- Healthy-cooking recipes from friends
- Magazines, especially health or slimming magazines
- Websites on cooking for weight loss
- Online forums
- Government health websites.
Step 2
Next, we need to short-list this range of choices by catering (ha ha – a little pun) to your cooking preferences.
If you’re something of a gourmand, then include interesting recipes that tantalize your taste buds. If you’re easily bored by bland food, then pepper (hee hee there’s another one – I’m on um, FIRE) your selection with spicy or exotic flavors.
Conversely, if you’re all about speed, make sure your recipes are simple and time-effective.
Step 3
Finally, if you have to take into account household members who are fussy or challenging eaters, then be prepared to get creative and take a little time to find suitable recipes. Or look for recipes that allow you to create two versions with relative ease.
Spending the time now will pay off in the coming weeks and months.
What If You Don’t Cook?
You could:
- Ring favorite restaurants and ask about meals that are consistent with your current choice of diet actions
- Investigate meal-delivery services for options that suit your needs, preferences and budget
- Research local take-out places and make a note of weight-loss-friendly choices
- Check out home-delivery options – eg pizza places that use lots of vegetables and thin crusts, or Asian restaurants that offer vegetable-rich stir-frys.
By not cooking you may save cooking and grocery shopping time, but you’ll still have to invest research time in order to assemble a weight-loss-friendly weekly menu. (Note for 52 Weight Loss Missions customers: we do this in Mission 21: Plan Your Meals).
Step 4
Collect your recipes, highlighted take-out choices, printed restaurant menus, etc. We’ll use them tomorrow.
Check in!
And you’re done!
Be sure to leave your comment below to check in and stay accountable. If you’re reading this by email or in a reader then please click here to leave your comment.
See you tomorrow!
Guys have anyone tried SurelySlim (www.bio-paranta.com) It is made in Canada. They say it is cutting edge technology of three fat burners in one veg capsule?
I like to look for recipes on the net, this should be easy!
Easy for dinnner, not so easy for packed lunches…go on looking for new recipes!
I love healthy food like protein, fruit and veggies… the problem is I love junk food too! :(… anyway I’ll read my WW recipes again and will start cooking that way tomorrow. Michelle, one question: Did you ever struggle with weight really? I’d love to read your story!
Started last week 🙂 – Exploring new veggies, new legumes, new salad, new herbs, new combinations – it´s fun!
Needs some new ideas for supper!
Recipes gathered!
Pinterest has helped tremendously with my paleo diet.
I find low cal healthy recipe books for Kindle on amazon.com. Looking on freestufftimes I find lots of them for free.