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!
good ideas to follow.
I so hate cooking but do it as part of my domestic goddess duties! The rest of the family kick up a stink when I change regular meals for different skinny food…well, here goes again…;P.
I’ve been collecting clean eating/raw foods cookbooks for the past few months. It was great to get them out and look through them!
My sister and I will share good recipes with each other when we find one. For me it is taking the time to actually cook after work. I really don’t enjoy cooking I just do it because I have to. But I also don’t like to eat out or do take out a lot so I have to cook.
I already have a huge range from when I previously lost most of my weight so I will get those out and start reusing them. Have been a bit slack with the night time meals so it will be good to sit down and replan out a menu. Being organised is a huge plus with weight loss.
I haven’t had the chance to look at recipes but my daughter and I have changed the way we cook our favorite stuff. Like potatoes, now we wash them, cut and cook them in oven with only olive oil and we don’t add butter or sour cream. I have bought more fruit and trying more vegetables. I buy leaned cuts of meat also. I have a few finicky eaters so it’s hard to change our meals, but I will make an effort and look at recipes today and tomorrow. I am really enjoying this 1 month with you all to change the way I look at weight loss:) Thank you Michelle:)
I already have healthy recipes copied, and I’ve gone through my healthy cookbooks.
Hello to everyone: Congrats! You’re doing it! I am not a cook. There are many women who are not cooks any more as some of us have entered the working world or volunteering. Have you ever thought of having a group of your friends get together weekly and teach each other some healthy simple recipes you could cook. Another suggestion is cooking casseroles, chili, soups weekly and freezing them for the week. You can just add salads; fruits; etc. with the meals. Keep in mind you want nutritional healthy meals. Keep up the good work and continue to post to stay accountable. Good Luck.
Finally an easy one for me. I have tons of healthy recipes (pinterest helps). I just got away from cooking that way. I have already started back to my healthy cooking. I just have to learn to eat before I leave the house or wait until I get back home. I like eating out, but now with all I have learned my way of thinking about food has changed. I don’t even want to eat all the fattening foods. We have had cupcakes and cookie cake in the house this week from my son’s birthday and I don’t even desire them. Yay me!
I’ve got this one covered. I already love the foods I’m SUPPOSE to be eating. My family doesn’t always but we’ve made compromises. They’re not found of turkey burgers, ut they will eat ground turkey in tacos(I have mine as a salad minus the shells) and chili. A family favorite is chicken cutlets, I make mine first with a tbsp of olive oil in the pan and then my favorite seasonings sprinkled on top and then three cutlets. It actually seasons the pan nicely before I make their breaded ones and then I have enough for salads for the next couple of days. On a side note, I’m skipping my first scheduled exercising in two and a half weeks, I’ve had a cold or sinus issue coming on all week…and I’m very dizzy today and feel awful. I did do my incidental exercises today, stairs and hallways(4 inch heels mind you) and the cleaning when I got home…it will have to do for today.
I have two issues of “Clean Eating” – I’ll be spending some time perusing those for recipes. I HATE to cook!
This one is easy for me. We don’t eat out often, or order in. Dinner most nights consists of some sort of lean protein and a veggie. I keep a whole stash of healthy recipes at my disposal.
Right now, I just cook and I cook very simple meals. I’m making a lot of big changes in my life at the moment so, for me, simple and easy is best. I do subscribe to Good Food magazine as well as a few others.
I keep a three ring binder with the clear sheet protectors in it and then when I find healthy recipes that I enjoy I put them in there. it helps keep them nice and protected from food when your cooking.
So I started looking for some healthy recipes for my family and I do have several recipes that are already qualified as healthy that we make often. We like trying new things so this shouldn’t be to difficult.
I’ve started printing out recipes from two blogs that have gotten great reviews from people I know.. skinny ms and skinnytaste. Both have recipes that sound flavorful and like something I would actually eat and be able to make.
I copied someone’s idea from yesterday and made an EAT RIGHT category in my IPAD recipe app. Now off to add some recipes…
This is actually one thing I’m really good at. I have lots of delicious, healthy, low cost and even fast recipes that I’ve collected and use regularly. I think what I need to do is take some of our other favorites that we use often and tweak them to be lower fat and healthier – like using whole wheat pasta, brown rice, and cutting out some of the cream soups or extra fat that is added.
oh this one is too easy. We don’t do take aways unless its like tonights dinner, a cooked chicken, skin off for me and I nuked the veges and added low fat gravy. mostly I have a head full of low fat, low sugar recipes and even make muffins with apple sauce and only a little butter to keep my hubby from getting bad habits. I use lots of veges and do things like eggplant rissoles, pot roasts, pasta sauce full of eggplant, zucchini, capsicum, carrot, mushrooms and basil etc, and on busy nights I just microwave veges or salad and add a cooked chicken. lunch is easy with things like baked beans on a microwaved spud with a bit of cottage cheese on top or leftovers from dinner.
I’m lazy and can’t be bothered searching for recipes! I subscribe to The Six O’clock Scramble, and get healthy recipes (and a shopping list) every week. Tonight’s dinner (Salmon with Lemon Slices, and Zucchini with garlic and parmesan) is in the slow cooker now, and is under 350 cals. per serving. I chose not to add the Spatezle, which would only increase the cals. to 487. They are having a special right now if anyone is interested. Enter EarthDay12 for $5 off any subscription. Special ends tomorrow!
https://members.thescramble.com/subscribe.php