question...already discouraged...

[Big Bad Kitty]

Okay, I signed up yesterday for the National Healthy Challenge (I am SO psyched) and was immediately discouraged. This really rots.

I'm taking a look at some of the recipes. They look really good. The thing is, I'm cooking for one. No way in the world Tink will eat it. So first inconvenience is a lot of prep work, cooking, and clean up for a little bitty meal. But, I could get past that. Now, some of the stuff...I look at it, and I think that there is no way I could purchase a single person serving of an ingredient. A fresh ingredient. Be is fish or produce...or like a chicken sausage. Who buys one chicken sausage? So I'd have to buy it in whatever amount it is sold in.

Stick with me now.

As I go further through the menu, I see that you use something once and then it are not going to be used again for a long time or at all. Which is wasteful, because say you buy broccoli in a bunch, but you only eat 1/2 cup on Wed for lunch, and then no broccoli again for 2 weeks. That's a waste of a lot of broccoli. I go to food pantries because I am broke. I don't want to be throwing away all but 3 leaves of swiss chard because I could not use it. Are you feeling me? I don't have a huge kitchen or a deep freeze. I have a little apartment sized fridge and freezer.

Have any of you had this issue? How have you dealt with it? I'm looking at the recipes, going "yeah, I can do chicken, but sheesh that will get boring after awhile if I don't change it up now and then". If I can't afford the "accessories" to change it up, then what the heck?

Sigh. I think this is why it was pizza rolls for so many years.

 

[Josie]

A few years ago, I did what I called the Denise Austin diet. I bought her book about losing 10 lbs. She has every meal planned out and snacks for 4 weeks. The recipes are for one person but I was able to make them or adapt them for my picky family. I think she did a good job of using up the ingredients in time so they weren't wasted. Her recipes were also very simple and didn't require a lot of time.

Maybe you could look for her book in the library and see if that would work for you. I loved the recipes in that book and used them even after I stopped dieting. Most importantly, I did lose weight following her plan.

 

[flutterbee]

BBK - Check out that site I posted. It's completely free. You put in your current weight and your goal weight and a time-table. It won't let you lose too much too fast, so if you try to say I want to lose 50 pounds by April, it will tell you that's not safe and make you choose another date.

It also has a daily menu planner. It has meals on there with recipes or you can click and substitute something else from the menu, or add your own items. It even has a place where you can get get the calories, etc for common frozen items, fast food items, fresh items. So, if you eat something that isn't on the planner and they don't have it listed you can go in and say I had 1/2 cup of 2% milk and it will tell you the calories and then log it with your daily planner. It also allows you to account for other things such as fat, cholesterol, sugar, etc.

So, if you buy a bunch of broccoli and it's only on the planner for one day, you can remove something else from the menu the next day and substitute the broccoli. It's not strict at all and gives you lots of freedom of choices.

Take a look around the site. It has tons and tons of information, motivation, recipes, simple exercises and stretches with demonstrations and it's so user friendly and easy to navigate. The people that started this site were with E-bay when it went public and made a lot of money. This is their way of giving back.

I'm with you on your current problem. Part of is that about half the things most of the places want you to eat, I would never eat (I'm supposed to eat a lot of fish and I really hate fish..bleck) and the other part is that some of the ingredients are so expensive and you're only going to use them once in a blue moon. That's just not practical for me...someone who hates to cook and who lives on a very tight budget. Plus, with my current health situation I simply cannot spend an hour and a half on dinner most days. I want simple and I want something all of us will eat as I do not want to prepare more than one meal.

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Thanks, I will check out that site. My biggest bleck is onions, and they are in EVERY recipe.

I will also search for Denise Austin's program, Fairly Oddparent (do you kids watch that show? I think it is hilarious).

 

[Josie]

When I registered here, my younger daughter was watching that show constantly and it just seemed appropriate since I had an ODD daughter. I liked that show more before I had to listen to it a thousand times.

 

[Scent of Cedar II]

Wishing well, Big Bad.

I'm glad you posted about that first hurdle. That always happens to me, too.

When I want a thing badly enough that I envision myself having it, self-sabotage sets in. I become overwhelmed, and find one reason or another either to quit or worse yet, to never begin.

One step at a time is a good thing. Like a horse with blinders on, if I see only the task in front of me, I accomplish THAT well enough.

Soon enough, I am able to turn around and see my own footsteps.

I realize then how far I have come.

Breezy cheesy, nice and easy, little tiny steps at a time. No particuar end goal in mind. Just a little something I am trying.

That's how I went back and completed my degree censored: laude, no less!), established myself in a new career, learned ballet, took my green belt in karate.

Remember those old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons?

And Bullwinkle was always saying something like, "Eenie meanie, chili weanie, the spirits are about to speak."

Yeah.

That's my motto.

"Eenie meanie, chili weanie...."

:smile:

Barbara

 

[trinityroyal]

Mmmmm...chili weanies.
(I wonder if the low-fat all beef ones would be okay)

I think on the first day of this new forum, we started a healthy recipe thread. Maybe this is also something we can keep doing. Share good, healthy recipes made from inexpensive, good quality ingredients.

Trinity