“I can’t stand eating chicken that isn’t properly grilled and I don’t have the time or energy to grill every time I want a healthy meal. How can I save time and energy but still eat healthy and stay on my diet?”
Unless you’re ready to dish out the dough for a meal delivery service like Nutrisystem or Jenny Craig, food preparation is a necessary evil for weight loss. You’re going to have to prepare the food eventually, so why not consider setting aside a couple hours one afternoon or evening per week for the preparation of your diet foods?
Here is an example of what I do:
I buy several bags of frozen, garlic seasoned, boneless, skinless, chicken breasts. (Believe it or not they are less expensive per pound than the plain, unseasoned ones.) The day before food preparation day, I put them in the refrigerator to defrost.
I buy a large bag of shredded lettuce, several cucumbers and a few hearts of celery.
I buy beans in bulk. (They’re cheaper than dirt that way.) The day before food preparation day, I rinse them and soak them in my crock pot.
On food preparation day:
I plug in my George Foreman grill and grill a week’s worth of chicken breasts all at once. I seal them up in Ziploc bags, putting one bag in the refrigerator for early in the week and another bag in the freezer for later in the week.
I pull out a huge plastic bowl with a tight sealing cover and mix up a huge salad. This will last all week and it is always ready to go.
I make homemade refried beans in my crock pot by adding more water, an onion, crushed garlic, diced jalapenos and some Tabasco sauce to the beans and letting them cook overnight.
OK, so this doesn’t allow for a great deal of variety in my diet, but it does mean that I have all my meals prepared for the week in about an hour of preparation time. A chicken breast and some refried beans only require about 45 seconds to warm in the microwave. Not a lot of variety but a whole lot of convenience.