I hesitated posting on this thread…
I’ve been in weight class sports for years. I’m constantly manipulating my weight. However, I can tell you that no DIET is ever going to work for permanent weight loss. This requires food choice changes. A diet has a beginning and an end…you’re looking for something different. For the record, I’m never fat either, so no yo-yo dieting stuff!!!
The biggest problem people looking to lose weight experience, IMO, is NOT BEING ABLE TO COOK!!! This goes hand in hand with having good knife skills. I do the cooking in my house. My wife - doesn’t. Knife skills turn a 20 minute ordeal into a 5 minute snap - like jointing a chicken, for instance or something as simple as chopping onions. I’m not trying to be difficult, just telling it like it is.
Assuming you know how to cook, the secret to getting good food during the week is engaging in batch cooking when you do have time. Soups, stews and sauces can all be frozen or refrigerated and reheated. Roasts can serve as one meal, used in other ways for others or also reheated for meals. Add a fresh salad or frozen vegetables, cook some potatoes, pasta, rice, couscous, or add some bread and you’re looking at a complete, healthy meal.
The beauty of things like roasts and roasted vegetables and the soups, stews sauces and roasts, is that they require very little actual work. I made an eggplant, cauliflower and potato curry (not with that foul yellow curry powder, but more in the general Indian concept of a stew-like dish) that took me about 10 minutes of actual work…the rest was waiting for it to cook. I ate 7 meals off that and coupled with a yoghurt Raita and some Basmati rice, I had a complete meal
Make a pot roast, eat for a week. Roast a big chicken, use the bones for stock, the leftover meat for soup and do your bills will it simmers. Don’t even have time for that? Buy some chicken stock at the store (I like Pacific Organic), carrots, celery, onion, bay leaf, chop up some chicken breast - add lemon and dill at the finish and you have soup. Total time is so low and you can reheat and eat.
Beans and other legumes are also useful and reheat well. Again, you’re not actually DOING anything, just waiting around.
Food is infinite in variety, because knowing how to cook keeps you from getting bored, even when using the same basic ingredients.
The biggest investment a person can make in changing their life to lose weight is grabbing some cookbooks and learning how to make magic out of humble ingredients - and learning what does what and how - an example is that lots of people use rump cuts for pot roast - BLEAH!!! The meat is tough and has no fat - it won’t hold up to that type of cooking. Chuck, by contrast, off the shoulder, has lots of connective tissue and some fat. The connective tissue turns into gelatin with heat and time and the fat transfers flavors while keeping things moist.
