“I hate to cook!”, wrote one of my readers. “How can I lose weight and eat healthy when I hate to cook?”
It’s an interesting challenge, as I’m all about using food to lose weight. I personally don’t hate cooking, but I’m admittedly a lazy cook that looks for shortcuts whenever possible.
When I sustained a foot injury that prevented me from being able to cook (or do much else that required standing or walking), my dear husband stepped in and took over the kitchen, though his cooking was greasy and heavy on the meats while light on vegetables.
I realized that I too had to figure out how to eat healthily without cooking for myself.
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The diet plan strategies listed below start with the easiest, no-cook options to quickly prep and hands-off cooking methods.
The I-Hate-to-Cook Diet Plan for Weight Loss
1. Oven-Ready Meal Delivery Services
Leave the cooking to professional chefs and simply enjoy delicious oven-ready meals delivered right to your door.
BistroMD was founded by a foodie and a doctor working together to offer 100+ delicious chef-prepared meals that are ready to eat in 5 minutes or less.
Meal plans range from healthy-eating, diabetes-friendly, gluten-free, to menopause-friendly weight loss plans, and they have a meal plan tailored to women specifically.
Customize your meal plan schedule by choosing from lunch and dinner 5 days a week up to all three meals 7 days a week.
You can even include snacks in your customizable meal plan that help speed up your weight loss.
BistroMD makes dieting convenient and delicious while providing you with a supportive team of dietitians to help ensure your meal plan succeeds for you.
Right now, you can get 25% off your first order with this link.
Sun Basket is another notable meal delivery service that delivers fresh, organic produce and clean ingredients from the best farms directly to your door.
You can plan your weekday dinners by choosing from a wide variety of mouthwatering custom meal plans from paleo, gluten-free, or carb-conscious to vegetarian, pescatarian or diabetes-friendly, and more.
One of their unique features is the delectable oven-ready meals that can be ready in 6 minutes!
They also offer a set of speedy pre-prepped meals that take only 15 minutes to get to the table.
You can also add no-cook breakfast, lunch, and snacks into your box:
You can check out my detailed Sun Basket Review to learn more. Right now, you can get $35 off your first order plus 4 FREE gifts ($60 total value) with this link.
While these oven-ready meal delivery services score big on convenience, one downside is they are expensive.
2. Make a Meal Plan
Planning your meals in advance can save you time, money, and also reduces your stress around mealtimes so you can relax and enjoy your food and company.
Having a meal plan helps you to put together a shopping list for your grocery store run, thus saving you time with more targeted shopping.
You’ll also save more money as you are less likely to wander and buy junk food items.
Keep your meal plan simple by focusing on dinners, and eat leftover dinners for lunch. Have no more than three types of breakfast foods on rotation, such as green smoothies, overnight oats, and boiled eggs.
3. Meal Prep
Spend less time in the kitchen every night by setting aside just an hour or two on a Sunday afternoon to meal prep for the week.
Planning and prepping your meals enables you to group together similar, repetitive tasks, and focus on completing them quickly and efficiently.
Most people choose Sundays to meal prep for the upcoming week, myself included. Pick a day of the week that works best for you and try to settle into this weekly healthy routine.
Having the right essential meal prep tools also makes food prep fast and fun.
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4. Green Smoothies
Drinking green smoothies is a fast and healthy way to consume your daily dose of fruits and vegetables.
Blending veggies and fruits break through their tough cellular walls and release vital nutrients that make it easier for our body to absorb.
All that blended fiber helps to slow the breakdown of carbohydrates in these fruits and vegetables, thereby preventing blood sugar spikes that can cause fat storage or worse, wreak havoc on people with diabetes.
The fiber also cleanses the inside of your body “like a sponge” to pick up impurities from your body. This gets things moving through your bowels and contributes to weight loss.
Green smoothies make a healthy breakfast and take only a few minutes to put together with no cooking required.
Batch prepare your green smoothies for the week by spending just 15 minutes to prep during the weekend, and you’ll have healthy breakfast smoothies to grab and-go during the week.
Related Posts: 5 Best Blenders for Green Smoothies
5. Slow Cooker Meals
Slow cookers are a mom’s best kitchen assistant! It doesn’t get easier than throwing ingredients into the pot in the morning, press a button to cook during the day, and return home to a delicious all-in-one chili or stew dinner.
This multi-functional slow and pressure cooker helps you to cook everything from rice porridge to stews.
I can make a healthy homemade bone broth in under 3 hours of pressure cooking. It’s a huge time saver for busy moms!
6. Buy Pre-Cooked Proteins
Most grocery stores offer healthy pre-cooked proteins such as grilled chicken breast strips, pre-cooked shrimps, smoked salmon, or canned tuna. These are easy protein add-ons to salads or pasta meals.
I buy a whole rotisserie chicken every week that lasts 3-4 meals for my family of 4. We consume most of the juicy dark meats (wings, thighs, and legs) directly, and add the remaining white meats into white chicken chilis or soups.
7. Buy Frozen Oven-Ready Veggies
Buying frozen vegetables and fruits is a healthy and convenient hack to skip meal prep when you don’t feel like cooking.
Frozen produces are actually quite healthy for you as they are allowed to fully ripen before harvesting and then frozen to “lock-in” their dense nutrients.
Most frozen produce comes “ready-to-cook”, saving you a significant amount of meal prep time chopping and slicing ingredients before cooking.
You can easily pop frozen produce into the microwave or roast them in the oven. I personally prefer the veggies roasted as it really brings out their flavor.
The cooking time for roasting is much longer but well worth the wait, while the amount of hands-on prep time (mere seconds!) is the same as the microwave.
Frozen fruits like ready-cut strawberries can be added directly into the blender for a quick morning smoothie.
8. Buy Canned Beans and Sauces
Canned beans such as chickpeas, cannellini beans make easy no-cook additions to your salads and side dishes.
Not only are they highly nutritious but they help you to feel full for longer.
Sauces such as tomato and pesto flavor your pasta dishes quickly and easily. Just be sure to check ingredient labels and buy only the ones with wholesome, real food ingredients.
I shop at Thrive Market where I can easily find healthy, clean canned bean, and sauces at wholesale discounts such as chickpeas, pesto sauce, tomato sauce.
Thrive Market is very much like Costco (grocery at wholesale prices with membership) except it’s online and sells organic and clean non-perishable groceries like this almond milk with ONLY 4 real food ingredients, conveniently delivered to your door.
Right now they’re offering a FREE gift, up to $22 value, when you purchase a membership using this link, so you can immediately save big with your first order!
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