So I don’t need to lose weight at all, I’m already working at a calorie deficit, I’m trying to eat healthier.

Having faced a few health complications/ill health lately, I’ve decided its about time to start to understand what I eat and how I can make it better. I can confess to knowing that carbohydrates, protein etc. exist but not actually knowing what their function is and whether I should be eating more or less. I know I shouldn’t have anything with too much sugar or fat etc. but have never bothered with more than that.

I don’t particularly enjoy cooking or have the flare for it and I’ve always been a fussy eater (I blame my parents, if you don’t want to eat it then you don’t have to) so most of the recipes I’m reading immediately put me off for their level of complication and the complex ingredients. I also understand that I can’t go from my my current level to an eating goddess because that will be a failure. I want to make it better bit by bit so it has a better chance of success. My plan is to order from tesco (or an alternative) an online order once a week in an effort to not make cop out choices and also drag my OH into this new regime.

I currently have to eat breakfast as I have to take quite a few tablets with food in the morning to avoid them altering my sleep etc. So I think to start with I’m looking for easy and fairly quick breakfast options that are healthy. At this time of year I prefer warm lunches and have a kettle plus microwave access but nothing fancier.

To give you an idea of my diet already my breakfast choices I eat currently are.
One piece of white toast with butter/jam. One piece of white toast with butter/boiled egg. Oatso simple summer berries porridge with milk and brown sugar on top. I also like weetabix with milk and golden syrup/sugar on but I’m trying to avoid as much milk as possible so haven’t eaten that option in weeks.

I’ve completely cut out crisps and a chocolate bar from my lunch so my lunch varies between…. a chicago town mini pizza/a ginsters pasty of varying flavours or a white bread sandwich with butter and some sliced meat. (Not all 3 just one of those 3!).

Does anybody perhaps have any websites they could recommend for recipes I could work with or decent websites for breaking down some better ideas for myself without it being ridiculously over complicated I mean for godsake what on earth are Quinoa and why should I eat it!

I dont really eat any fruit or veg although I have recently discovered the joy of making sweet potato chips myself and am loving these! I also like a baked potato with prawns but my evening meals are also generally crap too. Think chips, chips and more chips.

I know I’m a basket case but I’m willing to try! Willing to cook things on Sundays etc to help me eat for the week, I work at the same place as my boyfriend so lunches for two are a winner!

I’ve recently started having overnight oats, dead easy. 1 part oats to 2 parts milk (partner is vegan so have used soya/coconut/almond milk instead)

Leave in fridge overnight and on the morning just grab the bowl out, slice a banana or throw some blueberries in and away you go. Zero prep, minimal mess and healthy.

I dont really eat any fruit or veg

Start then. Especially veg.

You eat too much processed rubbish and not enough fruit and vegetables.

what ‘healthy’ stuff do you like and perhaps we can go from there. Well done for taking the first step

I dont really eat any fruit or veg

Eat fruit and veg.

Limit bread to one small rye loaf a week. Fill up on healthy snacks. Google healthy snacks.

Crudité and hummus is a goid gap-filler between meals.

Again. Eat fruit and veg. And unsalted nuts. Fish is good too. Cut down on spuds, have sweet potatoes baked instead. Whole grains too.

Google ‘balanced diet’

.

If you want to eat more greens you could try a fruit and veg box from somewhere like Abel and Cole. You get basics plus things you wouldn’t ordinarily buy and they send you recipe cards and a book so you know how to prepare/cook new stuff.

Firstly, well done for trying to change and improve your diet.

It’s not a website but “Nigel Slater’s 30 minute cook” book is my go to for feeding the family week to week.

Loads of easy, simple things to do with veg and meat.

Have a read here for starters.

https://www.nutracheck.co.uk/Library/Healthy-Eating/how-to-get-a-healthy-balanced-diet_1.html

https://www.nutracheck.co.uk/Library/directory

BBC Good Food is a good resource for recipes.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/category/healthy

You should try and get in as many vegetables as you can each day in as many different colours as you can (generalisation but each colour provides different vitamins and benefits). 5 a day is not really enough TBH should be aiming for a bit more, at least 7. A portion of fresh fruit/vegetables is only 80 grams so it’s not a lot to hit 7 portions a day.

If you make a concentrated effort to eat healthy for just two weeks, you will feel as good as you ever have. Honestly, giving up the crap and going healthy is like cheating or taking performance enhancing drugs, you will feel so much better.

It’s not difficult. When making/serving a meal split your plate into two halfs then one of these halfs into half again so you end up with three seperate areas. Fill your half plate with a mix of vegetables, one of the quarters with protein rich food (chicken, fish, lean meat or eggs, vegetarian/vegan alternatives) and then the other quarter with healthy carbs like brown rice, pasta, sweet potato, potato etc. Eat two portions of fresh fruit a day as snacks and add a little bit of nuts/seeds are you are sorted.

Drink lots of water as well, it helps you feel fuller between meals and it makes you feel better as well.

Breakfast – Porridge with added fruit and/or nuts. Or, weetabix/shredded wheat with milk and banana.
Lunch – Wholegrain/seeded bread toast, baked beans, scrambled eggs and fresh baby spinach. Or, soup and sandwich using wholegrain/seeded bread.
Dinner – follow the healthy plate example.

google LCHF.

Works for me, and for others.

YMMV, of course.

When you go shopping buy fresh fruit and veg instead of ready-made stuff. Then, when you get home, figure out what to do with it. Also, frozen stuff, such as garden peas and prawns are healthy things to have to fall back on.

I also buy butternut squash noodles, which go well in stir-frys.

Thats really helpful thanks and is nice and simple actually. Will take a look at those websites. I get what everyone is saying about eat healthy snacks but I don’t snack at all, if I get hungry between meals I just wait and ignore it, I have breakfast, lunch and dinner and thats it and actually if I didn’t have these tablets to take I’d rather just roll back to two meals. I have a fairly rocky relationship with food atm!

I don’t particularly enjoy cooking or have the flare for it and I’ve always been a fussy eater (I blame my parents, if you don’t want to eat it then you don’t have to) so most of the recipes I’m reading immediately put me off for their level of complication and the complex ingredients.

Not everone likes to cook, but try this for an evening meal for two (or half it for one) – it doesn’t get much easier and it’s tasty enough and filling.

Get an oven pan/tray – Wash/peel a couple of carrots and chop diagonaly into chunky slices. Take a courgette and wash it, slice off the ends and slice into rounds between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick. Peel and cube a large sweet potato into golf ball size. Add all these to the tray and top with a couple of chicken breasts sliced on the diagonal into two or three pieces each breast. Drizzle the lot with a tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with your herb of choice (I use frozen herbs ready chopped or use dried). Parsley or Thyme works well. Season with salt and pepper and stick in the oven at 190-200c for 30mins.

I could eat this every night – substitute the vegetable type for whatever takes your fancy – broccoli, cauliflower, squash, cherry tomatoes & peppers etc all work well.

I’ll add to the shopping advice. Plan what you’re going to eat for the week, right it down and only buy that stuff when you go to the shops. If it’s not on the list it ain’t going in the basket.

You’ll think about what you’re going to eat all week which will cause you to make better choices.
After a few weeks you’ll have developed a menu of meals so things start to become automatic.
Your shopping will most likely become a lot cheaper.

This gives a good basic overview of general healthy eating principles.
https://www.cardiologistskitchen.com/top-tips/one-month-to-change-your-life-part-3/

Some suggestions:

A small glass of orange or grapefruit juice with breakfast.

Frozen blueberries are good with porridge (thaw overnight or in microwave), add maple syrup for sweetness (cheaper in bulk from Amazon).

Similarly frozen cherries or good quality honey with greek yoghurt. Toast some almond flakes under the grill to improve it further.

Add apple juice to a bowl of muesli and leave overnight. Thaw and add some frozen berries to it in the morning, maybe with some creme fraiche or greek yoghurt as well.

Before your evening meal have a small glass of tomato juice (or add some lemon juice and Worcester sauce or Tabasco for a Virgin Mary), maybe with a few nuts or olives.

Dried fruit (apricots, prunes and figs) are often a convenient way of eating fruit – the soft/semi-dried organic versions are often nicer, and go well with a piece of cheese.

Finish your lunch and/or evening meal with some fruit (whatever’s in season and is therefore likely to be at its best flavour and also good value, i.e. currently oranges.) Peeling an orange or cutting up an apple is a great way to finish a meal in a relaxed leisurely style.

Pasta is great for almost infinite options of different meals with vegetables (as well as fish and meat), and for relatively quick meals. For example pasta with broccoli, various different tomato based sauces (can be batch cooked and frozen in portions), pasta with peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, aubergines etc. etc. etc.

Given that you are both woking and are unlikely to want to spend any more time than necessary cooking in the evening, I would suggest Diana Henry’s books Simple and Cook Simple (she has also written one about more healthy eating called A Change of Appetite, but I cannot comment on that one).

Go back to basics and look at Annabel Karmel recipes (aimed at kids). Less fussy ingredients and aimed at kids so simple and palatable flavours.

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/category/books/5-ingredients-quick-easy-food-recipes/
Some of his “starter” books like this are aimed at people who don’t like to cook or feel it’s too complicated. Have a flick through next time you see it and see if you can find 5-10 things you would cook eat, if you do buy the book, spend a little time on some recipe planning for a week and go shopping.
I also picked up this
https://feedzonecookbook.com/feed-zone-table/
Has a great section at the start explaining a lot about nutrition for life and exercise. Lots of good straight forward stuff in there – Idea being you need good food to ride hard and don’t always have the time.

For other stuff simply equipping your kitchen a little bit with herbs and spices and a few other basics really helps. That and using the freezer to make bigger and have a couple of portions for later on/next week so you don’t have to cook every day.

Recognising you have a problem is probably the most important thing – and let’s be straight, the diet you’ve described is horendous. You must feel awful a lot of the time if that’s what you eat regularly!!!

You are already getting some good suggestions so just a few things to think about.
Eat real, minimally processed food. So yes, veg, fruit, grains, pulses, nuts, etc. Make sure you get a balance of the food groups & plenty of protein.

Learn to cook, it’s really not hard, is an important life skill & there is virtually unlimited information out there on how to eat well even if your time or resources are limited.

Eat when you are hungry, stop when you are satisfied.

Don’t ban certain foods or make food the enemy. If you want to eat ice cream, it’s ok, just be sensible & don’t be eating it every day.

Avoid jumping on any diet bandwagons, obsessing over food is exhausting, unhealthy & no fun!

Food is energy & medicine, if you think of it that way it will be part of your route to wellness.

Good luck!

Are you able to eat soup, Golfchick? That’s a good way to increase your intake of veg.

And have you tried sweet potato wedges or chips? Much healthier (and tastier) than ordinary potatoes.

Much healthier…. than ordinary potatoes.

Are they? I’ve read there’s not much difference. Also, is soup as good a source of veg as non-liquidised veg?

Also, is soup as good a source of veg as non-liquidised veg?

Hint you don’t have to liquidise your soup if you make it yourself.

I know, but it’s still pretty well boiled to a mush. I’m no nutritionist, but I don’t consider soup to be a good source of veg, but I’m probably wrong.

If your not getting any veg at the moment then it’s better than that situation, it’s also something you can easily make, freeze and take to work, it might not be a perfect solution but as the OP is making a start it’s a good step.

Much healthier (and tastier) than ordinary potatoes.

Nope, they are remarkably similar in glycemic index (effect of particular carbohydrate effect on the digestion system) but sweet potatoes “can” be higher in certain macronutrients and vit a.

Differing methods of cooking can influence how the body treats and absorbs the various nutritional elements in each so it’s not as simple as potato = bad sweet potato = good

I know, but it’s still pretty well boiled to a mush.

Only if you boil it to a mush.

I know, but it’s still pretty well boiled to a mush. I’m no nutritionist, but I don’t consider soup to be a good source of veg, but I’m probably wrong.

It’s just soup for goodness sake. There’s no need to worry about precisely how much nutritional benefit it provides compared with eating food raw or cooking it differently; it just needs to form one small part of a generally balanced diet. The idea that only the most healthy version of a foodstuff should ever be eaten (like brown rice, wholewheat pasta and wholewheat bread) is counter productive: very often it doesn’t taste as good as the regular alternatives and the nutritional difference doesn’t matter that much in the big scheme of things.

More importantly for Golfchick, New Covent Garden soups are currently half price at Tesco (and some other supermarkets), so that’s one or more to add to the online order.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20436818-the-real-meal-revolution

I’ve always stuck to some simple advice I heard once, and it’s seems to be pretty good:

Different colours on your plate. All Brown, or all white isn’t good…

Basically, reading into that, make sure there’s a good selection of veg and fruit. Add protein after the FnV, and make that something special, not the main part of the meal.

Apologies beforehand slowster but my response to your post is in no way an ill informed “typical”l stw attack on your genuinely well meaning advice but rather as a way to inform of the true nature of excessive sugar (fructose) intake and the effect it has on your liver regarding the body’s response to insulin release to deal with the sugar dump.

Processed fruit juice (essentially pure fructose, which is metabolised differently from glucose=whole fruits + fibre which slows down absorption) whether that be ingested from cartons or made fresh with the aid of juicers is detrimental to health as it does not contain any fibre (juicing releases sugar/removes insoluble fibre which is essential to a healthy gut microbiome), fructose is entirely processed by the liver and the lack of fibre leads to the liver processing the fructose and converting it to free fatty acids, very low density lipoprotein (essentially the cholesterol that restricts blood flow in artery’s) and it also aids in the process of increasing fat producing triglycerides. The type of fat laid down in this process is a cause of insulin resistance and can lead to diabetes and weight gain.

I could go on but it gets a bit technical so i’ll not bother as time for ZZZZ and even though i have nothing better to do with my time than spend all day attempting to improve my diet/health (diagnosed with MS) by researching the latest peer reviewed papers but i can surmise it as unless you are suffering from massive calorific deficit (olympic rower?, if not ditch all fruit juice) then every time you drink processed fruit juice you are preparing your body to store fat, and not the “good” sort of brown fat but white fat, by which if you increase the amount stored will have a detrimental effect on how your body can utilise the use of brown fat – more white fat stored on your body simply means that you cannot burn the brown fat which leads to an ever increasing amount of white fat laid down on your person. This can (and does according to the latest research) lead to damage to the mitochondrial cells that are the basic powerhouse of life.

For GolfChick : I’ve no doubt made mistakes above but i can’t be arsed reading it over (in true stw tradition – it’s all a brain fart after all but there you go) so crack on but lay off the fruit juice for your health, dried fruit is not much better, and lay off the pasta as well, eat eggs/mushrooms for breakfast with some left over veg from the previous night and you’ll be in a far better place than your current diet. (it’s really **** awful…really….really it is).

All meant in the best possible helpful advice, hope i’ve not been an arse but it’s been a long day dealing with the prolonged cancer of a best friend, call me a prick if you like – i don’t mind at all 😉

Cheers everyone for the advice so far, I’ve read it through but will look again later to properly absorb it and heed some advice from it. Yes my diet is awful I know this but thanks for pointing that out again and quite bluntly 😉

Yes I can eat soup and it’s alright but having broken my jaw and been forced to consume nothing but soup for two months it’s not my favourite. Also my go to with all soup is at least two rounds of white bread toast to dip in and make it a bit more interesting 😆

I think I’ll definitely take on board the weetabix with blueberries and bananas for breakfast and maybe pick up some wholewheat bread to go with the egg option. Might even check out these overnight oats or having time some days to cook the oats warm in the morning.

Some suggestions are tricky because I just plain don’t like them! I love sweet potato, mushrooms, salad, tomatoes, cucumber, don’t mind potatoes, some things I could prob put up with like carrots but I don’t like cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, green beans, HATE yoghurt, not so sure on squash but prepared to give that a try to figure out either way. I love almost all fruit but its just planning how I can eat it and before, going food shopping say once a month properly, I just don’t get enough of it and need to do the weekly shop in order to make it work. Still looking for a warm lunch option to go instead of soup. I’m draw by a stew or some sort of casserole or pasta dish as that way it could be cooking while I’m on the turbo but I haven’t found one just yet!

Thanks again guys and girls! 😀

. a chicago town mini pizza

…is a marvel of science. It’s hard to know how they managed to make something so small so calorific, as it seems to defy the laws of physics. A third of your daily allowance in something about the size of a coaster.

If you just swap this out for, well, anything else, your overall health will improve massively.

some things I could prob put up with like carrots but I don’t like cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, green beans,

Some people I have met have had a life long aversion to some of that stuff due to the boiled to death cooking in their younger days, sometimes worth a revisit when cooked well (peppers and beans just cut really small 😉 )

what about things like tuna, (canned or fresh) salmon fillets , cod fillets , chicken, lean protein?

with the vegetables you like, a piece of lean protein, some lemon juice and oil and a wholegrain bread roll you have an endless variety of healthy easy lunches. bake 3 chicken breasts or whatever on a sunday, lunch sorted.

seeing as your diet is so poor, do it in small steps. Change breakfast a little to a healthier version, perhaps make lunch the big change then do whatever for dinner and look at that at a later date.

More importantly for Golfchick, New Covent Garden soups are currently half price at Tesco (and some other supermarkets), so that’s one or more to add to the online order.

processed crap, sorry. probably better than a Chicago town pizza however granted!

From where you are just start with anything that LOOKS like the ingredients….
Eat as little as anything processed as possible and eat as diverse a range of ingredients as possible.

There is no magic bullet .. in fact most “Wonder Foods” turn out to have bad properties when eaten to excess like anything else.

The general rule of it looking like what it’s meant to be made of is fairly simple. Any form of bread for example doesn’t LOOK like wheat or rye etc. but if you are eating it then take the option looks closest.

This by itself is a fairly easy start… way from perfect but possibly more importantly its easy and likely you can and will follow it.

The other plus side of this is it starts to educate you as to what the parts are…
Like someone mentioned Crudites and Hummus are a good snack… and a carrot looks like a carrot.. if your lazy and they are washed I just bite the ends off…
Hummus is mainly just blended chick peas and oil with some garlic… (and gets fancier with Tahini) but illustrate a bit of the looking like the ingredients in a more abstract way… if you make your own its just a hand blender and chuck in some cooked chick peas, oil and garlic… even if you only “make it” virtually watching YouTube you then know what goes in… so if you buy supermarket made you know what should be in it.

If you compare to bread or pasta you’d need to get grain and a mill and make flour etc. whereas porridge you can see the oats.

Not every bit of processing is bad… but its a good general rule… and one that will get you past simply looking at something like the dinner plate pie chart. (Which is not bad – it just ends at that point because it’s based on too broad categories and perhaps encourages wholegrain this and that to get fibre you can get elsewhere more healthily) but mostly it just doesn’t give you a tool you can take forwards.

I love almost all fruit but its just planning how I can eat it and before, going food shopping say once a month properly, I just don’t get enough of it and need to do the weekly shop in order to make it work.

When shopping, pick seven firm apples. Drop them in a paper bag. Take them home. Eat one a day. It won’t kill you and will stay fresh in a cool dark place.

Still looking for a warm lunch option to go instead of soup. I’m draw by a stew or some sort of casserole or pasta dish as that way it could be cooking while I’m on the turbo but I haven’t found one just yet!

Slow cooker casserole or stew?

Follow Precision Nutrition on FB, they have lots of simple ideas eg here is a 10 step guide. Rather than change everything in one go, just work your way slowly along it, making one change at a time…

NB Step 10 is obviously factious…

Still looking for a warm lunch option to go instead of soup. I’m draw by a stew or some sort of casserole or pasta dish as that way it could be cooking while I’m on the turbo but I haven’t found one just yet!

I just microwaved three eggs . they were bland and spongy. filled a Chicago town pizza sized hole mind.

Somafunk, thank you for the informative post. I was vaguely aware of the issue with fruit juice vs. the whole fruit, and ordinary pasta being a refined white flour product with, I believe, a high GI.

However, I think we need to be very careful about seeing diet and any particular food as either wholly good or wholly bad (despite the media deliberately mis-representing new food science in just that misleading way, sometimes even facilitated by some scientists themselves given the pressure they are under to be published and obtain funding).

I drink a small glass of grapefruit juice with my breakfast because I like it, even though I know it’s not a great way to consume fruit. I would prefer to have half a grapefruit, but that would be somewhere between 50% to 100% more expensive (although having just calculated the monetary price difference prompted by your post, it’s not as great as I had thought, and I will switch to buying the whole fruit in future, so thank you for that).

Similarly pasta might not be ideal, but I like it a lot, and it’s much easier to eat vegetables with pasta (in very enjoyable recipes) than with chips – chips with broccoli anyone?

Obviously people’s personal circumstances will vary, not only preferences (which can change for better or worse) but also health and the ability to afford and access to good food and the knowledge and facilities to benefit from and enjoy them.

I do think it’s important to try to take a relaxed and balanced attitude to things like diet and nutrition, and I have given up paying much attention to the ceaseless dross of media commentary on diet. One year caffeine is bad for you, the next it’s good, ditto a glass of wine. Frankly, I like one or two cups of good coffee a day and a glass of wine with my evening meal, and I am not going to waste any more of my life reading any more articles about whether or not they are good or bad.

Put very simply, I will never know if any scientific publication on the benefits or otherwise of any food is correct, properly balanced and the definitive word on the subject, because there will always be another scientist saying something else next year. What I do know absolutely, is what I like, and my attitude is that I am going to eat what I like and drink what I like, enjoying both variety and moderation in all things. Far too much of modern life is obsessed with telling us as individuals what we should eat, drink, wear, believe etc. (see the Farron and Referendum threads).

Tonight I shall have a small glass of tomato juice, Nigel Slater’s smoked mackerel potato dauphinoise with a side dish of green beans tossed in olive oil, all washed down with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and a tangerine to finish. I intend to enjoy every last bit of it.

Obviously Somafunk you have your own choices to make, and I appreciate that your own health and any medical condition will influence your choices. I do recall from your past posts that you like good coffee, good whisky and a hot curry, and long may you and I both continue to enjoy them.

I would toss those beans in lemon juice and olive oil, pinch of Maldon. The lemon will cut throught the creaminess of the mackerel dauph. Sounds divine.

Not that I’m telling you what to do!

Good post slowster, a fair bit more balanced than my outburst this morning – in my defence i’d been up for most of the weekend and feeling rather stressed out over my mates deterioration, took him to hospital this morning for supposed chemo after managing a couple of hours sleep, clots on lungs so no more chemo/treatment for his secondary liver cancer can be carried out – home to die (pretty bloody soon by all accounts) which is devastating for wife/10yr old son.

Yeah i banged on a fair bit, i guess i should have railed my somewhat incohesive rant elsewhere – perhaps at the ever powerful sugar lobby and the utter shite that is promoted processed foods/slurry but we all know the most effective place to vent righteous anger and enable a cultural shift within the population is on the stw forum 😉

Ps : I still consider fruit juice in the morning to be the work of the devil (I’m running away now….still running……..bit further to go…….La…La….La….La…can’t hear you anymore……dives under bridge…. buries head in mud) 🙂