[ElJefe]

Achieving any goal requires persistence, which is achieved by staying motivated and applying a certain amount of cognitive energy.

But cognitive energy is not infinite. You get tired and while motivation can override the low ebb, you do need to replenish stores at some point.

This is why it's a bitch to deal with mealprepping (cutting), if you're also interested in achieving other goals simultaneously.

So the more of stuff going on in your life you can put on autopilot, the better.

For about two months now I've been having 7-10 ready made meals (approx 500 kcal a piece) delivered to my address. I have a desk job so my caloric requirement is modest. Perhaps 2,500 at most for maintenance. I save about 10-15 hours a week from not having to do dishes, grocery shopping or even meal planning, and I have a GUARANTEED caloric deficit as long as I restrain myself modestly at the office canteen.

I skip breakfast (just coffee), make a point to drink more water (often forget) and do two protein shakes daily.

Things are going well. Have dropped 10lbs in 6 weeks.

Strength wise I'm following Johnny Candito's 6-week program, and I do just 8-10 minutes of cardio before each workout. I increase intensity each time. The Candito program is great because it varies between high and low intensity work-outs.

The simplicity of the scheme makes the whole thing really easy. I highly recommend it as a strategy.

[TheFinalEpic]

I look to make my meals for the next day the night before, I find cooking meditative, and you can still do stuff when the chickens in the oven. Does buying meals like this cost more or similar to cooking them yourself?

[FretDancer]

Quote:

For about two months now I've been having 7-10 ready made meals (approx 500 kcal a piece) delivered to my address. I have a desk job so my caloric requirement is modest. Perhaps 2,500 at most for maintenance. I save about 10-15 hours a week from not having to do dishes, grocery shopping or even meal planning, and I have a GUARANTEED caloric deficit as long as I restrain myself modestly at the office canteen.

Can you give more details about this service? It is something I have thought of implementing.

[Ethan Hunt]

(03-23-2017 04:05 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  

I look to make my meals for the next day the night before, I find cooking meditative, and you can still do stuff when the chickens in the oven. Does buying meals like this cost more or similar to cooking them yourself?

It's not cheap. Least the services provided in the UK.

http://www.progainsmeals.com/order/

Prices listed below.

Top package over the entire year costs more than £10k.

Cheapest package costs £4k.

Which is hell of a lot more than £2k it would cost a normal person to eat.


I'd rather cook my own food because it's cheaper, fresher, cleaner and probably tastier.

Also part of working out is learning about nutrition. Best way to learn is to experiment with cooking.

[Yeti]

Yeah meal prepping can be a pain. I try to do it on Sundays, starting by 4pm and it takes a few hours when you factor in cleaning up.

I'd say that there are at least a couple key components of eating healthy, consistently:

- knowing 5-10 tasty, healthy recipes that allow you to make a lot of food that can be stored/refrigerated for later
- preparing your meals for the week in advance, for example on a Sunday. If I don't meal prep beforehand, I'm very likely going to eat out/eat junk at least a couple nights each week when i'm tired and can't be bothered to cook

Some examples of meals that I've made on Sundays, that make a lot of healthy, tasty food:

- slow-roasted fish tacos

- butternut squash soup

- Basque tuna stew (Spain)

- Japanese pork belly broth (can use any meat, I use pork belly as it tastes good and is loaded with sustaining fat)

Here's a recipe that I use a lot - Thai curry.

Need:

- 1 1/2 pounds meat (chicken, mahi mahi, etc.)
- Thai curry paste - I use a small jar that you can find at an Asian grocery store (a few ounces I guess)
- 14 oz coconut milk
- small red onion
- a few cloves of garlic
- a carrot
- a red potato
- one or two lemons
- a handful of nuts - walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds
- chia seeds
- flaxseed
- turmeric
- white rice
- coconut oil

How to prepare (takes about an hour):

- cut up the meat and vegetables into edible chunks
- juice the lemon(s) if you have a juicer, otherwise squeeze the lemon juice into a small bowl
- place a pan on medium heat. Add the coconut milk and curry paste, mix it all together for a few minutes while everything heats up. Add the meat and cook until the meat is fit for consumption.
- add the vegetables, place on low heat and let simmer for probably at least half an hour, stirring occasionally. Toward the last few minutes, add the lemon juice, turmeric (small spoonful), flaxseed (couple spoonfuls), and chia seeds (couple spoonfuls)
- turn off heat

Serve with white rice. I make white rice by adding a bit of coconut oil in with the water, then cooling overnight in the refrigerator. The computer screen tells me that this reduces the bad components like insulin, etc. I just use a cheap, standard rice cooker ($20-30).

This is a pretty healthy and tasty meal that will make at least four or five meals. I sometimes make two batches on Sundays and eat it for lunch and dinner Monday through Friday. On weekends, I cook something else that changes each week - nothing that takes a long time. I prefer simple, peasant foods that are healthy and that you can make a lot of in a short-ish amount of time.

[roberto]

OK. I sort of subscribe to this idea. I'd never go as far as ready meals though.

I've just eaten a whole head of broccoli fried up with four eggs and a dab of butter. Took all of five minutes.

Add oil to pan and heat.
Get a decent thick paper place.
Cut the broccoli up on the plate with a knife
Add brocolli to pan. Let it cook for a few minutes.
Crack four eggs into the pan, take plastic fork and beat them up.
Keep stirring with fork until eggs start to brown slightly (or less if you don't like this) I add potato starch for resistant starch and to get a little more crisp on the edges. I also add ready chopped garlic from a big tub, and use a seasoning grinder that contains a few herbs and spices.
Tip out food onto paper plate. Eat.

Washup prodedure:

Wipe knife on jeans and put back on rack
Wipe out pan with industrial paper towel
Throw paper plate, plastic fork and greasy paper towel into log burner. Enjoy free heat.

So yeah, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to cooking. I love good honest food, and pity people who think a meal is not a proper meal unless they've dirtied two sinks worth of dishes and utensils to make it. Fuck that. Everything for me is about minimal effort, from the ready chopped garlic to the disposable cutlery. Green hippies like to pull me up on using a paper plate and plastic fork for each meal, but really, what wastes more energy? Heating water to wash all the grease down the drain, or burning it all up and providing free heat?

Disclaimer- doing above might get you funny looks in an office type situation.

[ElJefe]

(03-24-2017 02:13 AM)Ethan Hunt Wrote:  

It's not cheap. Least the services provided in the UK.

http://www.progainsmeals.com/order/

Prices listed below.

Top package over the entire year costs more than £10k.

Cheapest package costs £4k.

Which is hell of a lot more than £2k it would cost a normal person to eat.

Each man needs to do a cost-benefit analysis. The result will be different depending on who you are.

I spent years learning how to cook and I'm pretty good at it now, with a repertoire of interesting recipes I can always draw on.

So I can make my own food, which requires effort towards buying all the necessary ingredients (good food has many details), going out and getting the food, storing it, chopping veggies, mixing, frying, baking, etc. After this comes dishes. That can easily take 20 hours a week.

Those 20 hours are cut to just 10 minutes by buying healthy, ready-made meals. Where I live I get 10 meals a week for about GBP 75-80, incl. delivery. That's GDP 4,000 per annum. What if I spent 15 of the 20 hours I saved on working more, acquiring additional experience? Or on a start-up in my free time?

This would lead to a steeper wage profile and more earnings. For most kinds of work, the additional time spent would accumulate like any other investment.

I love to make delicious food for my friends, and I do so on weekends. So I still use my kitchen time and again, but now I have far more time for relaxing or working more.

So I'm not hating on people who want to spend time cooking. But for people who have other goals than learning how to be a great cook, but who still want a varied diet, this is a terrific tool.

[Yeti]

Yeah, it's standard division of labor. Buying pre-made meals saves a man lots of time that he can spend making money or learning new things, or just enjoying life. I make my own food because I like cooking, but if I didn't already know how to cook, I might get a weekly meal plan. For example, I see that Prepped has a Paleo 10-meal plan for $117:
https://www.preppeddelivery.com/paleo-plans/

So that's maybe $500 per month for healthy meals and almost no time spent on preparation/washing up. Seems good. You can use that time saved to do other things. The division of labor.

(03-24-2017 05:44 AM)ElJefe Wrote:  

Each man needs to do a cost-benefit analysis. The result will be different depending on who you are.

I spent years learning how to cook and I'm pretty good at it now, with a repertoire of interesting recipes I can always draw on.

So I can make my own food, which requires effort towards buying all the necessary ingredients (good food has many details), going out and getting the food, storing it, chopping veggies, mixing, frying, baking, etc. After this comes dishes. That can easily take 20 hours a week.

Those 20 hours are cut to just 10 minutes by buying healthy, ready-made meals. Where I live I get 10 meals a week for about GBP 75-80, incl. delivery. That's GDP 4,000 per annum. What if I spent 15 of the 20 hours I saved on working more, acquiring additional experience? Or on a start-up in my free time?

This would lead to a steeper wage profile and more earnings. For most kinds of work, the additional time spent would accumulate like any other investment.

I love to make delicious food for my friends, and I do so on weekends. So I still use my kitchen time and again, but now I have far more time for relaxing or working more.

So I'm not hating on people who want to spend time cooking. But for people who have other goals than learning how to be a great cook, but who still want a varied diet, this is a terrific tool.

[Ringo]

(03-24-2017 05:44 AM)ElJefe Wrote:  

Each man needs to do a cost-benefit analysis. The result will be different depending on who you are.

I spent years learning how to cook and I'm pretty good at it now, with a repertoire of interesting recipes I can always draw on.

So I can make my own food, which requires effort towards buying all the necessary ingredients (good food has many details), going out and getting the food, storing it, chopping veggies, mixing, frying, baking, etc. After this comes dishes. That can easily take 20 hours a week.

Those 20 hours are cut to just 10 minutes by buying healthy, ready-made meals. Where I live I get 10 meals a week for about GBP 75-80, incl. delivery. That's GDP 4,000 per annum. What if I spent 15 of the 20 hours I saved on working more, acquiring additional experience? Or on a start-up in my free time?

This would lead to a steeper wage profile and more earnings. For most kinds of work, the additional time spent would accumulate like any other investment.

I love to make delicious food for my friends, and I do so on weekends. So I still use my kitchen time and again, but now I have far more time for relaxing or working more.

So I'm not hating on people who want to spend time cooking. But for people who have other goals than learning how to be a great cook, but who still want a varied diet, this is a terrific tool.

You make a good point, and it's specially true for people who are noobs at cooking or don't enjoy it. Cooking for them is nothing more than a boring chore.

But I have to pick at that figure. If someone's spending 20 hours/week cooking and cleaning up, they're doing it wrong.

If you plan ahead, it should be 5 hours/week tops.

For example, this is me:
2h to cook and package ~12 meals at once on Sunday (including clean up).
1h total to heat up meals and clean dishes throughout the week
1h30 to buy groceries - all bought at the Farmers Market, Costco style market for meats and regular supermarket, all done by foot since they're near my house.

Where I'm at you can get each ready made meal for US$4,70-8,00. I currently spend R$100-120/week on food, which breaks down to US$1,70-2,10/meal.

[malc]

I second Diet Autopilot. Best way I ever lost weight was something like diet2go. If I was going to do it again, I would just use chain stores with calorie counts like subway or others. That way the food is fresh so you don't get sick of microwaving frozen food all the time. You could literally do diet autopilot on the mcdonalds dollar menu, you'll feel like shit, but you can do it! Very cheap!

If you just eat 2 $6 footlongs from subway + a $3 snack every day, thats $15*30 = $450/month @ 1800 cal. Compare that to your grocery bill and how many hours of cooking & shopping you have to do compared to your job. It's hard to beat.

[Corollary]

A meal prep service is the best thing I've ever paid for. I hate cooking and cleaning, so not having to do those things while saving time can't be beat.

Although my coach once said that his meal prep service was a bitch, and I have another friend who manages to get girls to cook for him. That seems to be a better option if you want to save money.

[Fortis]

Throw out all the shitty food you own and replace it with healthy food.

Prep meals at least 3-4 days in advance

Profit????

But seriously,

throw out that garbage, buy healthy shit, pack your lunches, bring healthy snacks (nuts, oatmeal etc) and drink lots of water to stave off hunger. Also, drink green tea.

[Thomas Jackson]

Crockpot Sundays. Couldnt recommend this more - much cheaper than paying for a meal service. I'm pretty lazy about cooking but I prep all my lunches each Sunday.

[kaotic]

(03-26-2017 05:03 PM)Thomas Jackson Wrote:  

Crockpot Sundays. Couldnt recommend this more - much cheaper than paying for a meal service. I'm pretty lazy about cooking but I prep all my lunches each Sunday.

CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

It's literally the easiest thing to use, you can't fuck up with this.

I do this every weekend and spend only $60 on meats, veggies, eggs, etc.

[Thomas Jackson]

(03-26-2017 05:42 PM)kaotic Wrote:  

(03-26-2017 05:03 PM)Thomas Jackson Wrote:  

Crockpot Sundays. Couldnt recommend this more - much cheaper than paying for a meal service. I'm pretty lazy about cooking but I prep all my lunches each Sunday.

CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH.

It's literally the easiest thing to use, you can't fuck up with this.

I do this every weekend and spend only $60 on meats, veggies, eggs, etc.

100% agree, cheap/easy/efficient. Perfect for every man.