You Eat What You Earn

Last week was a lazy week. Only two gym visits and not one, not two but three whole cheat days. It didn’t go ideally to plan, and as of this morning I was about the same weight as last Monday, although I weighed myself after breakfast. Some of you might wonder how much I eat for breakfast that it matters what time I weigh myself in the morning but it can make all the difference sometimes – even if it’s only in my head some mornings.

                So how am I planning to fix this? Well, I’m not really sure. I’m going to the gym tonight and Wednesday, but I’ve been booked out tomorrow as well as the weekend and might be busy on Thursday night. So it may be that I don’t have that much time. I’m going to be trying to sneak in a session on Tuesday quickly but it’s not looking good. So it looks like a week of thin rations rather than plenty, and back to dieting basics. However I’ve encountered a few problems with this, having tried it last week.

                I really don’t like pasta any more. I stopped eating it so much since I started going to the gym, as I had more calories to use up and could have a wider variety of foods as a result, and having tried to go back to it as a low calorie, filling meal I’ve found I don’t find it appetising in the least. Weirdly, rice tempts me powerfully but is not as good a supplement as it takes more of it to fill me up and I’m pretty sure is less healthy. If I’m incorrect please correct me so I can have it without feeling like a diet-traitor. I’m also going off kale. I don’t think I ever really liked it, if I’m honest, but it is far too good for me to not eat. Coupled with my drop in interest for pasta it makes my evening meals a bit of a chore. “So you don’t have to eat anything in the evening, right? That’ll help the diet!” – Not really. I still need to eat to live.

                So how am I going to solve this conundrum? Well, I could talk to people who cook and find a couple of low calorie meals to make, varying my diet a little (shock horror) and making sure I never really fill my food life with too much of the same thing. This is probably the best plan I can come up with, so I should really make an effort to enact it. The problem is my evenings are quite busy and cooking can take an unfortunate amount of time. Yes, I know I keep saying we make time for the things we want to do but I don’t want to cook really; what I actually want to do is eat without having to work for it. That’s a very, very lazy outlook, I know. And when I do cook I do enjoy it but it still seems a bit of a chore when I think about it in advance, mostly due to the time it takes to do it rather than the effort. So what I’m looking for are quick, healthy, low calorie meals which require minimal effort to prepare and are fairly filling.

                Do not, do not, say salads. Yes, I appreciate my aversion to them seems mildly unintelligent and counter-productive but I don’t find them appetising at all. Maybe I need to learn to enjoy them, and this is something I am getting closer and closer to experimenting with. They are not something that I want forced upon me though. Part of my reticence is spawned of fear they won’t fill me up, which sounds pretty dumb now I come to voice the concern – I could always, you know, eat more to compensate as something lacking meat and carbohydrate isn’t going to have a massive calorie count to it so that shouldn’t be a worry. And yes, I know I can actually add some meat to them if I want a bit of carnivore-friendly flavour. It’s something I will look into, at some point, but before I push the boat out that far I’ll look for alternatives I feel more tempted by.

                So do I have any of my own ideas or am I just going to beg for them? Well, basically every woman I’ve spoken to has decided to mock my ability to cook based on the fact I’m a man and therefore am genetically unable to. Contrary to this, I can; it is definitely a ‘won’t cook’ issue for me. Tonight I’m probably looking at a risotto, which I appreciate is not the height of culinary genius but I’ll be honest; ‘cooking’ of any variety is basically heating things up to a specific temperature for a specific time. Yes, you can add herbs and spices and such, and I do, but it’s not a secret, ninja art taught only in shadow and quiet whispers. I don’t want to belittle those who can cook really well – you certainly have an admirable talent. What I want to say is if someone applies themselves they can probably prepare a meal of a fairly impressive standard for an amateur. I’m not saying any one can be a chef, but nearly everyone can be a cook.

                What am I trying to say, apart from perhaps digging myself into a hole with culinary experts and professional kitchen preparation artists everywhere? Simply, that anyone can cook. Get your ingredients, don’t be an idiot when you choose how to prepare them, make sure you don’t burn them, don’t drop them on the floor. The real trick is knowing what goes with what and when to mix them; the rest is just observation and light lifting. Yes, fire can be scary. Sure, you might get it wrong. Ideally check with whoever you’re cooking for that they eat what you’re going to prepare – having made this mistake it was very awkward half way through the meal when the other person revealed they didn’t eat one of the things I’d put in there. It wasn’t an allergic reaction, but it wasn’t a best pleased one either.

                Why is this relevant to dieting? Two reasons! One, it allows you to control your intake with a lot more detail and therefore you will find it easier to diet/not over eat. Again, it still requires a measure of self-control but even one of my work colleagues, who admits to having all the self-control of a small child that is high on sugar and has been set alight, is managing it now he’s preparing his own food. It also gives you a sense of satisfaction and pride in what you’re eating, a sense you deserve to eat it. I like to think this is linked to hunter-gatherer instincts rewarding you for your hard work.

                The second reason is that dieting can be expensive if you buy pre-packaged or pre-prepared diet food/meals. Actimel don’t price their yogurts and more cheaply than full fat ones because they’re giving you less stuff in them, and all types of food that sell themselves on containing less of X, Y and/or Z appear to cost more for the pleasure of their consumption. However, buying your own ingredients can be very cheap, as long as you’re not importing the finest ostrich meat from Australia or having caviar for breakfast regularly. I find that either the meals are cheaper if you buy the ingredients separately or you get a lot more meals out of the same amount of money as if you bought pre-prepared branded food stuffs. And you learn a life skill: sounds like a bargain.

                I therefore recommend doing you own cooking if you’re looking to lose weight, sticking with my theme for DIY dieting. The best way to do a thing is to learn as much as you can about it, so empower yourself with some creative cooking knowledge and get to it! Or, if you’re like me, do what you did at university in a desperate attempt to avoid awful malnutrition issues and find some succulent solutions to starvation which are both simple and satisfying.