I just eat my veggies raw while my carbs and proteins cook. I usually do a big fistful of baby spinach and a big carrot. Between those, the onions, garlic and mushrooms I put in most of my meals and I feel like I get a decent helping of veggies per day. I've never liked veggies, even as a little kid. Particularly cooked veggies. So rather than trying to find a way to work them in to my meals, I just wolf them down raw. I honestly enjoy them way more that way.
Most of my issues eating stem from not having the motivation (or executive function - jury's still out) to actually cook something so I've gotten tupperware and am making vigorous use of my slow cooker for shredded chicken, soups, and stews.
I'm still struggling with this, as I've mentioned above before. I've done a lot of my favorite, longer-keeping recipes by now. I've been living off of chicken and rice for the last month or so. At first, it was amazing. I throw some garlic and curry spices on the chicken, season my rice the same way, throw in some veggies after I saute the chicken, throw the rice in and toss it around like stir fry.
But after doing that meal 20 or so times in the last month, I'm getting a little burnt out. There's only so many ways to do chicken and rice. I was so desperate for a change I bought a streak and had steak and egg noodles with butter and parmeasan cheese. And TBH, I'm not a big fan of steak either. A big slab of charred protein does the job but I find it pretty boring. But that's how hard up for variety I'm getting, that I resorted to it.
So my plan is to figure out another 3 to 4 day meal I can make. Angling towards either beef stroganoff or chicken pasta salad. Haven't made up my mind yet. Still need to figure out dinner for tonight too >< I wish I could have a grill at my apartment. It would be so much more convenient to grill up 5 or 6 chicken breasts at a time instead of having to buy, prep and cook some every day.
Truth is there's other recipes I want to try. (Lentil Soup, Mulligtawny Soup jump to mind) but I don't have the motivation currently to experiment with my night's meal. It's one thing when you've got other food ready to eat, and you can experiment and fail and it's ok. But when you're experimenting and it's also your night's meal on the line....I tend to fall back on what I know works.
Also, don't fear the carbs! Carbs are GOOD. Your body has evolved to prefer carbs for energy. The issue is not carbs in and of themselves. It's the amount of carb intake versus the amount of energy expended. If you're just doing cardio, yeah, carbs may slow down weight loss a little. But if you're lifting weights, you NEED that stored energy in the muscle that carbs provide, unless you're doing the keto diet and actually sticking to it. Cardio doesn't do a whole lot to increase your body's metabolic rate; that's why cardio folks tell you to stay away from carbs. But when you're lifting weights and bringing the intensity...your body's metabolic rate increases along with the increase in lean muscle mass. So you can eat carbs while lifting heavy and you'll continue to lose weight rather than store it as fat, because you're burning off those carbs during your workout AND hours or even days later as your body rebuilds muscle and continues to burn calories while it does so.
So I wouldn't feel guilty about your breads, tortillas or rices. Have carbs with every meal. Just figure out how many carbs you're getting in a day. I've heard some body builders talk up as many as _400g_ of carbs a day for increasing mass, which is insane to me. That's a shit load of carbs. 80 to 100g of carbs a day shouldn't hurt you, and will provide energy for your works outs so you can go the distance.
In truth, the real devil of carbs are sugars, which it sounds like you've correctly started weeing yourself off of. Sugary carbs are way more calorie dense than other sources of carbs, despite not providing as many real nutrients. So if you're eating _clean_ carbs, you can actually eat a boatload without affecting your waist line. I'm regularly amazed how much MORE I have to eat to hit my daily macros when I'm eating clean. I'll seriously have a full dinner of maybe 900 calories and I feel stuffed. Versus eating 1500 calories of garbage fast food and being like "Yeah I could eat a little more" when it's all said and done.
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Topic: The Fitness Thread - THE RE-SWOLLENING (Read 62465 times)