Feed Me Seymour! (Help With A Diet Plan)

Ponge

A little bit of background first:

I'm 22 years old. I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. Including commuting time I spend over 12 hours a day at work/travelling (7 til 7 generally) 5 days a week, and as a result of this I have become incredibly lazy when it comes to food.

I consider myself a bit overweight (I'm maybe 5foot 10, 177lbs) according to an internet BMI calculator I'm 25.4 (it says normal is 18.5-25). I've been going to the gym 2/3 times a week for a couple of months now (again I've been a bit lazy and naughty recently and not been as regular) and I generally do 30-40 minutes of jogging (about 5km), maybe some cycling/rowing, and I've just started some light weights/resistance training, plus I walk about 3 miles to work every day. I've noticed myself trimming down but I still have a bit of flab on my love handles and slight man boobs. I'm pretty sure that this is due to the generally large portions of carbilicious food's I've been eating.

When I get home from work I'm generally exhausted and I have been very prone to just throwing some pasta on and covering it in pesto and cheese. This is such an easy/quick meal to make and being brutally honest it's just pure lazyness on my part. Grocery shopping can be awkward for me as I live in town and the only shops nearby are 'Metro' supermarkets with limited options. I've just started ordering food for online delivery from Asda so I can get access to a much larger variety of foods. Plus I live nearby to several smaller 'vegetable' grocers that I can get quite a good selection of fruit and veg from. The main issue is not getting home till after 7pm when most of these shops are closed.

What I'm looking for here is a list of suggestions for meals that I can really use to vary my diet substantially. I'll eat almost everything except from mushrooms, and although I do love me some meat I'd be quite interested in hearing some vegetarian options if you have any. I'm a big fan of spicy foods, and I eat a lot of garlic. I'm fond of mexican, indian and italian although I've only really experimented with the staples (bolognaise, lasagne, burritos). Herbs/condiments shouldn't be an issue, and I make goodish money so I'm able to buy whatever I need really.

Hopefully from this thread I'll be able to compile 7 or 8 new meals that I can try out. Anything you have is appreciated - soups, salads, curries, sandwiches, breakfasts, meaty feasts... Especially things that I could make a big batch of for lunches/other meals.

If you don't want to type out recipes, links to recipes are also great.

I'll start it off with what I generally have for breakfast (if I can drag myself out of bed early enough):

Breakfast - 1 Banana sliced, 1 apple sliced, organic yoghurt, granola.
Lunch - Soup from cafetria, roll,



TL: DR Version...

I eat unhealthily with a very bland diet. I'm looking for 7 or 8 new recipes to try out. I'm game for anything apart from mushrooms. Cheers!

LewieP's Mummy

Definitely not deep fried mars bars!

Seriously though:

Check the fat content of your yoghurt, aim for v. low/no fat. Ditto cereal - fat/sugar content.

Soups:
1. chuck lots of chopped veg in a pan with 2 tins chopped tomatoes. If fresh veg, cook til soft, if frozen, about 10 min tops. Add Peri-peri sauce. Liquidise a bit if you've a blender. If not, just eat it, with wholemeal/granary toast.
2. In a pan add 1 cup red split lentils, 3 cups water, (or whatever you use to measure lentils out with) 2 chopped potatoes, 3 chopped carrots, 1 garlic bulb squished, boil with lid on pan for 25 min. add brown/worcester sauce, eat. Mmmm
3. Roast a chicken in the oven (follow label instructions). strip all the meat off the carcase (bones) and eat with veg, in sandwiches. Dump the carcase and skin and cooking juices, a whole onion and some herbs in a pan and boil in lots of water for 30 min. Strain all the liquid off into another pan, take the onion out and add to the liquid, dump the carcase. When the liquid is cold, skim the chicken fat off and throw it away. You have now made chicken stock, which you can add to any soup instead of water, to make it even yummier.
All 3 freeze well/keep in fridge well.

Have fun.

Thanatos

I'd suggest you check out the dietary suggestions in the fitness thread, and ask any additional questions you have that that doesn't answer.

Elin

Health wise - maybe not the lowest fat thing but it sounds like you'd like my BBQ beef recipe.


Garlic spicy BBQ beef


boneless beef roast
worcestershire sauce
cayenne pepper
garlic cloves
BBQ

I didn't really measure since this was a throw together.

Slice garlic cloves and put in bottom of the crock pot, I used 7 fresh cloves but use them to taste.

Put some worcestershire on the garlic.

Put the beef roast on the garlic and worcestershire, then cover the roast in worcestershire sauce. Then cover in Cayenne. Carefully pour water down the sides to fill the pot up TO the top of the roast, but not covering it.

Cook on low for 3 hours. After 3 hours take out roast, cut into paper thin strips, trim the fat and return to juice in pot. Cook on low for another 3 or 4 hours.

Remove roast and shred finely. Strain juice through collander to make sure you have all the beef and garlic. Put beef and garlic back in pot and add BBQ to desired messiness. Cook on low for another half hour.
---

I'm sure that you can either omit the BBQ sauce for health or find an alternative to it.

Dark Moon

Your breakfast is tiny. Eat a significantly larger breakfast. Eggs are a fantastic way to start the day, and downright healthy if you boil 'em. Split the rest of your day's food into 6 meals and eat at regular intervals. Oh, and Thanatos has good advice. The Fitness Thread has a huge write up on establishing healthy dietary habits.

Improvolone

Do you own a propane grill? They make things loads easy.

Ponge

I thought my breakfast was quite big! Just to confirm it's 1 banana - sliced up, and 1 apple - sliced up, not '1 banana slice'.

Thanks for the advice so far guys, i'll hit the excersise thread as well to have a look.

Elin : your meal sounds delicious. I don't have a slow cooker though :-( I've looked into buying one that's only £10, but my flatmates already make fun of me for having so many kitchen gadgets (rice cooker, smoothy maker etc).

Mr's Lewie P : All top notch suggestions. I do enjoy cooking a good roast chicken. I've been looking into using lentil as well as I've never really considered them before so i'll definatly try that dish.

Thanks everyone so far! Keep those recipe's coming though!