Hi everyone. Im trying to see if there might be a better solution than the one I’ve come up with for my situation. I’m 37/male, work full time and also in nursing school. I’ve had a skinny fat problem for years now. I know what im supposed to do to correct it (eat at a slight caloric deficit, high protein 0.8g per lb bodyweight, resistance training 3x week), the problem is making the nutrition aspect as convenient as possible for my busy schedule while also not blowing my budget.
So my idea is:
Breakfast - either huel shake or (to save money) make my own high protein yogurt parfait at home with some myprotein powder, greek yogurt, granola, fruit, etc.
Lunch - huel hot and savory.
Dinner - use one of those ready-meal service where the food comes already cooked. The best one i could find and cheapest is snap kitchen. Its $126 for 12 meals. At 1 meal a day for dinner, I could spread that out over 6 days for 2 weeks at a time. That leaves me only 1 day a week where i have to figure dinner out on my own.
Altogether, if i do huel H&S with snap kitchen, thats $341.28/month for me. If i add huel white, it would be higher.
Now if i were to cut out snap kitchen and just use huel powder for breakfast and H&S for lunch, make my own dinner. Then it would be much cheaper at $160/month.
Problem is cooking is a hassle and i dont think im the greatest cook. My eggs always stick to the pan no matter what i do differently, and i can never quite get the taste of chicken correct when cooking it no matter what seasoning trick i try. That’s why i said F it, lemme just do a ready meal for dinner.
If you’re interested in consuming a fully plant based diet, leafside, mosaic and veestro are great options as well for dinner. I use all three and they’re great. Veestro usually has coupons that can get meals down to around $7 and complement Huel rather well.
Your breakfast and lunch choices look healthy for sure (-; The wild card is the meal service dinnner. My suggestion is to work on your cooking skills. You don’t need to be the next Gordon Ramsay to cook up some veggie stir fries or lentil stews. Cooking can be fun too, at least it is for me.
I understand you situation. I would dedicate 1 day, 2hrs, a week for cooking.
Not much effort, make 2 pots worth of vegetable Stew/Chili/Pasta. Once the pots are cooled add them to single serving containers with good lids and stack them in the fridge. Most of the ingredients are frozen or in cans so you can just follow a simple recipe. If you can do that and boil water your all set. These ready to go meals are easy and you can eat them hot or cold.
Just find a recipe you may like and try it. It will save you alot as well.
I spend $10/day to eat which includes 2 Huel shakes, a Huel HS meal, 3 Huel snacks and a regular meal. My calorie deficit is 250 to 500kcal.
Sure I have a suggestion for you. If you want a quick, tasty, healthy meal, try the following.
Make a serving of rice. Usually I make 2 or more at a time, and put the leftovers in the refrigerator. For 2 servings of rice, take 1/2 cup (or a little more if you want some more) of dry rice, put it in a strainer and run some water over it to rinse it off, then put it in a saucepan. Add 1 cup of water (a splash or 2 more wouldn’t hurt), add a pinch of salt, and cook it over low to medium heat. You can put a lid on it if you want to. Check it every few minutes, and stir it with a wooden spoon so it does not stick to the bottom of the pot. When it appears close to ready - after 20-25 minutes or so - turn the heat off and let it sit.
While the rice is cooking, get a frying pan or a wok, add 3-4 tablespoons of cooking oil to it. Chop up half an onion and a few cloves of garlic, put it in the pan, and begin cooking. Once the onion starts looking translucent (and before the garlic starts to turn brown), add a splash of water.
Chop up some vegetables. Almost anything will do - broccoli, carrots, celery, mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, and bell peppers are all good. Chop up some tofu (about 3-4 ounces is good), and add that. Then saute (or stir fry, I think it is the same thing). Add some soy sauce, but go easy. If you want to jazz it up some more, add some hot peppers, and/or sesame oil, and/or tahini, and/or rice vinegar. But maybe if it is your first time, just stick to some basic soy sauce. Once the veggies are softened up, it is ready to eat. Eat it either mixed together with the rice, or put them in separate bowls.
And there you are - a basic veggie stir fry! I am happy to share it with you.