10 Easy Meal Prep Tips for a Quarantine

We’ve all been making sacrifices and giving up many activities that we love in recent weeks. However, one pleasure we don’t have to live without is eating well while losing excess weight. Dining out at restaurants is now off-limits to promote social distancing during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. But thanks to your easy Nutrisystem meal plan, you can eat chef-prepared meals every day and practice your cooking skills in the kitchen with our Flex meal guidelines.

One simple strategy that can help you stick to your commitment to lose weight is to plan your meals each week, according to a study, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. “Meal planning was associated with a healthier diet and less obesity,” the researchers report after evaluating the eating habits of a large group of subjects.

Planning for and preparing meals in advance ensures that you will have healthy options when hunger strikes and helps you avoid the impulse to order out for high-calorie fast food. Even better, prepping meals saves you time and money. To make it even easier for you, our health and wellness experts here at The Leaf have put together this list of tips for easy meal prepping that you can use while quarantined. They may even come in handy when things go back to our normal, busy lives!

How to Stop Eating So Much During the Quarantine

Read More

Here are 10 easy meal prep tips to keep you on track during a quarantine:

1. Form a habit.

Most of us tend to think of habits as bad behaviors that we want to break. However, good habits can help us bring positive changes to our lives. Prepping meals is the perfect habit when you want to be a healthy eater. If you can, find a time during your week that you can set aside for meal prep. For many people, weekends offer an opportunity to get ready for the following week but a weeknight might work better for your schedule. No matter what time suits you, treat prepping meals each week as an appointment with yourself and it will soon feel like a regular part of your healthy routine.

2. Start with a list.

You don’t have to decide what you’re going to eat at every meal for the whole week. However, it helps to settle on a few dishes that you will cook at some point during the week. That sets you up for the next step of creating a grocery list that will supply you with the essential ingredients. Use our handy Grocery Guide to help you choose the healthiest items and the right amounts of them for you. The list ensures you have everything you need when you begin to prep meals for the week.

3. Plan for protein.

Healthy proteins are the centerpiece of almost all meals and snacks because they supply the energy you need and leave you feeling full for hours after you eat. However, many protein sources such as fresh chicken, beef and pork can take a long time to cook and don’t last as long as other options.

Make the most out of your occasional grocery store trip by stocking up on preserved proteins like canned tuna, protein powder, almonds and low-sodium jerky. You can also take shortcuts during your meal prep by choosing PowerFuels that don’t require much preparation, such as fat-free cottage cheese or yogurt, canned tuna or salmon, hard-boiled eggs and cashews. Of course, chicken and turkey breast are excellent PowerFuels and should keep in the refrigerator for up to a week after they are cooked.

7 High Protein Foods that Aren’t Chicken

Read More

4. Fill up on frozen veggies.

An important key to successful weight loss is eating at least four servings of non-starchy vegetables each day. You need to buy some items, like tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, fresh from the produce department. They will keep in your refrigerator for a week or two. However, when you’re making fewer trips the grocery store, you’ll also want to stock up on frozen veggies, such as green beans, cauliflower and broccoli. They are often as nutritious as fresh produce, since they’re preserved right when they’re picked. Frozen veggies make meal prep extra easy because you can use them whenever you’re ready—no washing and chopping necessary. Low sodium canned vegetables are also good options to keep in your pantry.

5. Think multipurpose.

Certain ingredients can be the raw materials for more than one meal. For instance, you can use grilled or baked chicken breast for several different dishes, such as Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad, One-Pan Rice, Chicken and Vegetables or Chicken Pita Pocket. Brown rice and quinoa (the protein-rich seed) are other versatile ingredients that can be used in multiple dishes. Make extra servings of these foods whenever you prepare them so you can use them as needed.

6. Double or triple up.

If you’re taking the time to cook up a batch of a favorite meal, why not make two or three batches? Then store the extras in your freezer and they’ll be ready to heat and eat when you’re craving that meal again in a few weeks.

7. Load the slow cooker.

The slow cooker—which prepares food while you do other things—is a handy appliance for healthy eating. You simply fill it with ingredients early in the day and then it does the rest while you go about your business. The Leaf Weight Loss Blog is filled with delicious and nutritious slow cooker recipes, such as Chicken Gumbo, Kale and Beef Meatballs and Chicken Fajitas.

If you have in Instant Pot, you can get the same ease of preparation and rich, flavorful food as a slow cooker. However, you don’t need to wait hours for your meal to cook. Enjoy whipping up some of our favorite Instant Pot recipes, like our Quick and Easy Pot Roast, Chicken Creole and Salmon with Chile Lime Sauce.

6 Slow Cooker Recipes You Need to Try This Season

Read More

8. Build with Nutrisystem.

The Nutrisystem menu is loaded with items you can use to create even more exciting dishes and save yourself lots of time. For instance, stuffed peppers can take hours to prepare and cook. However, when using our ready-to-go Meatballs in Marinara Sauce, you can create Meatball Stuffed Peppers that are ready to serve in under an hour. Missing the chicken and waffles at your favorite diner? Stock up on our Buttermilk Waffles to quickly make your own “Fried” Chicken and Waffles at home.

 9. Portion out.

As you’ve been learning through your Nutrisystem weight loss plan, you can enjoy just about any kind of food you like and still drop extra pounds if you manage your portions. Your Nutrisystem meals and snacks come in just the right portions for you. Use the same strategy for the meals you are prepping. Pack each portion in its own container so you can pull out the ideal amount for you when you’re ready to eat.

10. Cook for all.

One of life’s great joys is sitting down with family and eating together. With everyone finally in the house at the same time, that’s easier than when we’re all caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday living. So, take this opportunity to prepare meals you can all enjoy. Better yet, get the whole family to help you out with cooking. We’ve got dozens of family favorite recipes that the rest of your gang will rave about while you can rest assured that you’re still making progress to your weight loss goal. Remember to make extra and freeze it so you can enjoy your good home cooking again and again.

20 Healthy Recipes You Can Make for the Whole Family

Read More

The post 10 Easy Meal Prep Tips for a Quarantine appeared first on The Leaf.

from The Leaf https://ift.tt/35fc1IZ

My little journey

(Disclaimer: I am Italian, English isn’t my first language) Last year I was 65kg heavy and 170cm tall (143lbs and 5,7ft), and now I am 57kg (125lbs)(I am a girl). I lost the first 5kg (11lbs) during summer 2019, by switching my diet to a vegan one and actually going trough an intense calorie deficit (I was eating less than 750 calories a day, extremely unhealthy). My diet was composed mostly by fruit and legumes, and I used my veganism as an excuse to eat less and less. My parents made me stop, so I stalled at 60kg (152lbs) for 5 months, not really having a balanced diet ( beans and slices of bread were my lunch, followed by eating massive quantities of fruit in the afternoon). My skin was terrible and I couldn’t gain weight or strength by going to the gym (I am a lifter, before summer I actually had some great progress). On January 2020, I decided to see an expert, that gave me a whole new diet. I am literally at my best right now. I lost a lot of fat and gained muscle mass, by increasing my protein intake and kinda cut completely simple carbs and complex carbs like whole grain pasta, bread (I maintained some legumes in my diet (150g only at lunch), because of their nutritional richness and because I need some energy for my work outs). I eat a lot of vegetables, and I allow myself to have fruit just once a day in the morning. I abandoned veganism but now I am vegetarian. About that, I am environmental-friendly vegetarian. That means I do it for the environment, not for the animals. I only eat meat produced in extensive farmings, whose impact on the earth is way lower than intensive farming’s one. All this is to say, even though many people will disagree on this, cutting sugar in its many forms and increasing protein intake is what made me healthier. My skin is extremely clear now, I don’t have massive cravings right after lunch, my clinical analysis are perfect. I am in the best shape of my young life (I am 17), and I look forward to maintain it. I know it’s a little weight loss, but it has changed my life, I am so much more confident and I eat more than two times what I ate in the summer. I love taking care of myself, and I am not embarrassed about my appearance anymore when hanging out with friends. I am honestly never been unattractive, but now I am at my best, and I like myself. Good luck everyone!

submitted by /u/susyayy
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2y9aubn

Some self-reflections on emotional well being and weight loss

Hey, I wanted to share some unsorted reflections on how my weight loss journey has affected me emotionally.

This is because, after 5 years of obesity I am finding a life that is very different from what I had gotten used to and it's honestly intimidating.

In short my story is, that I was skinny all my life, then developed an unhealthy relationship with food and gained weight fast. I went from 5"11 at 180 pounds to 250 pounds in two years when I started college.

This changed everything for me, I had intense body dysmorphia and detached myself emotionally for everyone around me. It was like the continuity of myself throughout my life was broken and there was suddenly this fat apathetic guy in the mirror, that I didn't recognize.

Even when I got out of the circumstances that we're causing my depression and moved to a different town, I still felt very detached from my own life. I was caught up in self loathing and had a lot of trouble making friends over it. I hurt other people emotionally and started to be excluded socially, which made me feel horrible.

I had tried a lot of different weight loss strategies over the time, lost like 45 pounds doing keto, that I gained back and tried CICO, which just made me even more sedentary due to fatigue.

The first thing that actually worked for me was starting to go bouldering at 110 pounds, because it gave me very actionable goals. I started going many times a week and made a lot of new friends over it.

For the first time I felt like I was changing my lifestyle rather than temporarily changing my eating habits. I'm now at 198 pounds with a much improved body composition and the last 5 years feel a bit like a bad dream.

Which leads me to the headline. There is so many positive things about losing weight, I feel more attractive (which is huge) and my emotional wellbeing was improved a lot. But there is still the aftermath, yes stretch marks suck I have them everywhere, but I feel like I lost 5 years and that really hurts. There is people I could have had a romantic relationship with, that I didn't notice because I was too bitter about myself.

At the same time nothing is lost of course. There is only one way, and it's forward.

I guess my point and opinion is, treat overweight as a symptom of a hurt relationship with yourself. Yes you can lose weight by itself, but lasting changes are the results of treating overweight holistically and working on all aspects of your emotional well being.

For me eating to I lose weight, became an automatism once my entire life surrounding it set me up to remove my emotions from food. The hardest part for me was to strike a balance between being aware of my eating and but not always having food on my mind, which made me snack constantly.

Honestly my overweight was/is a symptom of a long existing negative relationship with myself that only fully manifested when I was truly on my own with all safeguards removed.

Hope this helps someone be more at ease with themselves. Take care of yourself :)

submitted by /u/WerfWegAkkount
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2xcCgmS

5 questions about weight loss

I’ve come here countless times to feel less alone in the struggle, find helpful advice and read a post that made my day. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about these issues with the people in our lives and this sub almost feels like a big family group chat. I thought it would be fun to learn more about everyone in this community!

1. Funniest thing you’ve done to lose weight?

2. First word that comes to mind when thinking about weight loss?

3. How did you feel before and after eating your last unhealthy meal?

4. If you could hire any celebrity, famous chef or fitness guru to help you stay on track, who would it be?

5. What are you most grateful for at the moment? (doesn’t have to be weight loss related)

submitted by /u/velvetgalaxy
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2xj7EAk

Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Tuesday, 28 April 2020? Start here!

Today is your Day 1?

Welcome to r/Loseit!

So you aren’t sure of how to start? Don’t worry! “How do I get started?” is our most asked question. r/Loseit has helped our users lose over 1,000,000 recorded pounds and these are the steps that we’ve found most useful for getting started.

Why you’re overweight

Our bodies are amazing (yes, yours too!). In order to survive before supermarkets, we had to be able to store energy to get us through lean times, we store this energy as adipose fat tissue. If you put more energy into your body than it needs, it stores it, for (potential) later use. When you put in less than it needs, it uses the stored energy. The more energy you have stored, the more overweight you are. The trick is to get your body to use the stored energy, which can only be done if you give it less energy than it needs, consistently.

Before You Start

The very first step is calculating your calorie needs. You can do that HERE. This will give you an approximation of your calorie needs for the day. The next step is to figure how quickly you want to lose the fat. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat per week you will need to consume 500 calories less than your TDEE (daily calorie needs from the link above). 750 calories less will result in 1.5 pounds and 1000 calories is an aggressive 2 pounds per week.

Tracking

Here is where it begins to resemble work. The most efficient way to lose the weight you desire is to track your calorie intake. This has gotten much simpler over the years and today it can be done right from your smartphone or computer. r/loseit recommends an app like MyFitnessPal, Loseit! (unaffiliated), or Cronometer. Create an account and be honest with it about your current stats, activities, and goals. This is your tracker and no one else needs to see it so don’t cheat the numbers. You’ll find large user created databases that make logging and tracking your food and drinks easy with just the tap of the screen or the push of a button. We also highly recommend the use of a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Knowing how much of what you're eating is more important than what you're eating. Why? This may explain it.

Creating Your Deficit

How do you create a deficit? This is up to you. r/loseit has a few recommendations but ultimately that decision is yours. There is no perfect diet for everyone. There is a perfect diet for you and you can create it. You can eat less of exactly what you eat now. If you like pizza you can have pizza. Have 2 slices instead of 4. You can try lower calorie replacements for calorie dense foods. Some of the communities favorites are cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash in place of their more calorie rich cousins. If it appeals to you an entire dietary change like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian.

The most important thing to remember is that this selection of foods works for you. Sustainability is the key to long term weight management success. If you hate what you’re eating you won’t stick to it.

Exercise

Is NOT mandatory. You can lose fat and create a deficit through diet alone. There is no requirement of exercise to lose weight.

It has it’s own benefits though. You will burn extra calories. Exercise is shown to be beneficial to mental health and creates an endorphin rush as well. It makes people feel awesome and has been linked to higher rates of long term success when physical activity is included in lifestyle changes.

Crawl, Walk, Run

It can seem like one needs to make a 180 degree course correction to find success. That isn’t necessarily true. Many of our users find that creating small initial changes that build a foundation allows them to progress forward in even, sustained, increments.

Acceptance

You will struggle. We have all struggled. This is natural. There is no tip or trick to get through this though. We encourage you to recognize why you are struggling and forgive yourself for whatever reason that may be. If you overindulged at your last meal that is ok. You can resolve to make the next meal better.

Do not let the pursuit of perfect get in the way of progress. We don’t need perfect. We just want better.

Additional resources

Now you’re ready to do this. Here are more details, that may help you refine your plan.

• Quick Start Guide - Build your foundation!
• Loseit Compendium - Frame it out!
• FAQ - Answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions!

submitted by /u/AutoModerator
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2VGFQPI

Nervous about throttling back losing weight.

Today is my birthday, and a gift I somewhat inadvertently gave myself is the gift of hitting my weight loss goal on my actual birthday - well, the first major milestone goal on my self-transformation journey. I'm quite thrilled about it :)

What makes me nervous: The CICO count I'm currently on, 1500/day, has enabled me to lose virtually every single day (6,7kg/14.7lbs since mid-feb) - and I'm nervous about increasing that number so as to be able to maintain and/or throttle back the losing rate. It would be heartbreaking to me to gain the/some/any of the weight back (as fat) and it's not going to happen - I just need to figure out a strategy to ensure it doesn't happen.

Once the gyms open up, it will get easier as I'll be able to get back into weight training and use it as an additional tool in my toolbox to counteract a slight increase in calorie intake - but I'm planning for if they don't any time soon.

Any guidance?

submitted by /u/suntuario
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2y8L7X8

Thoughts about weightloss

I was thinking about summarising some of my thoughts about my weight loss journey here to both hold myself accountable, reflect on the past and get some feedback and insights from this community. Brace yourselves for a wall of text.

As a little background: I have been struggling with weight loss for many years and had two big successes during my life. One was while I was still at school where I have lost almost 30kgs in a short period by mostly sleeping throughout the day, playing games during the night and not eating properly or not at all. I was about 16 years by that time and back then heavily struggling with depression without having any professional support from a therapist. It has been a very unhealthy and unsustainable way of losing weight and did nothing good for my mental health, as most of you hopefully will agree with. Needless to say, I have gained everything and more back over the years.

The second time was almost 5 years ago, where my motivation stemmed from wanting to lose weight to feel attractive and loveable for one of my crushes. I used CICO and MFP throughout this, along with exercise and a newfound love for lifting weights. This subreddit and r/progresspics have been a tremendous support as well. Again, I've lost around 20kgs and I was quite happy with it, but thinking back I still remember feeling like the same old "fat" me, not having any mental change regarding my self-esteem and self-love. Yet, looking at pictures from that time now, I would give anything to get there again. After a tragic end of my relationship with this person, I spiralled back into depression and have since gained everything back. This was when I got serious with therapy, after self-admitting to an open psychiatric clinic and then continuing therapy over 3 years.

Fast forward to 2020, I am at my highest weight ever (108kg at 170cm), still struggling with depression, and still struggling with self-esteem. So what has and hasn't changed? I am now in a healthy relationship with a wonderful person that is supportive of who I am now and where I want to go. I have moved to a different country to pursue a master's programme that I have been dreaming of. I have emotional support by official student counsellors and I am actively looking for a therapist now. All "ingredients" that sound promising and valuable to motivate me for my weight-loss.

But is it really about weight loss? I would guess no.

My recent successes have been either unhealthy or motivated by some external source, so they haven't been coming from within. With within, I mean out of a healthy relationship with my body and mind. My goal is to not just lose weight, but learn how to be kind to myself. It's not about a diet, it's about a lifestyle and conscious choices that reflect how I care about myself. I don't want this weight loss to take up all the space in my life, to a point where this is the first and last thing that I am thinking about daily. I hope that therapy will get me there, but in the meantime, I need to gain different perspectives on this to help me manage my life.

Here are some questions that I have:

• How can I make peace with the weight loss defeats of the past?
• How can I become more patient when it comes to weight loss to stop obsessing with "how I could look like at one day"?
• How can I stop myself from aiming of losing as much as possible in the most rapid way (1kg per week)?
• How can I disconnect my unhealthy association of a fit body with being loveable and attractive?

I understand that most answers to this will probably be therapy, but any little thought, advice, story, ... is appreciated. And even if my little wall of text is just here to show that I'm not alone with these thoughts and struggles, to know that others feel similar, this will also give me some closure hopefully.

submitted by /u/littledoiknow
[link] [comments]

from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2ySyY96