I’ve never particuarly given a lot of thought to food. To me at least, food is fuel for doing cool stuff, that happens, sometimes, to be quite enjoyable.
I can understand that this may be somewhat at odds with approaches to food as a creative outlet – I can sympathise with this – occasionally I can find cooking quite a relaxing distraction, but traditionally, for me, it’s been something that got in the way of eating something and doing fun stuff. As a result of this approach, I’ve often been quite happy eating relatively few times a day, and frequently repeating the same meals.
A few months ago, I made a significant effort to lose weight. The first few weeks were painful and frustrating to adapt to, but I made an effort to disrupt my existing lifestyle as little as possible so I wouldn’t be tempted to give it up.
Specifically:
- I know I like eating infrequently – usually 2 times a day
- I know I like eating a lot of something
- I don’t generally eat/drink sweet things, this was to continue
It’s interesting to note that whilst I do do a fair bit of hiking, I did lots of hiking before I chose to lose weight, and I’ve not done more or less, since I started dieting – it’s much easier to eat something other than that plate of pasta than to run the miles to work it off.
Essentially, I was on a low-carb diet, similar to the Tim Ferris/4 hour body style-diet’s, with a rest day, that I put on Friday. What this meant was that Sat-Thurs I tried to avoid eating carbohydrates, and on Friday, I was free to eat whatever I wanted (PASTA! PIZZA! CURRY!).
When I thought it through, the meals I’ve eaten for the last few months haven’t varied a great deal:
Large salad:
- 1 or 2 avocados.
- 1/3 to a whole, packet of 200/250g “Greek style salad cheese” aka cheap and cheerful Feta Cheese.
- 2 – 3 medium sized tomatoes
- 1/3 of a cucumber
- 1/3 of a iceberg lettuce
- 1/2 to a whole, small onion.
- 1/3 of a bottle of Newmans Italian Dressing
Notes: any 2 ingredients can be left out, except the dressing.
This is a lot of salad, but is relatively carb-free. If one wanted to economise on carbs further, you’d avoid or cut down the tomatos/onion. The amount of lettuce meant that I’d have eaten a lot of food, which had almost no carbs, or indeed any significant nutritional value.
Halloumi fun:
- 200-300g packet of Halloumi – Mediterranean style grilling cheese
- 1 medium sized tomatoes
Notes: I’ve been trying to avoid this excessively as I’ve been trying to reduce total cheese consumption, but it’s quite quick and simple.
Peanut butter (quick snack/quick meal):
- 1/6th of a 1kg tub of meridian crunchy, no sugar (with added salt) peanut butter, without anything else, with a spoon straight from the tub.
Notes: weird as this is, this is really quick simple and easy.
Vegetable soups:
Mandatory ingredients:
- onions
- celery
- tinned tomatos
Optional:
- courgettes
- leeks
- peppers
Notes:
- I can make relatively passable (if bland by some’s standards) “soups”, probably best left for me to eat. I usually add some grated feta (perhaps 1/3-1/2 a pack) to the top of mine.
- I have a strong preference away from soups with potato or breadcrumbs in them
(Occasionally) Omelettes
- 2-3 eggs
- some cheddar + a tomato
Notes: I haven’t actually eaten omelettes reguarly for quite a while, but I’ll happily eat them and other egg-focused things.
