Hello
I’ve just begun the 800 diet and intent to run for the full 12 weeks. I’m 59, over 19 stones (120.6kg?), take meds for arrhythmia… a blood thinner and a beta blocker. I live alone, separated but on very happy terms with my wife and my teenage children that I see daily.
My only other attempt at a diet was 6 or 7 years ago when I calorie restricted to about 500 less a day for a year, my main source of inspiration the Hackers Diet. I lost about 5 stones (32kg) from 19 to 14 stones (that target recommended by my doctor).
I have vegan sympathies. My 16yo daughter is vegan. I don’t particularly enjoy meat, especially not as filler with salads, for example, but don’t worry about the odd exception.

What I find problematic is that I’m not interested in cooking or preparing food. I love all of the wonderful recipes around but am just not interested in making them for myself. I don’t like unprepared vegetables and salads that much.

How long do you give me? 😁

Nice to meet you.

Hi
I’m afraid I have no easy solution to your dilemma…I’m sure someone will come along who will have better ideas than mine which is to have one big cooking day and get it all over in one hit, make large batches of several meals and freeze them in individual portions so you can get out a days worth of preprepared ready meals at a time to heat up when needed and don’t have the daily grind of food prep.
However I also feel the need to say that the food preparation has ( I’m on week 4) become a part of the whole eating experience, an intrinsic part of the the diet for me. I was no fan of all the prep and cooking on week one but now find if someone else does it for me I’m not satiated by the meal…it’s as if I’m relishing all the food while following the recipe and eating is just the end product.
However you tackle it I wish you all the best…the results are worth it. ( Day 25; Loss 1 st 4 lb, fasting blood sugars down from 10.6 to 7.1)

Hi Fr0d0 – that’s quite a dilemma! It is possible to by pretty much any vegetable or salad item already prepared from supermarkets – at a cost of course. However, this doesn’t get around the business of cooking or assembly the meals yourself. As Floria says (big well done by the way Floria, you should be proud) making your own meals becomes a part of the eating experience and there are many simple meals that can be made in 15 to 30 minutes, especially using pre-prepped ingredients. Floria also makes a good suggestion, with batch cooking as a way of getting the bit you don’t like out of the way in on hit.

If you are not able to get past the cooking issue, it is hard to think how you will manage to do 12 weeks on the Fast 800, so perhaps the question is how much you really want this? Are you able to bite the bullet and do something unappealing to you (at least initially, as it may be you will come to enjoy cooking after all), to gain the health and wellbeing you desire for yourself? Sorry if that sounds harsh, but this way of eating is all about taking control and owning the result of our personal choices.

Do hope you will find a way to make the experience tolerable to you – best wishes for achieving your goals and hope to be reading of you positive progress soon.

Thanks Floria I like what you say. I’m not sure I’m up to the task of preparation. Whenever I’ve tried in the past I throw everything into the mix and it tastes awful. I like Jamie Oliver and his style of cooking. I have a couple of (distant) male friends who are great cooks. I destroyed my cooker by abandoning bacon under the grill. I just don’t do it.
I guess I’m going to have to use this community for other kinds of support. I’m just not into recipies or fussing over the minutae.

Hey Fr0d0 – can you recruit your cooking male friends for a social evening of cooking once a week or so, to help you with a batch cook? Or might your teenage children be persuaded to help occasionally? Perhaps having someone in the kitchen with you, won’t feel so much that it is all up to you and when you are chatting and working, time goes quicker. If you like Jamie Oliver, take a look at his 15 minute meals as prep for these is minimal. You might need to tweak the odd ingredient here or there to keep things low carb, but might be worth a try. They aren’t fussy recipes and are designed for people like yourself, who appreciate eating but not the production of good food.

I too recommend the Jamie Oliver 5 ingredients cookbook and tweak the carbs for lower versions where necessary. Good luck!

Thanks for both your posts SunnyB, I missed your 1st one.
I’m afraid those friends are way too far from me. We very rarely meet. I’m not really sociable at all. The kids.. we’ve discussed it but nothing has come of it yet. I’ve just discovered the kitchen, having had to shop for suitable foods and stocking the fridge. I literally rarely go there.
Is there a food prep haters thread? I should go there for some moral support. My daughter is a mad keen food obsessive that bores me to tears with her drivel. The only way I did the Hackers Diet is because is does away with all of that calorie counting nonsense. You weigh yourself daily and on the result can work out calorie loss.

So what do you like eating, Fr0d0? That you don’t need to cook?

Thanks KazzUK for the book tip. I’ll take a look.

I like eating prepared salads, vegan meals, spices and medium hot foods. I love greek vegetarian food. The ingredients are so varied and many that it’d be hard to replicate when preparing for one. I would get bored quickly and the ingredients would go off.

How about batch cooking things like a veggy chili and/or curry, portion it out and pop it in the freezer. Once cooked, I suspect stuffed aubergine could also be successfully frozen and reheated as well. And a quorn and aubergine moussaka would work too and none of these need to take a heap of prep time, especially if you buy preprepped veg. Bagged salad needs no real prep at all and you can quickly chop some peppers, toms and cucumber to go with it and maybe the aforementioned stuffed aubergine.
Do hope you will find a solution which you can work with and will soon be on your way the your goal.

Too things, I would suggest not thinking in terms of a diet – a short term change to your eating patterns with the aim of going back to your old eating patterns once you have lost weight. – we tend to use the phrase WoE, its a Way of Eating for life.

I don’t have a lot of patience when it comes to cooking, when I get in from work I want something quick and simple. Also I have manage to get so involved with a task after putting something in an oven that I forget about it until the smell of burning spreads through the house.

How about looking at stir fry dishes, they only take a few minutes to cook with just one frying pam. – Or omelettes with fillings. – Or what about using some gadgets. A slow cooker. – Stick in ingredients and leave to cook for itself over the day. Or use a microwave, which will cook for a time and then turn itself off so if you get distracted during the cooking time its not going to burn. – I like to put low carb veg in a dish put in the microwave until half cooked. and cover with cheese and put it back in the microwave until the cheese melts. You can also buy a soup maker, stick in all the ingredients, and it will do all the work of making the soup.

Great replies Sunny and Gwen. Thank you.
I discussed some joint sessions with my daughter tonight so something might come of that. We talked of bulk cooking a base that could be added to, that could also introduce variety.
I’m all for a change in lifestyle over a temporary fix. I think there may be more in my psyche that needs addressing.
I have an under used halogen oven, a microwave and an induction hob.
I’m sure we’ll work something out.