Hi Guys, I am brand new , haven’t started the diet yet but want to, however, I’m really not a cook and most of the recipes look like hard work to me (sorry). I am happy to do the 800 cals and be hungry but I need easier things to eat. Can anyone help? Thank you.

Hi, for me it was the mental arithmetic of counting everything up and then dividing. I recommend looking on packages at the supermarket to start for managing your calorie count. Things like the packets of frozen veg, miso or other soups help a lot.

Good luck.

You really don’t have to follow recipes at all, I hardly ever do (despite owning hundreds of recipe books). Get an app or online tracker and just log everything you use and you can do whatever you like. Stir fries and salads are great, as is a simple one pot oven roasted meal of meat/fish/chicken/sausages (good ones) and assorted vegetables with butter/oil and seasoning. Try to stay away from prepackaged food if you can and use fresh, as you get used to it you may be comfortable with starting to make more elaborate dishes and even follow the odd recipe.

Mixnmatch easiest meals are the sort of thing you are probably used to eating, just minus the bad carbs – and obviously there is some portion control involved to keep yourself on or around the magic 800 calories, but there really isn’t any need to over complicate things. You will probably find that after doing the BSD for a while and get into the swing of things, you become a bit more adventurous and there are lots of recipes on here worth a try.

Don’t procrastinate too long about starting, get going as soon as possible and let us know how you get on – good luck.

When you say you are not a cook, what does that mean in concrete terms? Can you boil an egg? Have you ever made a salad from scratch without pre-made dressings? How about sauteeing a veggie in a pan? Because if you can brave a few very basic cooking methods, the rest is just plugging in the right foods. I strongly advise you get a kitchen scale before you embark on this diet, because I’m an experienced cook and I had no idea of portion sizes and calorie counts before I started the BSD.

The easiest cooking methods, in my opinion, are oven roasting, pan or microwave steaming and pan sauteeing. Oven roasting works for vegetables, meat and fish. For example, in a 400F oven, put a baking sheet with chopped veg and a couple of chicken breasts. Drizzle a teaspoon of olive oil on top, a little salt and pepper and toss everything to distribute. Cook for half an hour. Take it out, be sure none of the veg are burning. Stab a knife in the chicken to see if it’s cooked through (it’ll be white inside instead of pink and the juices will run clear). If any of the veggies need rescuing, take them off the pan. If the chicken isn’t done, pop it back in. Check again in 5. There’s your dinner done in one pan and you don’t have to babysit it.

One of my favorite meals is the easiest thing I make: a giant pile of fresh spinach, wet with water, plopped in a dry pan on the stove at low-medium heat. Add salt and pepper. Toss it a few of times to make sure it doesn’t stick. When it’s all wilted and soft, take it off the heat. Drain out the residual water. Put the spinach on a plate and top with a half ounce of crumbled feta. That’s it. You won’t even believe how good two simple ingredients can be.

Another quick favorite of mine is scrambled eggs. You don’t have to figure out anything challenging like the folding of an omelette. You just beat a couple of eggs and season them (my standard seasoning is salt, pepper, garlic powder and smoked paprika). Melt a teaspoon of butter in a small non-stick pan and sautee any veg you want — you can never go wrong with mushrooms — and/or an ounce of good meat like turkey sausage. Add the eggs and just keep stirring until it doesn’t look liquid anymore. Turn the heat off and add some melty cheese if you like.

For your basic salad, this is my formula: half a tablespoon (8 ml) of olive oil, 1/4 tablespoon (4 ml) of vinegar or lemon juice, salt, pepper, half a clove of fresh garlic chopped as fine as you can. Whisk it or beat it with the flat of a fork. Add lettuce, spinach, arugula, endive, any salady green that looks good to you. To fill it out, add veggies like half an avocado, chopped, half a large cucumber (100 grams or so), 5 cherry tomatoes (tomatoes are fruit and can be quite high in sugar), a chopped green onion, kalamata olives, some leftover roasted veg you might have in the fridge. For a protein boost, add a chopped boiled egg or half a can of tuna.

Do these sound doable to you?

Bit late to reply Esnecca, but what a really helpful post, thanks. Love the spinach and feta idea.