Starting my third week on the Fast800 and have only lost 4 1/2 pounds. I work full time and then am coming home and spending 2-3 Hours in meal prep for my dinner meal and breakfast and lunch the next day! And then I am working out as late as 10:00 pm! What am I doing wrong! I really hoped this would be an answer for me. I am only 19 and so cooking for myself is also new for me but I am prediabetic and 60 pounds over weight. What am I doing wrong?

Sorry to read you are struggling Rbradley. Can you give us an idea of the foods you are preparing? What are you cooking for dinner, breakfast and lunch?
There are many very quick and easy meals to prepare, so you will get the hang of it. Do you use an App to track your foods calories and carbs?
Keep going! You can do this.🌺🌺

From reading many entries, each person seems to find a route within the diet that works best for them. I use MyFitnessPal to enter EVERYTHING I eat each day. Helps to keep within the 800 cals. I also have come up with rather boring combinations of foods that are healthy, filling and lo-cal. My favorite “go-to” for lunch is a lentil/tumeric/onion/cabbage combo that I use as a sauce on riced cauliflower or broccoli. I make enough of the lentil “sauce” to last a week as I really can’t be bothered to spend too much time cooking. I use the SlimFast drinks mixed with lo-cal almond milk. Quite filling and tastes good. Water and exercise are important too. I notice weight loss better when exercise is up. I also note comments on watching carbs – there seems to be something to this. Do not give up. Be careful to count each calorie and experiment to find a good balance for you

Hi there RB! Well done and welcome (from me) to the Forum! Please take a deep breath and accept “SOMETHING” positive has resulted from your efforts 🙂 We dont all start at the same weight, height, commitment, nor with the same food choices or lifestyles . . . so please dont fall into the comparison trap! We just do our best to get started and learn on the go! (Just like babes learning to crawl then walk !) A nice discard for the first weeks . . . slow and steady . . .
Re food prep . . . while my lifetyle is way different to yours, they are similar . . . appears to be one person to care about and for, so sharing some of my methods may help 🙂 Firstly I ALWAYS have hard boiled eggs ready to eat. I buy bags of kale salad . . . and discard the bag of dressing – save the seed pack for adding to something later 🙂 (My choice of feta cheese comes in herb oil and I use THAT as salad dressing. Also plain olive oil, or one infused with lemon or chilli and walnut oil are nice alternatives!) The shredded vege can be eaten cold . . . with a fillet of hot Atlantic salmon . . . (frozen section of supermarket – two to a box. Three minutes in the microwave has it ready). OR – the shredded veg can be used as stirfry . . . adding cold meat or using mince as a base. Frozen peeled king prawns is another great easy meal to prepare . . . I do onions or leeks in butter, with bok choy, shallots, celery, broccolini, cauliflower, capsicum or choice of any . . . add ginger or garlic – (buy the jars of minced either is quick easy and economical) – add the prawns last so they wont get overcooked. Baby spinach can be wilted as well or replace the bokchoy. On weekends I make a batch of 6 mini/pizza quiches in a muffin tin. They can be served hot with vege, or with salad . . . Use minced beef or bacon for lining the cases, add chopped whatever you have . . . mushrooms, shallots, asparagus, bacon, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks . . . fill in the gaps with eggs whipped with a little milk and cream – (I add a little garlic for extra punch!) . . . top with shredded mozzarella cheese and a tiny sprinkle of chilli flakes – bake for 25-30 minutes. Great for lunch or quick heat dinner. Cook a piece of corned beef, roast a piece of pork/beef/chicken – so you can have a hot eal to start and cold cuts for lunches, stirfry . . . all of these diced can be added to stirfry for quick meals. Any leftover can be boxed and taken to work 🙂 You can also cook a double quantity to have evening meal ready when you get home – just a quick microwave blitz. It may not be so crisp the day after but it will still taste good. Winter is here where I live and I have been missing my full bodied stewy soups with barley, split peas etc. Made one yesterday with leek, zucchini, garlic, chilli and coconut milk. Yummmmm! Thick and fills the spot. This was an eyeopener and will have variations in future. Please dont be afraid to experiment . . . if it isnt to taste the first time, add something a little different the next 🙂 . . . Im a lazy cook really . . like things which are fixed quickly therefore leaving more time for other things 🙂 WOW! Have been SO busy Ive just realised Ive done a 17 hour fast! Off to do a stirfry lunch . . . Cauliflower . . .? yes . . . yes . . . Bok Choy . . .? Shallots . . .? yes . . . and the remaining salmon fillet which must be eaten today 🙂 Might toss in a few macadamias or cashews or almonds or walnuts when done!!! That adds restaurant class! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Good luck! and I hope these ideas help 🙂 Quack! Quack!

RBradley: You will get faster as you practice your knife skills, get used to multitasking, work out your own short cuts, even get a few little kitchen tools or gadgets. Some people find starting diet and exercise at the same time overwhelming. Some people even just get one meal at a time right, then work on the others.

Remember that you have the rest of your life to become a pro at living healthy and happy! You are doing great to start when you are a young person, your body will love you for it.

Anyway do you have a freezer?

The large section of my freezer is mostly non-starchy vegetables and low sugar fruits. As many as possible are purchased already washed, chopped and frozen, a few I have washed, prepped (grated or sliced) and frozen in bulk myself. I have gone to a few different grocery stores over time to get a wide choice ready prepared. Frozen defrosted fruits and vegetables can often be cheaper than fresh, are faster to cook for soups and curries, faster to blend for smoothies.

Second section is fish and seafood such as cooked frozen king prawns, scallops, ready made crab pate, raw fish fillets which I cook two at a time. You can also use canned fish which is already cooked, so open and serve.

Eggs can be hard-boiled or made into a frittata six at a time, then refrigerated. Meat can be cooked two or more servings at a time like fish fillets, then frozen or refrigerated. I use prosciutto air-dried ham instead of bacon, and that needs no cooking and has no additives except salt.

Wholegrains (eg. rice/ barley) can be steamed or boiled in bulk then portioned and frozen. You can mix in anything you want before freezing – veg, meat, seafood – so it is ‘grab and go’ or leave plain. Buy a proper freezer marker pen (does not rub off in the damp) and label everything properly! Freeze in plastic tubs, plastic bags, even ice cube trays for little portions. Work out which container suits you best over time.

Later down the line an electric plug-in slow cooker or crock-pot or multi-cooker is very useful to buy or ask for as a gift. You can make stews, casseroles, curries, soups without having to stand at the hob/ stove watching and stirring. Even go to the gym and it is safely cooking your meal!

Many multi-cooker models will steam rice and other grains perfectly no watching. Quickly measure rice, water, salt, switch on and leave. Switches itself from ‘cook’ to ‘warm’ when done. Obviously you will not need this if you are not eating much grains.

Once you get used to using a freezer and slow cooker/ crock pot/ multi cooker you should save a lot of time doing the dishes and wiping the worktops too!

HTH.

Hi RBradley. I’m confused by your profile which says mother of 5 grandmother of 6! There must be a blip in the system as that would be one heck of a record for a 19 year old! A very successful recent poster on here, Frodo, look him up, has done wonderfully on soups, prepared salads, and ready bought cooked protein and healthy fats. Stir fries are very quick, you don’t need a pre-prepped pack of veg; maybe one pakchoi, a few mushrooms, sliced, handful of spinach, throw in half a pack of cooked prawns, few cashews, and soy sauce. Max 10 minutes. Omelettes take even fewer minutes. Salmon fillets oven cooked in foil take 25 mins. Bit of steamed veg on the side. Have you looked at Diet Doctor, or CafeDelites; there is very helpful guidance and lovely low carb recipes on both sites.

Hi Everyone! Ive been super busy here and just barely reading much less posting . . . but SOMEONE mentioned they were having meal replacement once a day . . . and (I think I remember) being disappointed with their weight discard. Today while at the supermarket, I stumbled onto the meal shakes . . . and one sachet declared 10g of carb . . . thing was it was or 100ml and qhen made up the sachet was 250 ml. Thats way over the 20g carb many are aiming for . . . and leaves no carbs left to be consumed through other foods and drinks during the day. Hope this helps whoever (in particular) and others who may be thinking of this “light” meal 🙂 Better making batch of leek and zucchini soup with chilli flakes and coconut milk. Quack! Quack!