Newbie looking for tips, tricks, advice and support :)

(Patricia) #1

Hi! My name is Patricia I’m nervous and excited about starting this journey . I am very over weight and pre-diabetic. I’m about 400 lbs. My intention with keto is a new lifestyle change and to lose weight to get healthy. I would love any tips and advice you guys could give. Are there any threads here that I should bookmark and keep up with maybe? I’m not a big cooker; like at all, lol, so simple, quick-ish recipes are good for me. Any ideas there? (I figure over time I might become more of a cooker) Are there any pre-packaged meals that would be good? A friend recommended steamer meals. What do you all think?

#2

Welcome! And don’t be nervous - this is a very nice, kind and supportive forum.
First off - go through the various categories and see what each is about. That way you will get oriented to the website and at the same time see which forum discussions you find most interesting - and learn a lot.
My other favorite go to recommendation is https://www.dietdoctor.com/
There is a ton of great information that is provided for free all the time as to what and how keto is; and lots of easy to prepare recipes and meal plans. There is more extensive information/films/etc that you can watch for one month for free.
Would suggest you start getting used to the idea of cooking :grin:. You will find out very quickly that this WOE (way of eating) is much easier and more effective when eating ‘real food’. But folks have their tricks of the trade for times when cooking is challenging/not available.

(Chris W) #3

Welcome,
I survived for the first month on bacon, eggs, spinach, and salmon patties. All could be cooked in under 5 minutes. Prepacked meals are just bad(loaded with carbs), and pretty much not good for you so you need to abandon that thought.
Learn to read food labels, and how figure out were they are if you cannot find one like in the case of fresh produce.
Learning to cook is not hard, start simple and you use a few ingredients. There are lots and lots of recipes here and other web sites. One thing is that you can also plan meals for several days if you are single. Once you get started it should only be a matter of time before you will never want to go back like me.

(Jean Taylor) #4

Cooking doesnt have to be complicated. I don’t do recipes for the most part. I never have. I cook the same way I did before substituting keto friendly foods for things I used to use. As far as steamable meals go I don’t know if there are any prepackaged ones but it shouldn’t be to hard t make your own. They sell microwave steam bags in the foil/plastic wrap section more places. They have instructions for fish and chicken on them.

(Rob) #5

THIS! I make 70% of my food in one frying pan (meat/veg) with variable amounts of bacon grease (from none to lots) and about 10% in the microwave (e.g. steam veggies before I fry them in the pan :yum:), 10% in the oven (e.g. a large batch of chicken thighs) and 10% in a saucepan (boiled veggies, the odd pot roast, making my hot sauce). A kettle to boil water for my jello and mixer to make whipped cream and that’s all I need.

I do have a joyfully restricted menu (by choice - don’t get bored of what I like (so far)) and there are plenty of fancy implements that will give you better results (sous vide, InstaPots, etc.) but it’s nice to be able to just fire up a burner and be eating in 10 minutes :grin: