Healthy Diet for a single guy...

My usual plan of attack:

1. Cut recipes in half. One for dinner, one for lunch the next day.
2. For larger recipes, freeze individual portions to eat several weeks later. Saves time too.

I usually cook from scratch, by the way, so your mileage may vary.

There are books like this:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=vP3...g=ACfU3U1GUwiALoj8YXsa0ZEKKex6tQlhDA#PPT12,M1

that basically have good recipes for one or two. When I lived alone, I made a lot of stir-fries and cooked on a pan a lot. I found it easier to control portion size that way.

I just eat leftovers for the rest of the week. I'm not fussy. Or you could freeze leftovers and eat at a later date.

A couple years ago I lost 20lbs while cooking for myself (I think not having to eat what other people wanted to eat all the time helped with that). These was my technique:

1.) I made big batches of soup, chili, lentils, etc. and froze the leftovers
2.) I ate omelets ALL the time for dinner with a slice of toast, varying the filling.
3.) I'd make up a big salad to eat throughout the week and vary it with different dressings
4.) I stuck with cereal and fresh fruit for breakfast
5.) I ate lots of yogurt and fruit smoothies for snacks
6.) I set aside one day of the week for veggie chopping, slicing up carrots and celery for snacks, chopping bell pepper and onions for omelets, etc
7.) You can freeze loaves of bread, too!

If I think of anything else I'll let you know. This is a great question... I might have to cover it on my health and fitness blog! (smarterfitter.com/blog if you're interested

Here are a few suggestions:

• grilled cheese (use light margarine and 2% milk Kraft cheese)
• peanut butter and jelly (use reduced-fat peanut butter and go easy on the jelly)
• frozen vegetables with cheese sauce or alfredo sauce included in the bag (It's low cal, nutritious, and yummy. All you have to do is put some into a bowl and microwave it for 6 minutes. You can put the rest back into the freezer. Green Giant brand)
• frozen pizza (You can crack the frozen pizza into quarters, while it's still in the plastic wrap, and heat up one piece in the toaster oven.)
• cereal with milk (I use chocolate soy milk.)
• Lean pockets (instead of Hot pockets)
• sweet potato with cinnamon, sugar, and a little margarine (Punch holes into the sweet potato, and microwave it for ten minutes. Let it cool off for a little while, and split it down the middle with a knife. Top with a little bit of cinnamon, sugar, and margarine.)
• baked potato with light sour cream, reduced-fat, cheddar cheese, and green onion or dehydrated chives (Microwave, let it cool, and split it like a sweet potato.)
• reduced-fat cheese nachos (You can use the same cheese and sour cream from the baked potato. Microwave the cheese and tortilla chips just until the cheese melts, if it goes for any longer, the chips will become chewy. Add the sour cream after microwaving.)
• black bean burritos with light sour cream, tomato, lettuce, and reduced-fat cheese (I use the seasoned, canned black beans (drained) and wrap all of it up inside of a spinach tortilla. You use the same cheese as the potato and nachos.)

If you need any more suggestions, let me know.

V8 Fusion is a good choice too. It's fruit juice and vegetables blended together to taste like fruit juice cocktail.

I cook only for myself. I'm not a fan of leftovers, so whatever I make is enough for one.

I'm a fan of the Perfect Portion chicken breasts by Perdue. They're individually packaged, so I freeze the whole pack and let one defrost when I want to cook them. You could do this with any chicken breast package, you just have to individually package yourself before freezing. I usually grill these with some seasonings if I want chicken breast, but most often I slice 'em up for other dishes.

I employ a lot of fresh veggies--I like salads a lot, so I make sure I have spinach and a fresh spring mix on hand for even simpler nights. Buy a pound of so of ground beef or ground turkey. Separate into smaller hambuger-sized portions, freeze and then when you want, cook it up either as a hambuger or in a pan with some taco seasonings (individual packets). Makes a nice taco salad and you can throw in whatever--tomato, avocado, etc.

Keep pasta sauce on hand. I mix up some multigrain pasta, chicken (grilled on a Foreman or pan-cooked in olive oil) and some frozen broccoli with low-cal alfredo.

I also like the boil-in-a-bag brown rice (a couple different brands sell these). You can use these for a stir-fry with teriyaki, broccoli and snap peas. One bag of rice is more than I eat myself, but you can use the unused rice the next day in a burrito-style wrap.

I like the new "Steam Single" packs for microwaving veggies. They're more expensive, but I don't spend a whole lot of money on food to start so it works for me for the time and waste saved instead of using bigger packs. Also, they taste better to me when they're steamed rather than the regular frozen stuff.

Last ... don't forget pizza! I've mentioned a couple times in other threads I like to grill mine. But you can buy a refrigerated dough, split up into mini portions, and freeze what you don't want to use right away. Or, you can buy a mini crusts (like Boboli) or a big pizza crust and just make them by-the-slice. Again, I like the wheat versions. You can literally put anything you want on these. Same with tortillas.

All of these are just as easy to expand into bigger meals for more people.

I have more, but those are my basics.

The healthiest diet I can recommend for a single guy AND the added convenience of NO cooking AND cost effective is .......

Jenny Craig !!!

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Don't spend your nights cooking or fretting about what to get the kids when they stay with you. Let the experts at Jenny Craig do it all for you.

Simply visit their web-site and select delicious meals from their extensive menus.

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James81 said:

...Is it just me, or is everything packaged for families? As a result, I find myself actually having to eat sort of unhealthy because I don't want to make a large meal and eat leftovers for the next 3 days.
...

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If you really want to be eating healthy you should be avoiding those packaged meals anyway.

And I'm not sure how you'll save money using Jenny Craig, those meal plans are expensive.

The South Beach diet is a good book with great, easy to make recipes with portion sizes suitable for single guys.

I also eat a lot of salad these days. I have different dressings, and always different varieties available. And some ready-made grilled chicken to add protein to the mix.

Soup is good. Easy, simple, nutritious, and you can save them for later.

One word: rice.
And vary the side dishes. That's all.

You can get individually frozen chicken breasts (or tenders)-- around here, they're usually on sale for buy one bag get one free (they're either 2 or 4 lb bags, I can't recall.) Those last quite awhile and you can use it to make single servings of lots of stuff.

Sizz up some chicken (you can cook it in a pan with the lid on and maybe a little water for about 20 min or until done). I fill the pan and keep extra chicken in the fridge. You can use the chicken in:
--salads
--chicken salad sanwiches
--chicken tacos
or buy a can of potato flakes and a can of gravy and you have a chicken dinner.

Gordon Foods (and presumably others) sells boxes of frozen Pork Chops, which can be paired with all sorts of side dishes throughout a couple weeks.

Frozen veggies last forever, so toss some in the freezer to go with the chicken or chops or what not.

Those are my suggestions. But I also love leftovers-- it's so convenient. Hubby and I will nearly come to blows over the last of the leftover spaghetti. XD My challenge is just cooking for just two people (one of whom is allergic to everything that comes in commercially packaged foods. =/)