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Help me to eat more healthily, please

11 replies

Garamousalata · 04/11/2025 04:42

My DH died almost a year ago. Since he died my diet has been awful. I’ve not felt like eating much of the time and I’ve been eating rubbish.

I’m on my own, so cooking for one feels like a massive chore. I’ve thrown stuff away because I can’t finish it. I hate throwing food away.

I need tips for eating better please.

OP posts:
ForZanyAquaViewer · 04/11/2025 05:26

I’m so sorry for your loss. 💗

What’s your current diet like? What sort of food do you enjoy? And can you cook?

UppityPanda123 · 04/11/2025 05:37

Could you keep track of how many grams of protein a day you’re consuming? Aim to get at least 1 gram/day per kilo body weight. Eg if you’re 70kg, aim for 70g protein per day. Keep things in the fridge/pantry that won’t go off, so you won’t be binning food. For example:

  1. Greek yoghurt - maybe have this for breakfast, mixed in with oats, honey and peanut butter
  2. Cottage cheese - have on eg lentil rice cakes
  3. Tinned tuna or tinned mackerel to have on toast or tuna mayo etc
  4. Selection of unsalted nuts
  5. Frozen fruit to put in smoothies

All of the above (apart from fruit) are very high protein, don’t require cooking, won’t go off and will probably give you more energy and headspace.

Condolences on your loss. Grief had me losing weight with loss of appetite but while also only eating rubbish. I think it reduced my immunity for a long time and it’s taken me a few years recover. Focusing on protein helped me and I re-built my strength and interest in food from there.

verycloakanddaggers · 04/11/2025 05:47

It's so hard when grieving. I'm sorry for your loss.

If cooking is not something that you enjoy, then just buy good basics - good bread, good cheese, good fruit - and start there.

Soup is a good option if you can make a batch and freeze in small portions. Then you can defrost when you want one.

Don't make it too hard on yourself, take small steps to increase nutrients. Look to comfort.

soreshoulders · 04/11/2025 06:18

I'm sorry for your loss. I put on a lot of weight after this kind of bereavement. I tried lots of things to shift it and nothing helped until I looked up the Fast800 site. I am now working to get back to where I was before the loss. I am doing the Fast800 but they have other less intense plans. I feel it's helped me to refocus my eating back to a healthy diet. Don't be too hard on yourself though. Grief is tiring, it's what surprised me most about it, and I was ordering take out about twice a week as I just ran out of energy to cook.

pondscaters · 04/11/2025 07:34

Really sorry for your loss. As others have said, don’t be too hard on yourself.
I also would recommend doing something like a soup, or if you can manage, an oven based meal which can be divided into portions and frozen.
Even though it will initially take effort, you can easily get 6/8 portions, so it will be a meal that only needs to be taken from the freezer. If you do one such thing and eat it over 3 weeks say, the initial preparation time is spread out.

Basically I would aim to do a proper cook where you prepare stuff to be frozen once every 3 weeks and try to prepare 3 things that freeze and reheat well. Another is a ragù for bolognaise with pasta.

Then I would alternate these meals with lower prep meals, which take say 20 ish minutes to make, so things like stir fry vegetables and chicken or pasta dishes.
Then 10 minutes meals such as eggs, breads and cheeses and salads from the fridge, Bruschetta with various toppings.

BiddyPopthe2nd · 04/11/2025 09:03

I make a berry smoothie at the start of the week and it stays good to have a nice glass full every morning (I am rushing to work - you can decide how much you want daily). Mixed berries (whatever combination of fresh or frozen strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, redcurrants, blackberries, blackcurrant etc that you have to hand). A quarter cup (decent dollop) of porridge oats. Half a cup (slightly larger decent dollop) of Greek yoghurt. Heaped teaspoon of almond butter. About a tablespoon of mixed seeds. Whizz together with apple juice (I tend to whizz it all first and use the apple juice to clean out the smoothie maker into a bottle for the fridge) - use as much apple juice as you want to make it as liquid as you want to drink - or leave it thick and spoonable if preferred. It’s a great way to get good stuff into you in the mornings easily, and the oats help to give you slow burning energy to get through the morning.

I also make a drink of 3 ice cubes of frozen lemon juice, not quite a full teaspoon of grated ginger, 2 heaped teaspoons of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon, use boiling water to melt the ice and honey, then cool to drinkable with some cold water. I juice a batch of lemons roughly every second weekend and freeze the juice (see mornings rushing - you could just juice one lemon daily) - but it also means it’s easy to prep and easy to make when you might not feel like doing much. I also tend to grate my ginger every Sunday night and use it up over the week.

It’s hard when you’re alone to cook nice things. I do a batch of Mediterranean veggies for roasting, season them up, and use some but bag up most to freeze. Leftovers once cooked also freeze well. Size can vary of the dice, but the size of the veggies in any one batch should be roughly the same so they cook at the same time. Always have onions, garlic (usually whole or half cloves), peppers - then it’s what’s in the fridge and what do I like - mushrooms, cougette, cherry tomatoes (big ones are fine too), sugar snaps/mange tout, french beans, aubergine etc.

chicken joints are lovely roasted and not the hassle of a whole chicken. You could put them on a bed of veggies (see above) or on their own. I love Greek lemon and garlic seasoning (pop in a freezer bag in fridge for an hour or overnight - also freezes well) or put some thyme leaves and a chunk of feta under the skin before cooking. Part boned breasts or bone-in thighs are what I tend to use most. And it doesn’t matter that the packs are made for families as the excess freezes well for another night.

Lamb knuckles roasted low and slow are also lovely and 1 knuckle is plenty for 1 person - but so reminiscing of a full leg of lamb.

I also make batches of good dinners and freeze single portions - I was already freezing in single portions for speed and to easily add another to the pot at home but I am currently solo for work so it makes sense here. Do a spag Bol with loads of veg and a good half bottle of wine for a slow simmer. Or proper curries and stews that need slow cooking for depth of flavour. Most of these work very well frozen and reheated. I find 1 cup is a perfect portion size for me but you could start with 3/4 cup or even 1/2 cup if you don’t want waste - and it’s easy to take a second portion out if you find you are hungry enough. Or serve with lovely crusty bread to mop up extra sauce once your main sauce and carb are finished - buy the part baked rolls in the split packs so you only need to use half at a time, use one for dinner and the second for breakfast next morning, and you have the other half pack for another day. And you can easily turn 1 into garlic or herby or cheesy bread when putting into the oven - garlic and herby butters also freeze well so make it into a log in greaseproof paper and it’s easily sliced even when frozen.

If you want some sweet things, apart from muffins in mugs recipes, a tub of a favourite ice cream and a bag of crumble mix in the freezer are useful to have. Use the crumble over tinned fruit, a single apple peeled and diced, some fresh blackberries you’ve found on brambles outside, a couple of stewed plums or some rhubarb etc. and again, a lot of that fruit can be prepared in larger batches and frozen in single use portions.

Garamousalata · 04/11/2025 10:20

Thank you all so much for your replies. ❤️ I feel quite tearful, as you’ve all taken the trouble to reply and be so kind to me. ❤️

OP posts:
pondscaters · 04/11/2025 11:43

There’s a super healthy, and in my opinion super easy soup I know. Obviously it depends if you can get the ingredients but I ‘ll tell you the recipe.
Cavolo nero -( Tuscan kale/black cabbage)
onion carrots celery
potatoes
tomato paste concentrate
salt pepper
(cannellini beans/ optional)

I won’t give measurements because I’ve found that eyeballing soups is generally fine and it is easier to use what you have available. In general though 1 onion 1large carrot and 1 celery stick finely chopped brown off in a pan will work for lots of soups.

Then pull the dark leaves off from the kale stem by pulling from the chunky part downwards. And chop into quite large pieces.
Add those to the pan, add a kettle full of boiled water, at least a teaspoon of tomato concentrate, salt and pepper.
While that’s boiling away peel and dice some potatoes. At least 2, but whatever you like. Salt and black pepper potatoes and add to pan.
Let it cook. I’d give it an hour on the lowest heat.
You could add rinsed cannellini beans if you wanted toward the end, to fill out the soup and add protein , but it doesn’t particularly need them.

You could probably use a pressure cooker and do it quicker but I have adhd and so can’t use one safely.

mindutopia · 04/11/2025 13:24

Make a pot of something you love that will last you a few meals. Maybe it’s beef stew or chicken soup or dahl or veggie chilli. It’s one effort that pays off for several days.

Then add lots of fruit and veg to the side. Doesn’t have to be a huge change or learning new recipes. Pile of cucumber slices and carrot sticks with your chicken soup. Bowl of roasted veg with your chilli. If you have toast for breakfast, add in a bowl of blueberries and a few almonds.

AtleastitsnotMonday · 04/11/2025 17:28

Roast a big tray of veg - peppers, red onion, courgette, tomato’s with plenty of garlic and seasoning of your choice.

Then use it to form the base of three different meals.
A Spanish omelette.
Stirred through pasta
As a side with a butterflied chicken breast.

You can buy the veg ready chopped if a short cut would help.
Once the veg have been roasted the rest is super quick and easy and will give you tasty, healthy meals.

TheGoldenApplesOfTheSun · 05/11/2025 19:01

So sorry for your loss. Maybe getting in some frozen ingredients would help to kick start you into a little more cooking? They last effectively forever so theres no guilt at throwing away something if you don’t feel up to cooking that week.

Another idea - a friend got me a little rice cooker this year and it has been lovely. You put the rice in, add water and it does it all by itself in about twenty minutes. The magic thing is if you put any kind of uncooked fish (salmon, basa etc) on top it steams perfectly and is really nicely done when the rice is ready. Same with adding any veg. I don’t think it gets hot enough to cook chicken or other kinds of meat in safely though. Maybe cooking in a completely different way might help you ease into cooking something tasty for yourself?

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