Lose Weight, Not Time: Quick Cooking Tips

During the course of your medical weight loss program in Rochester Hills it will become easier to follow a healthier diet. Following our HCG program will reduce your hunger and help you to overcome obstacles that may have prevented weight loss in the past. However, to keep weight off after your program you’ll need to cook your own healthy meals every day, and you may find that this means spending a lot of time in the kitchen.

Unfortunately, many of us do not have much time to spare. Fast food and TV dinners are no longer an option for you, but these products emerged as solutions to a common and frustrating problem: you can’t always spend your entire evening preparing a five-star home-cooked meal.

Still, there are many solutions to this problem that don’t involve getting dinner from a drive-thru window. If you learn a few ways to speed up the cooking process, you can treat yourself to healthy meals without spending all your time in front of the stove.

It will be much easier to eat right and save time if you:

Organize

Spending 10 minutes searching for the right spatula before you even start cooking wastes valuable time. Instead, take a few minutes now to get all your ducks in a row by:

1. Sorting your tools. Similar utensils should be kept together in a place close to where they will be used. Appliances you use frequently can be kept on the countertop for easy access. Tools you use only rarely should be kept somewhere out of the way.
2. Sorting your ingredients. During your HCG program you will need to stock your home with healthy foods, and it will help if you keep your fridge clean and organized. Store fresh ingredients you’ll use frequently front and center in the fridge and pantry. You can keep a running list of currently stocked ingredients on the door of your fridge.
3. Making weekly meal plans. Turn every dinner into a no-brainer by plotting out the week’s meals in advance. Consider what you’ll cook for every meal and head to the store to buy all the ingredients you’ll need at once.

Modernize

In the 21st century, we have technological tools that make every task easier. Sometimes all you need to speed up the cooking process is a new appliance like a:

• Crockpot. This slow-cooking contraption can be left on for hours without supervision, cooking a delicious meal with little input from the chef. If you prepare all your ingredients beforehand and start up your crockpot in the morning, you can have a hot meal waiting when you get home.
• Rice cooker. As the name suggests, these machines are designed to make preparing rice easier, but this isn’t their only useful purpose. Much like a crockpot, you can add the ingredients for a soup or stew to a rice cooker, hit the button and come back later for an easy meal. You can also sauté or boil just about anything in a rice cooker.
• Microwave. Perhaps this one is obvious, but remember: the microwave can be used for much more than just reheating leftovers or nuking a frozen meal. Microwaves are excellent for everything from thawing meat to quickly boiling vegetables.

With the right tools and strategies, your cooking experiences can be truncated significantly, giving you more time to devote to other important things in your life. How else have you helped yourself cook quick meals that would meet your medical weight loss doctor’s approval? Tell us in the comments!