Cooking at home can help you in your weight loss journey.  Restaurant meals are a treat.  They eliminate cooking, clean up, food shopping and preparation.  However, many restaurant meals are not prepared in healthy ways, they can contain preservatives that aren’t good for you and the portion sizes are generally way too big.  All this results in unhealthy meals with way too many calories.

Restaurant meals will not help you lose weight.

If getting good nutrition and losing weight is your goal; you first need to get your kitchen in order.  An organized workspace can help you get to a healthy weight.

Organize Kitchen Chaos:

To help you make food and stay on your healthy weight plan you need to think of your kitchen like your gym.  It needs to be efficient and have all the tools you need.  You can’t expect to want to cook if there are piles of bills on the counter or your pots and pans aren’t clean.

Clear out of your kitchen all the clutter that has nothing to do with food.  This will help free up space to have the organized environment you need to prepare meals daily.  That means homework can’t pile up on the kitchen table, your sink can’t be full of dirty dishes and batteries and mail need to find a new home.

Start your weight loss off right with an unhealthy food clean out.  Get in that fridge and dump all old leftovers, soda, ice cream and cinnamon roll cans.  Wipe everything down.  This is also a good time to check the expiration dates on condiments.  Now that your fridge and freezer are clean you can fill them back up with healthy eating options.  Fresh fruits and vegetables should take center stage.

Now it is time for the pantry.  If it isn’t healthy let it go.  Cookies and chips aren’t going to cut it.  Fill your pantry with healthy nuts, lower calorie pretzels (slightly better than chips), oatmeal and tuna.  Think low calorie as close to nature as possible.  This is what you want in your cupboard.  You will also want to put any ingredients in your pantry for your easy healthy meals.

Eliminate Excuses:

Not a good cook.

I don’t think anyone was born knowing how to cook.  It is like any skill that you need to learn, start off simple and work you way up to complicated.  Some very healthy recipes are with just a few fresh ingredients made simply.  Go online and look for recipes that have 5 ingredients or less.

You can also pick up kits in the grocery that have everything you need assembled all you need to do is prepare when you are hungry.  Pay attention to the calories in these and watch for any unhealthy ingredients.  The good thing with these kits is their put together in portion sizes.  This takes the guess work out of how much you should eat.  Portion control is a big part of weight loss.

No time to shop.

Getting groceries has never been easier.  Since COVID, the options to shop online and pickup groceries is available in almost every town.  There are even options like Amazon Fresh that will delivery groceries right to your door.  The fees for these services is very affordable and sometimes won’t cost anything.  Many local grocery stores will do that too.  Because of this you cannot use the excuse that there is no time to shop for food.  Prepare your grocery list according to some healthy recipes and pick up your groceries on your way home from work.

No time to cook.

You can prepare a meal faster than it will take you to drive to a restaurant, order and then receive your food.  Even fast food isn’t always fast when add the commute time into it.  If you have a well stocked kitchen you can get a dinner on the table in 30 minutes with many recipes.

Do not let your kitchen sabotage you weight loss goals.  One of the best ways to control calories is to prepare and consume meals you make at home.