How to eat well when you have no energy to cook

I’m looking for some suggestions on how to maintain a healthy diet when I have no energy or motivation to prepare food and difficulty even deciding what I want to put in my mouth. I think it might be helpful to develop a simple diet plan that I can follow without needing to think about it too much. I would be up for spending some time preparing things ahead when I have moments of feeling more energetic, but worry a little about the increased level of histamines in leftovers. I am currently on an herbal protocol for Lyme and Bart, but have discussed potentially trying a high-dose dapsone protocol in the fall and needing to clean up candida in particular prior to starting back on antibiotics. Does anyone have suggestions for the lazy person’s guide to a healthy diet? (I have been gluten-free for many years, tried dairy-free for significant stretches off and on over the years but never noticed any difference in how I feel, and unfortunately, can’t stand the taste of seafood except seaweed.)
Thanks for your thoughts and advice!!

I went paleo for health and simplicity, (was 100% for a while). I was an still am 100% G/F too.

Grilling meat outside, or inside on a compact George Foreman electric "clam" type kitchen counter top grill is easy.

And Paleo veggies? ....again, its very easy prep. Ether raw or simple heating up.,,or grilling and I replaced white potatoes with sweet potatoes.

Brown and or wild rice mix- the microwave minute rice cups are obviously easy to prep.

I ate that simple for about two years straight. It was easy and felt good in my gut (my gut was toast prior to that, no pun intended).

The above I don't really consider actually "cooking", its just simple varying degrees of heating unmodified natural whole food. No sauces. Only basic seasonings with no added chemicals.

Now I get a little more fancier if I feel like it, getting creative which is real "cooking". - But still using paleo ingredients. Longer time frame, tastes better.

(I dont eat the variations of North Central USA "hot dish" or the weird Norwegian foods which are common in the north land...LOL!!! Its all fattening gluten slurry of some type or shape. Not good and too long to make anyway. Thats mostly how the old people ate up here prob untill the 1990's).

I'm also dealing with extreme fatigue and struggling to accomplish tasks like grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning (and washing clothes, taking out the trash, vacuuming, job searching, and on and on).

If you don't have them, I suggest buying an air fryer and a pressure cooker. Those two items cook about 85% or more of the food I cook at home. I have a microwave for heating/reheating some things, too.

There are lots of pressure cooker and air fryer recipes available online for free.

With the pressure cooker, you can dump in a bunch of ingredients, turn it on, and come back in a while to a full meal waiting for you. I cook frozen broccoli for one minute and it's done. Potatoes only need maybe 10-15 minutes. I cook soft-"boiled" eggs in just five minutes. The beef vegetable stew I make takes 20 minutes under pressure. You can cook a whole chicken in about 45-60 minutes. White rice in five minutes and short-grain brown rice in about 20 minutes. I use a lot of frozen vegetables -- they're cheap, can be stored for a long time, they're easy to find, and (the ones I buy) have no added ingredients. I also buy some canned vegetables (e.g. green beans, corn, sweet peas) packed in water with no added sodium or other ingredients.

In the air fryer, I cook chicken breasts and chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on for both) in 30 minutes. Previously, I've made my own air-fried French fries, steak, hamburgers, roasted vegetables, and many more. I also use it to reheat certain foods.

Recently, I was at Target and they had the Instant Vortex 6-Quart Air Fryer on sale for $79.99. That's the one I own. The Instant Pot 6-Quart Duo Pressure Cooker is currently $99.99. I have this one, too. There are 8-quart versions of each, as well as other models and manufacturers. I'm not sure if those are in your budget or not, but I at least wanted to mention them. I'm unemployed and sensitive about the price of everything.

As for what to eat, I think Michael Pollan gave some good advice: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." That means, eat food as grown, not more than needed to fulfill your calorie needs, and incorporate lots of fruits and vegetables. And, of course, avoid anything to which you're allergic. You have to figure out what foods meet those criteria and work for your particular biology, but I would suggest you not avoid or over-emphasize any one food or group of foods. In other words, think about whole foods and not the individual constituents of those foods.

Microwave:
- Nordic Ware has a microwave egg poacher tray, an omelette tray, and a bacon tray. You can cook eggs and bacon in the microwave with minimal effort. You can cook more bacon than you will eat and save the remainder in a ziplock bag.

- Can cook some raw veggies in a vented dish with water. There are also some frozen bags of vegetables that are microwave in the bag (kind of expensive though).

Instant Pot or Slow Cooker:
- These can do all the cooking for you so you don’t have to stand over a stove. Can cook almost anything in an instant pot. Could even cook boiled eggs. Can refrigerate boiled eggs and eat them later.

If you can’t manage any of that, eat raw veggies. Buy organic salad greens in a box. At a minimum you can grab a handful of salad greens and eat them. Raw baby carrots. Cucumbers. Banana peppers or bell peppers. Tomatoes. Get a colander to put veggies in the sink and rinse them off.

Microwave dinners. There are some healthier options.

Canned soup can be heated in the microwave. There are good brands - Amy’s, Pacifica.

Yep, think of it as an opportunity to eat simple and healthy.

An example from the other night at the last minute, kind of late around 9:30;

my sweet potato took six minutes in my medium size microwave, in a microwave, safe bowl with holes poked in the potato and a paper towel on top. And I was heating up some green beans at the same time in there.

At the same time- outside I was grilling half a medium chicken breast on my portable outside table top gas, camping grill, which took about 10 minutes from start to finish.

I was done eating and everything was cleaned up about 40 minutes after starting.

Yeah I eat dinner late lol otherwise I wake up hungry at night. You’re not supposed to do that but that’s what works for me.

———————-
I’m not 100% Paleo anymore. At least I look for Paleo ingredients. So when I’m am really in a bind and have no energy but want something warm ,!like walking by faith mentioned :Amy’s microwavable foods are healthier and also come in gluten-free. Unfortunately, that company really went up in price with inflation the most affordable place to get Amy’s is Walmart.

If I want a simple small meal and I’m not very hungry, I will have some cold cereal-“arrowhead” brand puffed rice, 100% natural , no sugar with almond milk.

Post Edited (astroman) : 6/17/2023 7:40:27 AM (GMT-8)

Also, here's the air fryer that I mentioned that's currently on sale at Target:

https://www.target.com/p/instant-vortex-6-qt-4-in-1-air-fryer/-/a-54643374#lnk=sametab

The regular price is $119.99, but I've seen it on sale for $99.99. Currently, it's on sale for $79.99.

You don't have to buy this brand (or, any brand), but if you're open to trying one, this is a good price and I've found this appliance to be of good quality. It's the same one I've owned for about two years.

More important, you can try it risk free for a couple of weeks. I think Target actually gives you 30 days to return it for a full refund, but I would confirm that with the store before purchasing and be sure to save the receipt.

Yes, I am excited to be growing some veggies! We recently moved into a home that already has some raised beds with good soil and plenty of sun and it has been pretty easy to put in some plants. It is on my agenda for today to get a few more. There is something extra comforting about eating the food you have grown.

Vimzor said...

Any tips besides just eating a lot more?

fats - are the most energy dense form of food

healthy sources of good fats are whole foods - like egg's, fatty cuts of meat ( ideally grass fed ruminants - like beef and lamb), hard cheeses, avocado, nuts ( i also have to limit nuts due to gut issues - walnuts seem to be about the best tolerated for me)

you can supplement this with extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil as needed to bump up calorific intake - coconut oil has lots of monounsaturated medium chain triglycerides which do not need digestion and can be absorbed easily.

avoid bad fats - including
-trans fats ( in margarines / spreads, baked goods, processed food etc) - they are inflammatory and bad for you
-industrial seed oils - "vegetable oil", corn oil, groundnut oil, sunflower oil, rapeseed oil etc etc - all damaged fats
-fried foods (typically these use cheap industrial seed oils that are damaged & harm the body) unless you fried them yourself in healthy high smoke point fats

regarding fat in the diet and health concerns
we have been bombarded for years with what basically amounts to propaganda, stating that saturated fat in the diet causes heart disease - this was based on one guy, named Ancel Keys, in the USA in the 50's and 60 who was out to make a name for himself and it is now generally accepted that he fudged the population based study data he authored to remove cases that did not fit his theory and demonstrate causation where it did not exist.
The USA government, that was at this point facing an epidemic of heart disease, bought into his theories - and we have had 60 years of low fat labelling on our cereal boxes all over the developed world ever since - meanwhile despite low fat products, fat replacements, low fat messaging, better food labelling, and reductions in smoking etc CVD continues to rise along with obesity and metabolic syndrome.

it was a nonsense - plenty of civilisations ate high fat diets for Millenia and had low heart disease

eg
-the Inuit people (indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, and Alaska etc) literally ladle seal blubber on every meal and yet have almost zero heart disease ( until of course they convert to a western diet)

-France eats higher amounts of saturated fat per capita than most other developed countries and yet has lower rates of cardiovascular disease.

-and in Africa all of the Maasai's needs for food are met by their cattle. They eat their meat, drink their milk daily, and drink their blood on occasion. they also have extremely low rates of cardiovascular disease.

we are told so much absolute rubbish about what to eat by so called experts - much of which often doesn't stack up against what we can see for ourselves in the world around us. yet if they repeat it often enough it becomes an unquestioned part of our culture. it is truly perverse.