After a year on the LeanChefs plan, I’ve decided it is time for me to take the training wheels off my diet and start managing my own food again. So, beginning last week, I ended the plan. LeanChefs did a fantastic job for me: in a year I lost 56 pounds. Beyond just the simple fact of losing the weight, I’ve also gained valuable reference points on portions and types of food I really need to be eating to continue losing and to remain healthy. I got some great ideas for meals that I might not have thought of otherwise–one of my favorite breakfasts now is ricotta cheese mixed with granola.
However, I’ve been away from preparing my own food for a year, so my cooking skills have become pretty rusty. I’m also now a bit spoiled by the variety of meals LeanChefs provided, so returning to the limited range of meals I knew how to do seemed, well, limiting. So, I’ve decided to try Blue Apron.
Some of you may have heard of them, or companies like them. What they do is send a weekly box of ingredients, with detailed instructions, for three 2-person meals. Everything you need is included, with the exception of a few basics like cooking oil, salt and pepper. The recipes are all easy to follow and do not require more than basic kitchen equipment (they will even sell you those if you don’t already have them–at modestly marked-up prices, of course!). Monday night, for example, Andrew and I had a very delicious Taiwanese Three Cups Chicken (click the link for the recipe on Blue Apron’s web site), which you see pictured nearby.
The portions on the Blue Apron meals are also appropriate for me. In the past I might have felt they were a bit on the chintzy side, but now I know the portions are correct. My challenge, then, is to plan and manage portion sizes on the other meals of the week, which inevitably will include at least one order-in or eating-out meal. My usual repertoire of meals were grossly over-portioned, so I have to figure out ways of either cooking less or creatively using left-overs for next-day lunches and so forth.
And, of course, there is the elephant in the room: exercise, or more precisely my lack of it. That’s the next step for me, and ultimately the only real path to losing the 2nd half of my 100 lbs goal. Stay tuned.
