Healthy Recipe Sources

My girlfriend and I would like to start eating better without killing the taste of food or resorting to pre-processed/pre-packaged meals. I am a picky eater and don't eat many fruits or vegetables(working on it) and neither of us like seafood. I have family history of high cholesterol (on meds), and work out at least 3 times a week (once a week w/ a trainer) to stay in shape for racing. But my weight has been stagnant for the last 2 years.

Diet is the place that needs modification.

Where are some good go-to places for easy, healthy recipes? Do you guys have any to share?

Also, what are some tricks to getting on a plan and sticking with it? Thanks!

I've got nothing. All of McDonald's recipes are trade secrets!

j/k

Right now I am eating leftover stir fry from last night, so I will share.
I recently have discovered Aldi and though thier produce sucks there are a couple of things that are good. Most recently it was a selection of frozen vegies for stir-fry. A 2lb bag of broccoli, baby corn, mushrooms, water chestnuts, snow peas, etc. I added my own diced, fresh boneless chicken breast and onions. The vegie pack comes with a packet of sauce. I added some more stir fry sauce from a bottle that I had but be careful, that stuff is really salty. The Aldi vegie pack was about $3 or maybe $3.99

Serve over brown rice done from a boil bag and the whole thing was easy while not being expensive. Aside from the sauce, nothing was processed. Provided an ample dinner for my wife and I as well as two ample lunches.

I try to keep things like this on the regular rotation.

There are a million healthy recipe cookbooks out there. Go to a big bookstore or even Amazon.com. Also, magazines like Cooking Light are great.

You don't necessarily HAVE to eat a huge quantity of fruits and veggies to have a healthy diet. Yes, they're very good for you and you need to eat some, but you don't have to live on them. I eat them, but in limited amounts and my diet is very healthy. Stir fry is a great recipe by the way.

Best tip. Make sure you get your daily portions of protein, healthy carbs and healthy fats in. Lean cuts of chicken or meat, eggs, whole grain/wheat, sweet potato, nuts, cottage cheese, yogurt, oats are just some examples.

There's no magic to sticking to a plan. You just have to have the will power and resolve to do it. Plain and simple. The only "tip" I can offer is to allow yourself a cheat meal once per week. If you eat a proper and clean diet every meal, every day, give yourself a treat weekly. For my wife and I, it's Friday night dinner. We'll get a pizza and fries, or a chicken sandwich from the pizza joint. Having that once per week meal to look forward to helps make it easier to eat really healthy the rest of the week.

Everything you need is online and free. To start, allrecipes.com is excellent--the reviews are especially helpful, and there's a vast number and range of recipes on file. You can find Cooking Light's recipes online (and those from many other good publications) at myrecipes.com. I'm also a big fan of Eating Well magazine, and their site eatingwell.com has recipes.

If you have any skills (or want to build them) try epicurious.com or finecooking.com for some higher-level recipes, though these are by no means all health foods. However, great thing about learning to cook for yourself is that you control your nutrition, so you can splurge on a special meal and then just compensate with your other meals. And it's so much nicer when you get your calories because you were enjoying a nice steak or a tasty, butter-filled dessert, not because they were snuck into a processed food that you thought was healthy and didn't even enjoy all that much.

Oh, and as for plans, Weight Watchers is excellent. They have an online-only membership that I find very handy, and as a plus I have only myself to answer to. Well, that and my jeans.

Margie

+1 on just cooking your own stuff. Then you know exactly what is in it and how much.

My three favorite ingredients for tasty healthy cooking: olive oil, garlic, and wine.

Healthy, tasty ingredients I use for cooking: Garlic, olive oil (in moderation), tomato, avacado, nuts, basil, oregano, parsley, cilantro, onion, peppers, pepper, Kosher or Sea salt in moderation, vinegar based dressings.

CSA's.

First- fresh food is awesome.

Second, doing something with that is even more awesome.

Third- doing something seems to lower your appitite. At least it does for us. i need to get us making our own food again, too.

in our area, there are csa's for meat, veggies, and fruit.

The internet is cool, but I LIKE cookbooks. And this one's a beauty.