I’ve been very overweight for a long time. Lately I’ve been trying to eat healthier and lose weight. (among dealing with other nutritional deficiencies.)
One of the big problems I have though is that I have a lot of trouble eating foods with weird textures, smells, tastes, etc. This of course includes a lot of vegetables and some kinds of healthier proteins like fish.
A doctor I was working with recommended talking to a nutritionist who is familiar with these kind of problems. However, I didn’t find them to be that helpful. They didn’t really have a good understanding of what kind of things bothered me and didn’t really seem to want to learn or incorporate that into a plan. I got a lot of “Well can’t you just try to put up with some of these things that bother you?” So eventually I gave up with them. So I’m back to eating either miserably small portions of unhealthy foods (which doesn’t really solve the nutrition problem and makes me hungry) or a handful of rather bland healthier foods that are fine to eat but just make me sad.
Does anyone have experience navigating these kinds of problems? What did you do? Do you have any suggestions? Types of foods, recipes, resources that deal with this, etc?
Find a way to change those foods into something you’re comfortable with.
Textures are extremely easy to deal with. You can make soups, chopped salads, sauces, mashes, you can cook for longer, or even cook so long that it completely breaks down. There’s so much cooking information online about how to change stuff up, that you just need to take some time and look up some recipes.
Flavors are also easy to deal with. Roasting vegetables is a game changer in terms of taste, and you can even use them as ingredients in other recipes or meals.
Meal prep and freeze. It’s a lot easier to make a lot of something and store/freeze it for later.
Though cooking vegetables kills the vitamins inside… not all, but most, yes. It’s not unhealthy to eat (a lot healthier than processed food for sure), but a balance between cooked vegetables and fresh ones is what makes up a healthy diet IMO.
I don’t disagree.
Lots of people here suggesting soups, mashes etc. but another way to go here could be drying with a dehydrator.
You can make healthy chips by slicing up, drying and seasoning vegetables. Carrots, beetroot, most root veg really, green beans etc. Mix some chicken stock powder with salt for chicken flavoured chips. Salt and some balsamic vinegar. Experiment with different spices and seasonings. Onion/garlic powders, paprika.
Same with meat. Maybe try making some type of jerky to help with protein.
Just don’t go overboard with the salt.