Freezer Cooking for Weight Loss

Dear Reader-

As you may have heard by now, Puddie and I are tackling a Year 2 Change challenge this year and we are determined to Lose the Weight for Goode!

And with that challenge comes the challenge of what to eat… and how to make GOODe choices ahead of time so that we are less tempted to jump off track when in a time crunch or exhausted from a rough day. (Not to mention making them yummy enough to keep us on track too!)

I am a firm believe that if you fail to plan, you just as well plan to fail…

And as it turns out– as I thought about it– Freezer Cooking and Crock Potting can really help me keep us on track.

We usually plan our meals around the meat (protein) we decide to eat… leaning heavily on chicken, pork tenderloin and lean ground beef.

I regularly keep our seasoned ground beef on hand, but starting this week, I am going to do the same with our chicken and pork cuts…

The thinking being that if the major part of dinner is already ready(and prepared in a healthy way), we will likely eat something GOODe for us.

As it is super easy to whip up some sides and make a meal in about 15 minutes or less.

Here is the plan…

Crock Pot to the Rescue

I think I am going to start regularly cooking up a whole chicken in my crock pot every other week for a quick healthy protein (we remove the skin) to pair with meals or toss into soups/casseroles. Using what we need and freezing any leftovers.

On the opposite week, I will cook up a pork tenderloin or loin in my crock pot. Again, using it in dishes and freezing leftovers in recipe or individual portions.

Eventually that will build up enough in the freezer to have chicken or pork at a moments notice, just like we do our ground beef.

One Skillet a Week

While we like shredded chicken and pork, we also like flavorful chicken breast portions to go in our soups, salads, casseroles or just to enjoy on their own.

So, in addition to the whole chicken, we will also prepare chicken breast tenderloins all at once, one time a week– instead of every night…

Reducing clean up to one skillet versus 5-7… which disappoints me oh-so much 😉

BUT it also shaves a good 20-30 minutes off of most recipes.

Weighing out the portions and bagging them up for the fridge and freezer make for super quick chicken dishes.

Sharing Recipes

After I cook things up, I add them to my LoseIt.com Recipes and it figures my recipe’s nutritional content (Psst… have you seen all the cool stuff this awesome free site and app can do?!?) AND then I share them with Puddie’s account so he can log them too.

And, once I have it in my recipes, I never have to recalculate it. It is there waiting on me to log if I ever need it again.