Lately, I've been getting a bit concerned about the fact that I have kind of let myself go over the past 2 years. I'm sure there are a lot of people around the world that feel this way after lockdowns and what not but in my situation I can't blame my weight gain on Covid. Sure, that might have been a part of it because we were instructed to stay at home and even weren't allowed to leave our neighborhoods and later, even our apartment building for weeks at a time. However, I think during those times my lifestyle was less destructive than it normally would have been because all of the pubs were closed for a long time. This is where most of my ill-gotten gains came from and my building has a gym in it that remained open. Therefore I can't use Covid as an excuse for why I have gained quite a bit of weight over the past 2 years.
My weight gain came from eating just "whatever" and also drinking quite heavily on an almost daily basis.
I have cut back on my drinking, exercising, and even watching what I eat in an effort to "nip this in the bud" before it becomes an out of control problem that makes me unhappy whenever I look in the mirror.
It started with an advert that I saw online somewhere or was recommended by another person. The place is called Fuel Meals and it is owned by a guy who is a trainer - or so he says; he certainly looks the part.
They had a bunch of options and all of them are broken down into how many calories, carbohydrates, protein, and fat are contained in each container. All of the portions are weighed so while I am sure it is just an estimate of the actual amount of calories, it is a lot closer than you are going to get from anywhere else.
There are a lot of options and you have to plan ahead in order to take advantage of this because this is a business run by just a couple of people. It isn't KFC so you can't just put in an order for 10 things and expect them to be at your house in an hour. I contact him in the morning and he delivers them to me at 5pm on the same day. I normally order between 8 and 10 of them and you can tell when they arrive that these were prepared to order.
The idea is that YOU freeze them and reheat them later but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they were not ALREADY frozen. When they arrived at my door they were already warm and ready to eat. It was up to me which ones I was going to stick in the freezer.
Like I think most people, the food that I tend to keep in my house is stuff that can be prepared quickly and what this means is that most of my "food" in my house tends to be stuff that you probably shouldn't ever eat like potato chips, instant noodles, cereals, and other stuff filled with preservatives, salt, and mystery ingredients that we don't even know what they are.
Things have changed now. Now I am able to plan my meals like a real human and get some actual nutrition into my belly.
80,000 VND is just over $3 per meal. This might come as a surprise to those of you that don't live in SE Asia, but this is actually quite expensive for a single meal. It is extremely easy to get a meal for less than half that at a street stall or even some of the quick restaurants that are all over the place. For me though, the quality of this food is a lot more consistent and the fact that the guy who runs the place is a fitness instructor and is in extremely good shape, says a lot for the company and how they operate.
My last order consisted of chicken with cashew nuts, chicken korma (not really even sure what that is), chicken fajita, and a chicken and shrimp stir fry with noodles. All of these are nicely balanced meals with a bunch of vegetables and are around 500 calories with high protein levels. The only thing I could say as negative criticism is that the portions are a bit small by my standards but then again, that probably says more about me than it does about Fuel Meals. I am American afterall and we kind of have a reputation as a nation for consuming waaaaay too much in one sitting. I'll have to retrain myself to drink more water and consume less food.
I'm hoping that all of this can result in me getting back into better shape. It better work because I have dramatically altered my life in order to try to make this happen. While it might be normal for most of you, in the past 5 days I have only had 1 alcoholic beverage and all of my meals were planned, not just ordered at the last minute from a fast-food joint which is what I have been doing for the past several years.
Nadi will probably be excited about this if I magically started having more energy because that means we are going to go on more walks, which is her favorite thing anyway.
You should know by now that I am not going to make a post without including an image of Nadi. There she is on her "door sittin' chair" waiting for me to get the leash out so she can go and do one of her favorite things.
I think that meal prep, if you can afford it, is probably a good thing because it is so difficult to find the time to do these things on your own. For me, if I was going to attempt to make these things on my own they probably wouldn't be very good because I am not a good cook. Also, the last time I tried to replicate a steak dinner that is made by a local restaurant, it cost me nearly as much as it would have cost me to just have ordered the take-out.
If you are in Da Nang and want access to this wonderful fitness meal prep company, you can find their website and ordering form right here!.