Tips cooking weighed food = less time in the kitch

I've been on a diet from DJ the last couple of weeks and I'm starting to feel the strain in the kitchen now. I need to spend less time in there or find better ways of prepping my food for the next day or week in advance.

As you have to weigh each meal, mostly your protein portions before cooking them.

In order to prepare in advance I prepare my next days meals the night before. My solid proteins consist of either steak or topside mince and chicken breasts. If I have 2 steak meals and 2 chicken meals I have 4 different pans on the stove at 1 time for the sake of not getting the weighed portion sizes mixed up.

For the steak I buy lean beef roast which works out cheaper than buying other cuts. I slice and cube the roast into the various weighed out portions in bags and freeze.

Can't I cook up the entire roast and a few chicken breasts in the oven at once and then cut off and portion them into required meals from there? I understand the food needs to be weighed raw for the specific required macros for a particular meal, but isn't there a way to determine protein content in cooked weight? If so this makes life a lot easier.

Give me some of your ideas and cooking methods while dieting to keep your sanity otherwise I'm going to lose mine soon soon.

Of course you can. Just weigh the raw food before cooking it - all that matters is that your macro's at the end of the day are where they should be. If one meal has 20g protein and the other has 30g protein thats still 50g protein at the end of the day so don't worry.

jakes wrote: Of course you can. Just weigh the raw food before cooking it - all that matters is that your macro's at the end of the day are where they should be. If one meal has 20g protein and the other has 30g protein thats still 50g protein at the end of the day so don't worry.

I want to weigh the food out once it's been cooked having to avoid weighing before cooking in seperate portions. IE. cook a 1kg beef roast in the oven and maybe 6-7 chicken breasts for the whole week to pack in plastic containers for each meal during the week. Cuts down cooking time. Then once cooked portion off the equivelents of 100g,150g and 170g raw weight. Trick is how do you know what the equivelents are in cooked weight?

Impossible to know because the loss in moisture can't always be predicted. Haha you are really serious about this bud

jakes wrote: Impossible to know because the loss in moisture can't always be predicted. Haha you are really serious about this bud

Yup buddy! Time is of the essence and bordering on insanity now

I had that figured and just thought there would be some magical equation that 100g raw steak would equal 65g cooked weight etc.

I just want to prep all my meals for the week one shot in the least amount of time in the kitchen and if DJ says 100g of steak and 150g of chicken raw weight I sure as hell think he means it for a reason

Will see what tips some of the other seasoned cutters employ while dieting.

Just invest in a steamer or quality microwave and cook the meat in there (daily) its quick and hassle free. The rice, potato ect you can prepare a week in advance and freeze. The oats is no hassle

You can try this: Weigh the steak before you cook it. Cook the steak and weigh it again. If the steak weighed 100g when raw and 80g after cooked then you know for this particular portion you lost 20% in moisture.

Now say you have to weigh out a 50g portion of this cooked steak then you take 50g x 0.8 = 40g. So for this particular cooked steak a 50g raw portion = 40g cooked

You can't use these percentages as a general rule since the moisture in each steak or chicken breast will differ so you have to weigh out the chicken or mince/steak of each batch you cook.

This is in theory anyway.

Abc01 is right. Say for instance u need 200g chicken per meal, you cook 2Kgs of chicken which is 10 portions right? So cook your 2kgs of chicken fillets, once they have been cooked,weight them,if u get 1.6kgs u still need to get 10 portions so portions will be 160g per portion.

Cool that worked for me. Prepped all my food the Sunday afternoon. Spend a little more time in the kitchen on Sun and just cook up the veggeis as you need during the week

not sure if there is anything wrong with what im doing but here goes.
I don’t weigh my raw meat. I only weigh it cooked to the exact measurements DJ gave me. Am I missing something here?

All the measurements I give are raw weight etwa so u been over eating haha.

got to tell you, with the added cardio im actually loosing weight! so im buring the extra calories off it seems.

i suppose getting in an additional 100 cals wont make too much diffirence if you work it off right.

yup u are right bud

I cook my rice the Sunday and put them into seperate packets and store them in the freezer, according to serving portions. I do the same with my chicken breasts - marinade them the week before and put them into seperate packets, according to serving size.

My fish fillets I prepare the morning. My tuna the night before. With regards to veggies, I use the frozen veggies and just put them in the microwave in the mornings.

Does anyone own a Conventionaire? I'm eager to know whether it makes cooking any easier?

Etwa wrote: not sure if there is anything wrong with what im doing but here goes.
I don’t weigh my raw meat. I only weigh it cooked to the exact measurements DJ gave me. Am I missing something here?

your method does make life a hell of a lot easier, but as DJ said you're consuming more cals than required. I might try this one week though and see how it affects my weight loss.

I used ABC01's method and after cooking my beef roast it lost roughly 38% weight in moisture so a 100g raw weight prtion is now 62g cooked. As he said though cannot always use the percentage as might change everytime depending on cooking and standing time etc.

beemer wrote: I cook my rice the Sunday and put them into seperate packets and store them in the freezer, according to serving portions. I do the same with my chicken breasts - marinade them the week before and put them into seperate packets, according to serving size.

My fish fillets I prepare the morning. My tuna the night before. With regards to veggies, I use the frozen veggies and just put them in the microwave in the mornings.

Does anyone own a Conventionaire? I'm eager to know whether it makes cooking any easier?

question is do you weigh you portions out raw or cooked?

My parents have a conventionaire, and seems to work great. You pop the food in set the timer and leave it to finish.