How To Track Calories And Lose Weight When Your Parents Cook The Food
So you want to diet but you find it almost impossible to do so with the food cooked at home?
Over the past few months, quite a few people have been telling me that they find it very difficult to create a calorie deficit when they are living with their parents or that their parents aren’t allowing them to diet.
To my surprise, this problem was a lot more common than I thought it to be.
It just gets amplified by the fact that cultural and societal differences lead to different types of food being prepared in every house.
If you have been feeling that you will never be able to make progress because your parents don’t let you hop on a ‘strict diet’ and make you eat home-cooked meals, I hope this article can help you change that.
Let’s get started!
Why Your Parents Don’t Let You Diet?
Before you go ahead, you have to first understand the ’why’ behind why your parents don’t let you diet.
This is what I’ve come to realize after seeing several people face this problem;
Your parents aren’t stopping you from getting healthy, they’re stopping you from starving.
Very rarely does someone mean that their parents aren’t letting them create a caloric deficit when they say that their parents aren’t letting them diet.
In most cases, parents don’t want you to do something stupid, like jump on a 500 calorie starvation diet which will leave you deficient, in the best case.
I’m not your parent and even I wouldn’t advise you to do that, so it is pretty understandable for someone who cares about you to stop you from making bad decisions.
As I said, if you just put it in another way and work on building better habits and getting healthier, your parents wouldn’t have as much of a problem.
Once you start getting results with healthy habits in place, your parents will understand your goals and you will have a lot more leeway with your diet.
What’s not going to work is just trying to starve yourself or hopping from one fad diet to another.
Not only will this do more harm than good, but it’ll make it seem like you have absolutely no idea of what you’re doing.
The key takeaway here is that in most cases, your parents don’t mind you getting healthier and changing your body composition.
They just don’t want you to starve yourself, get deficiencies and develop eating disorders.
The Truth About Food Cooked At Home
Here’s the second problem.
Your parents want you to eat food they cook at home but you think that it doesn’t align with your goals of getting lean.
Thing is, the same people who feel this way are the same people who’ll be out eating hamburgers over the weekend.
Nothing wrong with eating hamburgers, but if you think home-cooked food is the reason why you aren’t able to lose weight, you’re being delusional.
The reason you haven’t been able to lose weight is because you aren’t creating a calorie deficit.
If you don’t know how many calories and how much protein, carbs and fats you need to be eating to lose weight, click here.
There’s nothing better than eating meals cooked at home because more often than not, they’re going to be a lot more macro-friendly compared to the food you get outside.
Now I’m not telling you that you have to eat an entire plate of every single thing that is cooked at home, but I’m almost sure that it is possible to eat food cooked at home by your parents and still create a caloric deficit to lose weight.
I’ll give you some simple examples with the Standard Indian Diet in the next section.
Can You Get Lean Eating Indian Food?
Yes, you can.
I repeat, you need a calorie deficit in place to get lean.
It doesn’t matter if you eat Indian food or Chinese food, as long as you’re creating a caloric deficit, you will lose weight.
If you feel you can’t do the same while eating food cooked by your parents, you’re wrong.
Here are some examples of what Indian meals could look like;
Example 1:
2 Rotis/Chapatis - 160 kcal
1 Cup Curry - 300 kcal
Example 2:
0.5 Cup Rice - 100 kcal
1 Cup Dal - 200 kcal
Example 3:
4 Idlis - 200 kcal
1 Cup Sambar - 300 kcal
Now obviously, these numbers are NOT accurate.
The size and quantity of the food will change the numbers.
The number and type of ingredients used will change these numbers.
These are just averages.
The point is, even on average, you can easily eat home-cooked meals which come in under 500 calories.
While these meals won’t have the best macros, you can still eat such meals for lunch and dinner and have calories left to help you hit your macros.
I can almost guarantee you that if you eat like this and don’t make a big deal about your ‘diet’, your parents will have no problem with you changing your body composition.
That said, you can’t just magically expect yourself to end up in a calorie deficit eating at home.
This finally leads us to the question that how can we track calories to ensure that we lose weight when our parents cook the food.
How To Make It Work?
1. Track Calories
If you want to lose weight eating food cooked at home, the best way you can do so is by tracking your calories.
If you haven’t done it before, here is an article that’ll teach you how you can use an app like MyFitnessPal to log your food.
You don’t need to create a fixed meal plan since what your parents cook will vary on a day to day basis.
Just log what you eat so you know how much you’re eating.
I know what you’re thinking!
How can you be accurate with the number of calories you’re consuming?
Well, you can’t.
Unless you log the ingredients before you cook them, it can be very difficult to be accurate with your numbers.
That being said, even if you are incorrect, being consistently incorrect can help you make decisions that’ll help you reach your goal.
You don’t need to be perfect to get great results.
In short, the way you will track calories when your parents (or anyone else for that matter) have cooked food is the same way you would track calories when you cook the food.
The only difference will be the fact that your accuracy will be lower when you are not in control of the food being cooked, but being consistent with the approach you choose and doing the best you can do can be powerful enough to make up for the difference.
2. Use The Food Scale
Get a food scale if you want to get the best results.
Weighing your food is the best way to increase your accuracy with your calorie intake.
This might sound weird, but it’s extremely simple.
Getting a scale is even more important when you are eating meals in which you aren’t sure about the accuracy of the calories.
For example, if you are dinner cooked by your parents, it is even more important to be precise with your other meals throughout the day.
Not only will this allow you to limit the damage done, but it’ll also help you make sure you’re getting in enough protein, which is key if you want to improve your body composition.
3. Portion Control
If you aren’t using a scale, setting portion control limits is the next best step you can take.
Almost anyone can set limits like a handful of rice or a fixed number of chapatis/rotis.
What matters is the consistency.
Because once weight loss stalls, you will be able to adjust your calorie intake very easily by just reducing portion sizes by a bit instead of being that person who starts starving themselves once the weighing scale stops moving.
Again, the point here is that you have to do your best if you want to make it work.
Making The Right Choices
1. Create A Fixed Meal Structure
While you don’t need to create a meal plan, having a fixed meal structure is crucial.
In simple words, stick to a routine.
You’re going to have a hard time if you are eating 2 meals on one day and 5 meals on the other.
While it would make absolutely no difference for fat loss, when you are already unsure about the number of calories you’re eating, it isn’t going to work out in your favor.
For example, if you are eating dinner cooked by your parents every day and you know that the food is generally higher in carbs and fats, a good way to set up your meal structure would be to keep more protein and fruits and veggies earlier in the day.
Example:
Breakfast - Tofu Scramble with Spinach and Mushrooms
Lunch - Beans Salad
Workout
Post Workout - Protein Shake + Fruit
Dinner - Salad + Food Cooked By Parents
If you feel hungrier at night, using a protocol like Intermittent Fasting could be beneficial.
Example (with Intermittent Fasting):
Breakfast - Coffee
Lunch - Tofu Scramble with Spinach and Mushrooms
Workout
Post Workout - Protein Shake + Fruit
Dinner - Food Cooked By Parents
Dessert - Greek Yogurt + Berries
Also, in these examples, I’ve placed a salad before the main meal.
This can fill you up and reduce your tendency to overeat.
You can try using similar tactics that allow you to feel more satiated with lesser calories.
NOTE:
These are just examples. You can adapt a similar meal structure if you want to but you will have to track calories and macros to find foods that keep you satiated while helping you hit your macro and micronutrient needs!
2. No Snacking
This point is somewhat related to adhering to your meal structure.
Basically, I don’t want you to end up in the kitchen grabbing a handful of food every time you are hungry.
You will feel hungry will dieting because that’s just how the body responds.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t have snacks in your meal structure.
It just means that it’s better you don’t have unplanned snacks since you will already be having calorically dense meals.
3. Ditch The Sides And Condiments
Just because you have to eat what your parents cook doesn’t mean you have to eat the sides and condiments.
Just because you are eating rice doesn’t mean you need to eat the pickle.
Just because you’re eating a paratha doesn’t mean you need to top it with spoons of butter and ghee.
These small things add up and can save you enough calories to create a calorie deficit and lose weight.
The Real Tip
1. Help Your Parents Cook
This is the single most important thing you can do if you want to track calories and lose weight when your parents cook the food.
Helping your parents cook had so many benefits;
Firstly, it’ll teach you to cook your own meals for when the time comes.
Secondly, it’ll help you understand how much of what actually goes into the dishes you eat.
Thirdly, cooking with your parents will allow you to help them make better decisions over time which can help improve the health of the entire family.
For example, if you ask your parents to swap out 4 spoons of oil for just 1 and the dish comes out tasting the same, there’s a pretty high chance that they’ll agree to use lesser oil going forward, especially if you explain how many calories you’re saving!
Not only will this be beneficial for the overall health of everyone in your family, but it’ll also drop the calories of the food you’re eating, which will help you reach your goals.
2. Weight Out The Ingredients
Over time, you can weigh out ingredients using a food scale for your parents before they cook them.
For example, if you know your mother will be cooking rice for 4 people, you can weigh out 200 grams of rice in advance.
Once the food is cooked, you can distribute the rice evenly and you’ll have 4 equal portions of rice (50 grams uncooked).
Again, this is just an example and you can adjust the serving size and quantity according to your needs.
The point is that doing this will help you be accurate with your calories when you log them.
Out of everything in this article, if you could only do one thing and you wish to be as accurate as possible, it would be this!
The Other Half Of The Puzzle
While you can never out-train a bad diet, having a good exercise regimen is important if you want to improve your body composition.
This article isn’t about training but I’ll highlight the key points just to give you a better idea of what you need to do going forward.
Here are the two things you need to do, in order of priority;
1. Get serious with resistance training
The primary goal here is to get stronger and not to burn calories.
You don’t have to live in the gym 6 days a week.
As long as you apply progressive overload, you’ll get results.
If you can’t go to the gym, you can do bodyweight training at home.
2. Get in some cardio
The primary goal here is to burn more calories.
This can be even more helpful in case you over-consume calories in the food cooked by your parents unknowingly.
That said, you don’t have to turn into a cardio bunny.
Click here to learn about how much and what type of cardio is best for weight loss.
Conclusion
You can always get results, even if you have to eat food you aren’t cooking yourself.
As long as you apply the simple principles of energy in versus energy out and progressive overload, you can make a great transformation over time.
While being accurate will be difficult, using a food scale and tracking calories is the best you can do to make the process as effective as possible.
After all, getting ripped is all about these 3 simple steps.
Be consistent and you’ve got it all sorted.
I’d love to hear how you deal with similar situations so feel free to drop a comment.
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