How I Make Healthy Meals That Don't Suck

Does this look like a healthy meal to you? What about this one? Well, what if I told you these are basically the same meal but approached from two very different perspectives. So let me show you how I make healthy meals that don't suck. Before we start I want to issue a trigger warning because I will talk about my personal experiences with diet culture and I'm gonna touch on things like eating disorders, negative self-image. So if any of that makes you uncomfortable, maybe it's best to just watch another video. Let's get into it. Eating healthy is confusing. The whole fitness industry is confusing. At least to me it feels like everyone has different opinions. Everyone is trying to sell you a product, a magical powder that's gonna fix all your issues. Yeah. And especially with the new year resolutions thing, you notice this wave of people desperately looking for solutions. And this industry loves selling you the idea of who you can be because who you are now is fundamentally not enough apparently. For a long time I used to be and partially still am immersed in that culture to be honest. I was obsessive about perfecting every single aspect of my diet specifically to lose weight and that resulted in some success. But it was always immediately followed by a big fallback. I didn't understand it at the time but I was developing the most fucked up relationship with food and my body. These past years I've been trying to deconstruct that but it's been hard and right now at this point in time I'm the heaviest I've ever been. Even heavier than your mom. So much so that my first thought when I look at myself in the mirror is filled with negativity. That just ends up feeding my insecurity even more. And I don't want to make this video and pretend like I have any answers because I don't. But as cringy and cliche as it sounds, what works for me is to be kind. Kind towards myself and kind towards other people who are going through this. And part of being kind to myself is to not overly restrict myself and only eat these like bodybuilder meals. Jesus. Guys I'm so excited to eat this bland boiled chicken with boiled mushy broccoli and plain rice. I love my life. And call me a bad naughty boy but I want to have some fun and add some zero calorie barbeque sauce. I'm so bad. This looks like poop poop chicken. This is boiled chicken. What does this create for me? It's health. Healthy. If this is what health is I want to die. Just got a little candle going. Romantic vibes. A little self love in here. Just got a half an avocado on top of this guy. Yeah. Hot sauce. Some flaky salt. So check it out. This is a thing I've been doing. You fill a glass with frozen mango and you top it with Coke Zero. First you need to try this and then leave your little comment about how this is not good. You may think this is weird but in my world I end up with mango flavored Coke and at the end I get to eat mango that's been infused with Coke Zero which is good. It's just a little dessert. So because I'm not looking to make 100% of my abdominal veins visibly pop out I'm merely trying to develop a better relationship with the food that I eat and the body that I inhabit. I think the best approach is to make my meals enjoyable and beautiful filled with layers of taste and texture and a celebration of nutritious food and a celebration of my own culinary identity and that sounded very dramatic. Let's get into it. I kind of hate when food influencers give out overly specific formulas for food because it kind of takes the enjoyment away but I guess I'm about to do that so. Well not a formula but a strategy. So first I like to think of the format of food that I want to eat and almost nothing is off the table. Do I want pasta, a stew, a rice bowl, tacos, a wrap, a sandwich, a burger and notice I'm not saying salad because I don't really like salads unless it's a pasta salad then I ******* love it. For me psychologically that makes the biggest difference like if I'm eating things like pizza or pasta I'm gonna be happy no matter what you know what I mean. Let's say I want to eat pasta because pasta makes everyone happy sure makes me happy and now you do have to make some decisions but I have a pretty easy system. First I like to pick a protein which is always kind of the main attraction because especially if you work out protein is gonna be your friend. In this case I went with ground chicken and please don't shy away from flavor. You can and should spice up the protein itself but you can add in other flavorful things such as garlic, some chilies in there too, I'm also gonna add some lemon later. The second step is to add vegetables. Now I'm not a nutritionist but I think vegetables are good for you. Call me crazy I know it's not very primal of me but I love vegetables they're very nutritious full of fiber and vitamins and cooking them actually makes these nutrients more bioavailable to the human body. Bioavailable. Damn. I'm not the guy to say that word. So I don't know if you realize but we already have a delicious meal here that is very nutritious. It's lacking some carbs at this point so this is where our beloved pasta comes in. By the way I stole this idea from this video by Ethan Schlabowski. He cooks this pasta kind of like a risotto where he lets this starchy pasta cooking water cook down to like a sauce that's almost gonna emulsify everything together. And look we have a pasta here that is transformed. It's full of vegetables and protein and some nice satisfying carbs. So while pasta does make me very happy sometimes my happiness is impeded by unexplained existential dread and anxiety about the nature of reality itself and in those moments today's sponsor BetterHelp can help. Our mental health is one of the most important things in life just generally and we're mostly not taking care of it. The world we live in today mostly supplies an overwhelming amount of stress and negativity and then just gives us little distractions to kind of forget all about it. So I think it's good to be aware of that and do something about it. Even in this video I talked about my personal struggles with mental health regarding my body and all that stuff. And therapy has been part of my effort to deconstruct those feelings and get better to be honest. BetterHelp is a platform where you can get online therapy with a licensed professional that is trained to listen and offer you helpful unbiased advice. All you have to do is fill out a basic questionnaire in the beginning and they match you with a therapist within 48 hours in most cases. I signed up for BetterHelp myself and I'm not kidding I got matched with a therapist within 30 minutes that was pretty crazy. I was able to easily schedule out a video session whenever I wanted and I can always just text them which is very nice. And if for some reason you're not happy with your therapist you can easily change them at no additional cost to you. So if you think you might benefit from therapy you should try BetterHelp. Just go to betterhelp.com slash quok that's my channel name or click the link in the description. That's going to give you a 10% discount and you're also helping me in the process so thank you. Alright let's get back to that video. And now it's time to talk about the elephant in the room fat and I'm not talking about I hate to get into numbers and ---- but 1 gram of fat is worth about 9 calories when it's metabolized compared to the 4 calories associated with a gram of protein or a gram of carbs. So as a result most calories from really delicious food comes from fat. Come from fat. Struggle with English sometimes. Sometimes I struggle generally with everything. Now one way to be smart about it is to limit the amount of oil we use when cooking which indeed sucks. As I said fat makes things taste excellent but thankfully there are ways to go around that. A lot of the issues with cooking with less fat is that a lot of the times you get stuff that is just dry or the texture sucks but as I'm about to demonstrate there are other ways to make food juicy and flavorful. I suck at peeling things. I don't think this is how you peel a carrot. What is this peeler? I've never seen this in my life. Did I buy this? So soups and stews are a very good way to do this because you can just throw in a bunch of vegetables, some protein and just cook that in like a saucy soupy thing. In this case it's going to be a tomato based sauce. Measuring your oil is also not a bad idea just to kind of be aware of how much you're using and potentially try to reduce it because maybe you put like 8 tablespoons of oil and that's like over a thousand calories I'm pretty sure. So what I'm making here is a stew inspired by Hungarian goulash or goulash because I have that ---- running through my veins bro. Also very important, use salt. Salt makes things taste good. So use it generously. And if you can't eat salt for whatever reason I'm really ******* sorry for you, that sucks. Look at all those colors. Look at that. That right there is life. Just a bunch of colors and steam. I wish I was smart enough to make like good analogies. Okay so now that the vegetables are hot. What? Okay so now that the vegetables are soft, no of course they're hot, they've been cooking. We're going to add in some flavor. Smoked paprika may be the most important one. A bunch of it. And just a little extra touch of oil. Just bloop. Now this is the base of our taste. It's the taste based. The taste. The bit. The taste. Oh my god it smells so good. Adding in my potatoes. Keep in mind this is just vegetables and spices and a little oil. Ah ----. Some black pepper. I also forgot my garlic. Very important. Okay and now we're going to make it juicy by adding in a generous can of crushed tomatoes. I'm also going to rinse this with water. Let's add it here. And now we just gotta wait for these potatoes to cook to be honest. I also replaced the meat with tofu. Just because we need some vegan representation here as well okay. I know a lot of people are going to be upset at this decision but if you want you don't have to think of this as a goulash. It's just a tofu stew then. And this stew is healthy as ****. It's packed with veggies and protein. It's hearty and filling and warm and satisfying. And I love these types of dishes. You can transform a stew into anything you want to be honest. I also realized that a good way to think about food in a healthier way is to stop thinking in restrictions and start thinking in additions. Sometimes I want to eat Cheerios. Cheerios, not that good for me to be honest. But I'll construct a nutritious meal around them by adding yogurt, blueberries, hemp seeds and just topping that with a handful of Cheerios to finish it off. I end up eating less of the sugary and empty but undeniably fun cereal and suddenly I have a pretty healthy breakfast here. Another example is a burger. Sometimes you crave a burger and in my opinion instead of denying yourself the burger and labeling it as a bad food, maybe we can rethink it a little bit. I'll just use a leaner meat and smash that thing flat. Add some mustard on top for flavor but also to keep it moist. Some onions. And I'm going to deposit that on a toasted bun that's been smeared with a chipotle yogurt sauce I made by mixing chipotle and yogurt. This guy also has tomatoes, lettuce and pickles. Honestly my favorite additions to a burger, just keep it classic. And now for the full experience I can add a side. My first thought of course, fries, delicious. But maybe I can think of a less calorie dense alternative. Lately I've been really into roasted root vegetables, specifically parsnip but I forgot to buy it so here I have carrots. Oil them up just a little bit and roast them in the oven for about 20-30 minutes and the result, barely any calories and a lot of delicious, nutritious, fibrous volume. Look this may not be a 5 guys bacon cheeseburger with 5 guys cajun fries but it's still quite nice guys. Ok but maybe at this point you're thinking, oh this seems like a lot of effort, I'd rather stick to the basics, I want that chicken and rice treatment. Well then let's rethink that broccoli, chicken and rice to make it more enjoyable and potentially even more nutritious. My first thought is let's turn all this mess into a fried rice dish. I had some leftover rice so why the hell not. And at this point I have to say, you don't have to use chicken breasts all the time. Chicken thigh is significantly more delicious and easier to cook. The difference in fat is not really that crazy. I seasoned it with a bunch of stuff including a touch of corn starch that makes it more tender. Just throw that in a wok and cook it until it's cooked. And now let's throw some vegetables in. I got some broccoli stem, that's right I do use the stem for stir fries. Some carrots, bell pepper, broccolini. Just stir fry that for a couple minutes, then push it to the side, add your leftover rice. Stir fry that thing for a couple minutes and now let's flavor it. Add some soy, some ketchup, sriracha, splash of any sort of vinegar you may have around. Oh and I almost forgot about the chicken of course, add that in. And this is a super basic upgraded chicken and rice. And it maybe took 15 minutes to make. So hopefully you got something out of this. I'm not saying this method is the best one. This is just what I do right now and it just led me to feel a bit better overall. So let me know what you think. And also please give this video a like or share it or really anything that's gonna get it more views. It feeds my undying addiction to see the numbers go up and allows me to make more videos. Okay, see you soon.