Meal Idea: Yummy Slow Cooker Meals and Metabolism Boosting Recipes

By Toni Holmes and Collier Marcella

The Meal Idea: Yummy Slow Cooker Meals and Metabolism Boosting Recipes book features both slow cooker recipes and the metabolism boosting diet. You will find a wide variety of slow cooker meal ideas along with the metabolism diet that features metabolism booster foods to make meal planning easy if you wish to jump into a healthier lifestyle. Start

• Language: English
• Publisher: WebNetworks Inc
• Release date: Jun 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781633831421

Book preview

Meal Idea

Yummy Slow Cooker Meals and Metabolism Boosting Recipes

Toni Holmes and Marcella Collier

Copyright © 2013 Toni Holmes and Marcella Collier

All rights reserved.

Introduction

Does coming up with meal plans seem like a daunting task? So many people live ultra busy lives with little time to plan for simple things like meals. Meal planning often takes a back seat to opting for fast food or convenient foods. If you plan right, you do not have to worry with the drawbacks of eating more junk food and you can focus on including healthy and nutritious foods in your diet. Here are some tips for making this easier.

Tip #1 - Proper Planning

In order to switch from fast convenient foods to healthy foods you must plan every step of the process. Start with your menu. Decide if you want to plan for a week or a couple of weeks ahead. Someone who is really innovative may try to plan the menu for a month ahead. If you are just starting out with this, only do a week meal planning. Gather the recipes from the slow cooker and metabolism diet sections, for breakfast, lunch, supper, and even snacks and desserts. Once you have your menu planned, you can create the grocery list. Before you create the grocery list, take inventory of the food you already have.

Create the grocery list according to the exact ingredients you need for the week. If you are just starting out with home cooking you may need to stock up on some basics, so expect to pay a little more at the cash register. As the weeks go by, the cost of groceries will go down once you acquire your supply of the basic items needed for cooking.

If you want to keep from being tempted into buying junk food while at the store, try to calculate the amount your groceries will cost and carry cash only. Stick to your list and do not wander off looking at the big displays of junk foods the grocery stores have on end caps and in the middle of the main aisles.

Tip #2 - Prepare in Advance

Once you have the groceries home now you are faced with the task of putting it all away. Instead of just shoving it in the fridge and cupboards take some time right now to prep the foods you can for the coming week. You can wash fruits and vegetables. You can chop, mince, shred, and store in clean containers many of the vegetables and some fruits. Obviously, some fruit and vegetables do not need to be prepared until you are ready to cook. But you can prepare as much as possible to get it out of the way.

Some meals may even be cooked ahead of time and either stored in the refrigerator or in the freezer. Look at your meal plans and see which ones you can do this and spend a couple of hours doing this. By having the food as ready as possible for mealtime you will not be tempted into driving through a fast food joint or picking up a package of convenient food.

Tip #3 - Double Up

By planning ahead you can practice this tip - make double the amount of the recipes that are freezable and freeze half of it. If you do this enough, you will have meals you can grab, thaw, and heat in a matter of minutes. This is helpful if you are especially busy and do not have a lot of time to prepare a home cooked meal every night. This also helps you to plan for meals in the coming weeks, by having it already prepared, ready to heat, and serve.

Tip #4 - Pay Attention

Slow cooker cooking is often something that needs to be prepped the night before. Some recipes are okay to prepare the morning of and to allow cooking all day. If you are freezing slow cooker meals, you may want to place the frozen meal in the cooker the night before to thaw and let it cook on low all day. Combining the slow cooker meals with the metabolism meals will help to break up the need for constant slow cooker. If you only have one slow cooker, you will have to plan the meals to be one slow cooked meal a day.

Make Health the Bottom Line

Whatever the reason you are wishing to diet the main reason should always be to be healthier. If you are eating junk food a lot then you are on your way to not being so healthy. One of the best ways to get healthy is to change the diet. All the recipes in this book are healthy and you can rest easy knowing you are cooking and serving home cooked meals. Make nutrition your goal and you can watch your health and your family's health improve.

When you make a diet change, you should also incorporate plenty of physical activity with it. Exercise helps the body to have more energy by boosting the metabolism and this also helps with the metabolism boosting diet. Often diet and exercise are prescribed with the initial treatment for the diagnosis of health ailments like high blood pressure and high cholesterol. This is not a coincidence. It is because diet and exercise work well together in making a body healthier. Incorporate a little exercise into your week. You just need a minimum of half an hour every other day to make a physical difference.

Not only does exercise help the physical body, it is also beneficial to your mental and emotional health. Regular exercise, the kind where you break a sweat, will help the body to release a substance called endorphins. Endorphins will help to make you feel better emotionally and give you mental clarity. Runner's refer to this as the runner's high. It is a natural high and is very beneficial in working as a natural treatment for depression. This also makes you want to exercise more, which is good. Eat right, exercise, and stick with your new healthy habits for a lifetime of good health.

Section 1: Slow Cooker Cookbook

What Is The Difference Between a Slow Cooker and a Crock Pot?

The old style cookers were called slow cookers, where the heating element is in a separate unit from the main food holder. Actually, larger slow cookers and crock pots still come this way. When the crock pot made the scene, it was with the heating element cased within the food holder all in one. If you were lucky you had a removable plug for easy cleaning. Not so lucky were the ones where the plug was a permanent fixture. Crock Pot, by the way, is a registered trademark by the Rival Manufacturing Company, but their name brand became a nickname for slow cookers.

Some slow cookers may have the heating elements that surround the food holder, helping to give it even heat. Others may only