Not eating enough

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A couple of years ago I had an issue with forgetting to eat, but I managed to make eating a stable part of my routine.

Now, however, there isn't much food that I can make easily and there's been significantly less cooking of dinners (and thus easily prepared leftovers). What this means is I stick to food that's not particularly confusing or involved to make, and there's not much of that available, so I've been eating less than I should. I didn't think of this at the start of the month when I had money to spend, or I would have purchased more food that I can comfortably prepare.

This is actually fairly frustrating because it is hard for me to get through this. I do cook some things, but every time I want to cook it's a bit of a battle to actually cook - it requires preparation and clean up afterward, and my brain just rebels at this.

So annoying.

Lately I have been fantasizing about abandoning cooking altogether and having a freezer full of Amy's frozen dinners. I got the idea from the movie, "Adam". Easy eat, easy clean up. Yay.

That was my favorite moment in Adam because I have done something similar. I actually did earlier this month - I ate chicken strips every day for a week and a half. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to buy enough for the entire month.

I've asked for help a few times to take some food I bought and prepare and freeze it, so I can just thaw and eat it when I want, but not much help has been forthcoming.

The most extreme of days in the last month with my food issues was the one where I ate just a can of cranberry sauce...

Ugh, yes, I find this so frustrating. I center my food shopping entirely around things that can be grabbed from the shelf, possibly microwaved, and eaten. Anything more complex just sits untouched.

Get prepared meals, canned goods, crackers, easy-to-prepare fruit and vegetables (for example: Precut carrots and broccoli; bananas; apples; grapes). Buy things that you know you will actually get and eat. Don't get ambitious; just buy things which are edible and simple. Before you can do anything about the quality of your diet, you have to be able to simply get enough food into yourself to maintain a reasonable level of energy. So prioritize "Things I will eat", and once you are eating enough again, then think about how to adjust your diet if you aren't satisfied with its quality.

Squash is slightly more complex, but is good too, as long as you can prep food /before/ needing to eat it, because the prep is easy enough. Winter squash prep - "cut in half, put brown sugar in it, put in oven at 350 degrees (toaster oven for me), leave for an hour, an hour later be reminded about it when the alarm goes off and be confused because you had entirely forgotten about it and thought nobody else was home and who would be making food, and why is an alarm for food going off, oh wait that's my squash..."

We've been being given lots of free vegetables, so need to take those into account here. As well as the cost of food in general.

Baby carrots and hummus is one thing I've found is really good, except I'm bad at remembering to buy it.

Most brands of microwavable food don't work with my taste sensitivities - and those which I will are the most expensive ones which makes it a lot harder for me, so cheese, bread, foods who's preperation is at most 2 steps and at most 15 minutes (pasta being the hardest thing I can do on a good day and undoable on a bad day. On a bad day most everything is unreasonable, sorting out what food in the house is edible and what isn't takes more than it feels like I'm capable of.)

Leftovers, oatmeal, fruit that you just grab and eat (apples, bananas mostly), tins of nuts

you can actually do a variety of nutritional stuff even with the grab and go stuff - nuts (cashews are my favorite), fruit, hummus, baby carrots, bread, cheese, yogurt, oatmeal... that's my default set currently

if I want to let myself have a nice meal I'll spend the effort of making curry lentils (which is "put red lentils and water up to 1 inch above them in a pot, cook for 15 minutes, put curry powder in when the lentils are falling apart (about 15 minutes later") or so - I have the complete recipe elsewhere, if you want to be particularly nice, when its almost done add in dried cranberries if you like them is a variation we made up.

That's one of my current difficult recipes.

With my life coach we're currently trying to start up is have me eat reliably every day of the week, know what to buy for food, and cook something that is actually cooking one meal a week. (say a simple soup which is what I was supposed to do on Wedensday)

Plain oatmeal (purchased in those big, round, cardboard containers, not in the boxes with individually packaged servings) is pretty cheap and can be microwaved.
Here is my favorite microwave oatmeal recipe:
Put 1/2 cup raw oatmeal, 1 tablespoon peanut butter, and one cup water or milk in a large cereal bowl. Microwave for 1 and 1/2 minutes. Stir, let cool a bit, and eat. Or, if you don't have a microwave, use boiling water and let it sit several minutes before eating.
You can leave out the peanut butter and add pretty much anything you like to the oatmeal: raisins, applesauce, cinnamon, chocolate chips or hot sauce (yes!). Peanut butter with any of the above ingredients is delicious, in my opinion, but then, I am a peanut butter fanatic.

Besides oatmeal, sandwiches are pretty easy and cheap if you buy the right ingredients. If you want a hot meal, put your sandwich in the microwave. Buy the cheapest wheat or whole-grain bread you can find (white bread won't keep you full very long). Buy a large block of generic cheese that you can cut into slices, and it should last you for several weeks. I haven't bought sliced sandwich meat in a while, so I don't know how cheap it is, but I know it is easy to use. Or you could just use peanut butter.

Microwave scrambled eggs are also good. Crack one or two eggs in a bowl, scramble them with a fork, cover with a paper towel or plastic lid in case it splatters, and microwave 1-2 minutes. If you want to, add cheese, salsa, or salt and pepper, or just eat it plain with toast or crackers.

I eat too much (but I'm not fat though).

Have you tried using a slow-cooker? They are excellent. The preparation is very easy, chop the meat &/or veg (or use the frozen ready-prepped stuff) add some stock and whatever else you fancy in the sauce, and leave it to cook for 8 hours. You can make 4 portions in a small cooker, so get some tupperware pots and freeze 3/4 of the recipe. Then it just needs to be microwaved the next day.

It's far easier to eat regularly and healthily if I have stuff that I like ready made in the freezer and can reheat it in 10 minutes.

My issue with crockpots is that I forget to make food until I need food - so I tend to not make food until I need it. Thus food that takes 15 minutes or less to make. I will use red lentils but not green lentils. (I have introception issues - I do not feel hunger normally, I feel headaches coming from hunger)

Rice cookers are really useful too though - you can put more than just rice in it. Throw a grain, and some vegetables, in it, and some water, and turn it on, and it comes out with cooked vegetables and grain. I don't know if it works with meat or not, I'm vegetarian. But again, that takes time.

Other people have pretty much already suggested everything I was going to suggest, but I will add that you should consider switching to paper plates and plastic utensils if it's within your budget.

I have similar issues regarding food and the prep/clean-up work (waaaaaay too many steps). In fact, you're made of sterner stuff than me if you can actually stomach leftovers. If something sits in the fridge for more than a day, I won't touch it. Blaarg.

Anyway, paper plates and plastic utensils eliminate much of the post-eating "mess" factor. I can't abide doing dishes.

Thank you for the suggestions, all.

I relate a lot to just eating cans of stuff when I can't make any useful food decisions.

My problem with food shopping is that I can only afford so much, and I underestimated what I needed this month and ran out. Everything Callista said is completely spot on, and is how I usually function. I think my outer limit is ~30 minutes (cooking chicken in an oven, or cooking chicken breasts in a frying pan), and anything that takes longer than that I need to remember to plan for being hungry instead of responding to being hungry.

I don't own the crockpot in the house, although I did purchase it as a gift. I love crockpot-cooked food, but I can't really use it just to feed myself, and I am not sure what is in the house that I could prepare for everyone. Also, as noted above and similar to what Tuttle said, I don't really think about making food until I need it, at which point I need something I can prepare quickly and eat right away. I do want to buy some foods I can prepare and freeze in advance so I can eat them later, although that's complicated by the freezer space being taken up by other people's purchases.

Oatmeal is a great idea - I often eat cold cereal when I need something right now, but there hasn't been much of that lately.

I think my biggest issue is that I don't have a lot of money for food, and the food purchases for the household as a household have shifted away from things I can prepare quickly and eat without the textures, flavors, etc. making it impossible to eat.

I love paper plates and plastic utensils. Also, I can handle leftovers, at least with some foods.

Why don't you just buy like a chicken salad wrap or something similar? People need to eat.