I actually prefer my instant pot to the slow cooker.
@Mac2k3 - I do the same as @Macy and cook larger meals that I then portion off. Recent favourites have been:
Veggie pilaf and chicken curry
Sauteed mushrooms and beans with sweet potatoes and feta
Mujadara with added veggies (depending on what I had in fridge/freezer)
This feels like it should be a separate thread, so I answered your question over here.
Which calendar are you on to have 19 months?
I kid, congratulations!
Since restarting my training and nutrition plan 6 weeks ago Iâve managed to get from 93kg to 88kg. My impedence scale puts that at a drop of 23% to 20% body fat.
Plenty more to come off but happy with my trajectory.
Question: you count your calories and are on track. Later in the day you come home from work and there it is. The dinner. Wonderful fruits and vegetables. Lean beef. Tofu. Whatever you like.
BUT your wife/husband/person made it. You dont know how much curry paste, oil, cheese slipped into the pan. How do you calculate?
You can guess the calories of a potato or of some beans. But its not accurate and you cant even guess the small things, that transform a meal into an extraordinary dinner.
I think youâve encapsulated why I donât track!
Search for a roughly equivalent named meal from a major chain restaurant and then take 7/8 or 3/4 of the count.
Or ask your partner and estimate. One meal every now and again being off isnât a major deal.
I rarely run into this issue as I do nearly all of the cooking
Do the best you can to estimate. Even if youâre off by 100-200 calories for a meal every now and again it shouldnât disrupt your overall progress. Your result will reflect what you do most of the time. If most of the time youâre sticking to your plan, then thatâs what will happen.
Yeah, thats a good idea.
Thats true. But I would really like to look back at the end of a week and see what i achieved. But maybe thats the problem with these relationships. 
Which relationship? Your s/o or with the calorie counting?
Honestly, itâs a fine line to walk between tracking and being cautious about it and being too neurotic. Sometimes youâre going to be out on a coffee shop ride and order a muffin thatâs as big as your head - you will have to guess how many calories are in that thing and thatâs fine. Take a guess and carry on. As long as it isnât every day and every meal youâll still be close enough over the course of the week
Unless your significant other is some sort of off-the-cuff culinary genius surely there is a recipe of sorts? Something like MFP allows me to build meals and then re-use them over and over again. Itâs close enough for tracking trends
One of the big things I have found makes a huge difference is to make sauces/spices separately and then apply to meals the day of.
Example; cook up chicken rice and veggies for 5 days in the week.
Have different spices and sauces for that meal so that 1) itâs not a dry mess by Friday, 2) you get variety through the week despite largely eating the same thing
Iâve been home-making teriyaki sauce, jalapeno sauce and some gujoujang spice sauce. All of which are super low-cal and I know what has gone into it.
The second trick I have learned is sous-vide. It keeps meats so much more moist than other forms of cooking. Chicken isnât dry, steak hasnât lost its flavor. Makes a big difference by days 4 & 5 of the week.
+1 on the sous vide - fantastic
Another huge bonus of it is that you can start things cooking and go for a bike ride/trainer ride and itâs done when you get back - no penalty if youâre gone too long (extremely hard to leave things in for too long)
That was the whole reason I got it.
Doing food in the oven required precise timing, that often didnât work with my trainer workout times. Doing things on BBQ or stove meant doing all of the cooking when you were done working out which was just a chore. Being able to simply finish the food with a quick sear and immediately eat right after made life so much better. Or finish it and put into containers for the week, which is what I did yesterday.
My problem is: Iâm really cautious till the evening. Iâve got a good amount of calories left for dinner. But the day was long, I did some kind of workout, stressfull day and the man in the tube was so annoying. So its a kind of reward. A nice dinner at the end of the day. And here they come. Calories and calores and calories. Thats my party of the day where the decision is made: caloric deficite or not. Thats why Iâm asking.
If I eat 5000kcal at a birthday brunch or a 2000kcal ice, thatâs not my problem. I know its bad. I know I want it. And I know its not the average day. 
These regular meals I cannot count are my kryptonite.
Iâd suggest you spread your calories out and try to avoid the single big meal. Most people are much more likely to overeat when they are very hungry - so if you show up for your biggest meal (dinner for you) with a big calorie deficit youâre less likely to survive the day in a deficit than if you show up with a small deficit because you are more likely to overeat.
Try having a healthy and filling snack an hour before dinner and see if that doesnât decrease your total calorie consumption
Ahhhh. Iâm a bit into time restricted eating and longer times without food (IF, MFD @ Valter Longo, Obesity Code @ Jason Fung). I wont eat till 13 o clock. Thats my breakfast (oats, nuts, fruits, vegetables). Than nothing till dinner. Maybe a cookie at 17 o clock when drinking a caffè. Its not just sports nutrion, its more healthy lifestyle, cancer prevention âŚ
I try my best. 
I guess it depends on how often youâre failing and having these large dinners. My assumption would be youâd be better off having a healthy whole food snack at 5 PM and a smaller dinner than you would be maintaining your 1 PM - 8 PM fast and over-eating for the day.
If youâre regularly doing that second option (more than once or twice a week) you should consider sorting your primary and secondary nutrition goals
