Heathy Eating/ Weight Loss

If you have the time and a pedometer I personally recommend trying to do 10k steps each day, it worked wonders for me and I lost 3 stone without radically changing my diet. I found ditching chocolate and meats (pork especially) helped a lot.. I know it sounds like a cliche but I think when it comes to dieting all the little things add up. There's no real way to lose loads quickly and sustain it (me and my friend tried fasting and it never got us anywhere).

DarkElf said:

There's no real way to lose loads quickly and sustain it (me and my friend tried fasting and it never got us anywhere).

It really is true that dieting keeps you fat - swings and roundabouts. It's better to eat healthily, as you say. It costs less in fact that buying ready meals.  pinkchocoholic 's links are a good start. I see a diabetic nurse for face-to-face advice and she is au fait with my autism. I assume you haven't got diabetes [I have type 2] but they are highly qualified to offer dietary advice, as are other nurses. 

I totally agree Marianne, if you suddenly swap from not cooking to cooking from scratch, then you may have a couple of biggish bills, as you stock up on ingredients, but then they should level off to something more normal. I batch cook a lot, why make 2 portions of curry of bolognaise sauce when I can make 6 just as easily and freeze 4 of them?

One of the things that people over look when learning to or begining to start cooking is that you do need some fairly decent equipment, not cheap pots and pans from the pound shop, you could burn water in some of those cheap pans and that will put you off and waste money. I've taught a few people to cook and I always start out with the right pots and pans, those who I've taught to cook have been glad and one in particular was as she'd been told that if she couldn't manage in the pans she had it was her being a bad workman blaming the tools. I made her use my pots and pans and everything came out fine and she started to gain confidence and argued back at her parents who were insisting on her using pans that were little thicker than baked bean tins. You don't have to spend a lot of money on equipment, look somewhere like TKMAXX, they have a lot of nice stuff fairly cheap, I've got a set of pans for there that I've been using for over 20 years and they're still going strong.

If you're a real beginer at cooking then I'd recomend getting Delia Smith's books, How To Cook, she will take you right the way through from boiling an egg to cooking xmas dinner over 2 books. You should be able to get them second hand fairly cheaply and easily

Yes, I wish I could get something like that. My cooker is electric and always hotter than it claims on the dials and the oven temperature.

Yes, I wish I could get something like that. My cooker is electric and always hotter than it claims on the dials and the oven temperature.