Veggies in smoothies are a good start, since they're hidden. Raw spinach is so easy to hide the flavor of in a smoothie or in juice.
Cauliflower is amazing and takes on the flavor of basically anything you cook it with. You can make cauliflower pancakes (like potato pancakes), cauliflower pizza crust, buffalo cauliflower... the possibilities are endless.
I make spinach pancakes that I use in place of bread for sandwiches - egg white, almond flour, 2 big handfuls of spinach, cook like a pancake & enjoy! Can't taste the spinach at all.
As other people have mentioned before, it may be that you've just never had veggies prepared in a way you like yet. One of my FAVORITE dinners is roasted carrots, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower (toss with thyme and olive oil, roast at 350 for 20 min) with rice. The sauce I make to go with it is MAGICAL and makes all the difference - heat olive oil in a pan & add rosemary, thyme, veggie stock concentrate, & a bit of water. Cook it way, way down, then add the juice from a lemon. Season w salt and pepper, pour over veggies. VOILA - MAGIC!!! Seriously, it'll turn anyone into a veggie lover.
Do you like squash? Butternut? Spaghetti? Yellow? Zucchini? Those have a thousand more creative ways to work them into recipes. There are SO many vegetables, you can't have tried them all!
I'm vegetarian and veggies are like 40% of what I eat, so if you're interested in more (because I have seriously so many veggie recipes and ways to hide them in other things in my head) shoot me a message.
Why not try Weight Watchers? There you'll be able to portion control and figure out how to eat to lose weight. On that plan, veggies are neither required nor imposed on you. However, you'll soon find that veggies are pretty much "free" and you can fill up on those, and you might naturally become more experimental with them once you get into the plan.
However, I've met many people successful with WW who don't eat alot of veggies. Also people who are successful on low-carb diets such as Atkins. There are plenty of diet plan choices out there -- find one that seems to be a match for your eating preferences.
This might be more productive for you than the general advice of "suck it up and eat veggies".
I don't like many veggies either, but I've lost significant weight and kept it off without having to choke down things I don't like. And yes, I've also been told to "suck it up" and figure out how to eat more veggies. Which was unproductive. I'm an adult, I can eat what I like, and if I can lose weight while eating within my food preferences, yay ME! Which I've done and been successful at. I mean, it's no different that telling a vegan that they better get a taste for beef if they want to succeed.
You can still succeed as a picky eater. Just find a structured eating plan that falls within your food preferences.
This might be more productive for you than the general advice of "suck it up and eat veggies".
I mean, it's no different that telling a vegan that they better get a taste for beef if they want to succeed.
Lol no it's not. A person does not need to eat beef to be healthy. It can be part of a healthy diet but it can also be omitted entirely without consequences to your health. Vegetables however cannot be omitted. A human body cannot be healthy without eating vegetables. Sure, you can lose weight without eating vegetables, you can live a long time without eating vegetables, but being thin and living a long time doesn't mean your health isn't suffering. Human bodies NEED vegetables, even if you "don't like them."
Lol no it's not. A person does not need to eat beef to be healthy. It can be part of a healthy diet but it can also be omitted entirely without consequences to your health. Vegetables however cannot be omitted. A human body cannot be healthy without eating vegetables. Sure, you can lose weight without eating vegetables, you can live a long time without eating vegetables, but being thin and living a long time doesn't mean your health isn't suffering. Human bodies NEED vegetables, even if you "don't like them."
LOL! SO wrong on so many levels so I won't even bother. Just maybe do some reading on basic nutritional essentials for the body. EFAs and protein are about it. You can supplement micronutritents that you get in veggies through a daily mulitvitamin and any missing fiber in a fiber supplement if necessary.
Entire populations have historically lived with minimal veggies -- just ask our Inuit and Maasai friends.
Many many people are successful with Atkins.
You can successfully lose weight while being a picky eater
You can successfully lose weight without having to choke down reams of veggies.
Just because you choose a particular eating lifestyle doesn't mean everyone needs to follow in your footsteps. Just because you believe that you can't succeed in life without veggies doesn't mean that everyone else has to fit into your belief system if they want to succeed. And just as I would never tell a vegan to "suck it up and get your protein macronutrient in a pure and convenient form and learn to love beef", one should not tell someone adverse to veggies to "suck it up and find a new way to cook". It's the imposition of one's eating patterns onto another that's offensive, rather than accepting the person for their own habits and working within their zone. It's about setting a person up for success instead of giving them another reason to beat themselves up. It's about meeting someone where they are, rather than blowing off their dietary issue by saying "you just aren't trying hard enough" or "you haven't tried enough recipes" or "you HAVE to do X or you're a failure".
And again to the OP, don't let anyone bully you into thinking that you are somehow flawed or "need to grow up" because you don't like veggies. Embrace your uniqueness and work with it. But don't make it an excuse to not be successful. Get in those veggies that you like-- lots of broccoli and some corn -- but don't feel bad if you don't pound back tons of other veggies. You CAN succeed, and who knows? Maybe you'll want to try some new foods along the way.! But it'll be up to you to find a plan that fits within your dietary preferences. Those plans exist, but you have to do them to succeed
It's not a belief system, it's just a fact. Vegetables offer huge benefits to the human body. That remains a fact whether or not you believe in it. There is absolutely no reason for me to research ways to support a "want" to avoid vegetables for my diet, that'd be a waste of time when there is more than enough factual information about the benefits of veggies.
You don't have to like all veggies. There are hundreds of them, HUNDREDS. Find a few that are tolerable and just eat them.
Your belief system isn't the only valid one out there (and neither is mine). That's the point. You're giving advice on what you believe to be true and are actually refusing to look into any other possibilities, which is the hallmark of a belief system. Why should you "waste your time" when you know what you know? Why should you "waste time" looking at other points of view? That's exactly my point.
I thought the OP was asking "how do I eat within my taste preferences and still lose weight?" not "what do you think I'm doing wrong with respect to my eating habits". "Suck it up and learn to like veggies" or "try harder" or "cook more" aren't appropriate answers as these are value judgements about the way the OP is eating and are not helpful in answering the OP's question.
Best of luck to you, my lovely OP. It might be a better idea to find an eating system that takes your preferences into account rather than spin your tires. I've seen so many people state things like "today's the day I'm going to eat all my veggies, give up flour, give up sugar forEVER because lots of people believe that its all bad stuff" and slide into failure by day 2. They'd be better off just saying "ya know, I love what I love but I have to get a system in place to help me sort out what I'm doing because my weight is out of control".
There are plans out there for picky eaters -- find one and go for it! You can do it, and you won't regret it.
