PlateJoy - Learning to cook while eating gluten free? Please read if you would like a weight loss buddy.

[Michelle1234]

Basically I do not know how to cook. I need to lose weight for my health. I have to eat gluten free due to celiac. I have tried 6 week body makeover years ago which was very successful but ultimately too difficult to stay on long term. I looked into weight watchers but know with my personality I won't count the points.

I have an UP MOVE fitness tracker. In perusing around on the UP Move app I came across PlateJoy. It is a recipe/shopping list service. You take a quiz that allows you to enter diet restrictions like no gluten and preferences like no shell fish off a standard list but then they also allow you to enter anything else you hate. Like for me it was olives, club soda and a few other items. They also ask you what cooking equipment you have. I initially entered I had a blender but my recipes popped out with smoothies (which I do not like) so I took that off and that got rid of the smoothies. You could also enter in the amount of time your willing to cook. I entered the shortest amount of time for everything and indicated I would do left overs for lunch.

So out popped my recipes. I eliminated some I didn't like. Added a few ingredients to my dislike list. Regenerated the recipes and they looked really good.

They give you a shopping list and you can enter via a button click whether you have it or not. You can see this list on your phone but have to get to it through the web browser. Haven't seen if they have an android app yet.

I made the first breakfast this morning. The recipe said 10 min. It took 15 but I doubled the batch so I just have to reheat it for tomorrow. It was delicious. The best part was it was easy to follow and was basic simple cooking but had a gourmet taste because they told me what to add.

The methodology seems to be whole foods. They give you the nutrition info on the recipes but I will likely not pay too much attention. Part of the quiz they ask you about your weight, goal weight, age, height etc. and then tell you how many calories they are planning for you per day. You can manually increase or reduce it. I just went with their suggestion.

The cost was $59 for 6 mths but if you look on the web there are $20 off click links. I thought for $39 it was worth it. The service you receive for the cost is weekly recipes and shopping list.

I think the founder is gluten free which may be why everything I've gotten looks so good. You can see the recipes in your queue and tweak them to eliminate your hated ingredients all before paying. After you pay they send you the ones they auto select for the week so as to minimize shopping waste along with your shopping list. So it is easy to check out if you will like their recipes before paying. I think you can override the auto select so as to pick the ones you want for a given week as I saw an option for that but haven't done it myself. They also have options like Paleo and vegetarian.

There is no support forum that I could find.  I would love to have some buddies for this. Anyone interested? I can say that the gluten free recipes I received looked easy to make and tasty. I plan to use the shopping list to make sure I have everything on-hand for the week.