Minimalism & Diet: Simplify Your Food With A Minimalist Diet

What does my minimalist diet look like? After minimizing my belongings, my relationships, and my schedule, I took a look at my diet. Minimizing my diet has been one of the biggest money savers that minimalism has brought me and the health benefits have been huge too. Here are tips on how to simplify your diet:

what is a minimalist diet

What Is A Minimalist Diet?

For each person it’s going to be different depending on your preferences, goals and requirements. A minimalist diet is a simplified approach to cooking meals where you balance nutritional needs, ease of preparing, and optimizing your ingredients to have as few as possible while still being able to cooking a variety of meals that you love. You approach it in a way that’s right for you, but you are making sure to be intentional in how your meals fit into your life.

Here are some of the main consideration I took when I wanted to simplify my diet and how I prepared my meals:

1. Learn Staple Meals

Learning how to cook a few simple meals is not only a beneficial life skill, it can drastically reduce your grocery budget. One major shift in my journey was when I was able to leave my job because I no longer had so many expenses, what that meant was I could cook all my meals from scratch each meal.

simple staple meals

I have a few simple breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that I alternate between, which makes it easy to know what to eat when that time rolls around. I know that I love all of these meals, so when I go grocery shopping, I make sure to pick up ingredients for each one.

2. A Minimalist Diet Meal Plan For You

everyday meals for simple meal planning

I tend to get really into a meal, and eat it constantly. By eating the same foods over and over, you’re saving money by not needing new spices, exotic ingredients, or a vast array of groceries. I like to always have staples on hand to create any of the following: smoothies, breakfast muesli, vegan sandwiches, sweet potato and chickpea curry, burritos, and my famous nourish bowls.

Nourish bowls happen when I throw the following into a bowl: some type of grain, some type of protein (usually beans, as they are so high in fiber and minerals!), loads of veggies, avocado, and hummus. This can also be a really simple way to use up leftovers.

When you start out look at your favorite dishes and write out the ingredients that it takes to make them. After you have a list of your favorite dishes, see what ingredients overlap. By choosing the dishes that share common ingredients we can optimize your go to recipes so that you can make the most amount of dishes with the fewest amount of ingredients.

common foods for a simple diet

 

3. Keto Diet For Minimalist Weight Loss

keto low carb dinner

Over the past year I’ve started the ketogenic diet into my daily habit to help with weight loss. Initially I started keto because I wanted to improve my energy levels by reducing my carb intake, primarily by eating only foods that were low glycemic foods.

This is because I’ve noticed that my body seems to have big energy swings around my meals and keto boosted my energy, lets me loose weight, simplifies my diet and just works really well for me.

At first I was just going to go low carb, but after reading up on keto I decided to go all the way with the diet because it closely matched my own diet. I didn’t eat a lot of pasta, I have never been a big sweets person, I don’t drink, and I already had a lot of healthy fats in my diet as it was.

How is the Keto diet a minimalist diet?

At it’s core it’s inherently a “restrictive diet” meaning it limits what you can eat by a good bit. But I’d actually argue another point that is more important for minimalist.

Because the ketogenic diet functions of ketones it’s actually a more efficient way to provide nutrients to your body. In ketosis your energy stems from beta hydroxybutyrate (BHB) and fats yield 9 kcal per gram of fat, and approximately 4 kcal per gram for carbohydrates.

When you get your body optimized for fats you’re staking the deck in your favor. Practically speaking I get satiated much faster and longer. A tablespoon of butter in my coffee has replaced what once was an 800 calorie breakfast. I used to struggle to stay awake at work, now I go full tilt all day and then I go back after work some days to work on passion projects.

You Eat Less Food, Feel Really Full And For Longer:

I was super skeptical of this, but the standard DASH diet recommended by most doctors always left me hungry after cutting out 300 calories a day. After the first three weeks of keto I was eating till I felt stuffed and when I totaled my macros for the day I was astounded to see some days I was eating 1,000 of a deficit! Now as you get back to your healthy weight you’ll find you eat very close to your maintenance intake.

My Daily Keto Meal Plan:

  • Bullet Proof Coffee: Fresh coffee, 1 TB of grass feed butter, 1 TB of MCT oil
  • Breakfast: 3 free range organic eggs with 1 ounce of cheese
  • Lunch: 2 ounces of cheese and 2 ounces of salami or chorizo
  • Dinner: 4 cups of romaine lettuce, Cesar dressing, 1 ounce of cheese, bacon, MCT oil, 6 ounces of grilled chicken

I only really mix up my dinner, but I keep my other meals almost the same every day. For dinners I’ll have hamburgers without the bun and no sugar added ketchup, mustard pork chops, or buffalo wings with ranch. I have also found that keeping all my carbs at dinner helps me maintain energy levels throughout the day to an amazing degree.

food to eat on a keto diet

On average my Macros are 20 carbs per day, 120 grams of fat per day, and 140 grams of protein a day. Generally I’m eating closer to 10 carbs a day, but never more than 20 carbs. The results have been really incredible, I don’t get tired any more, I have the most insane energy levels for sustain periods, I’ve lots lots of weight and because ketosis suppresses your appetite, I don’t get hungry AT ALL even when I’m running a major calorie deficit.

4. Keep Snacks Simple

minimalist diet snacks

I used to be a big snacker – and I was a fan of processed junk food. After minimizing my diet, I’ve switched my snacking habits to do it less and less. Now, my keto snacks are jerky, cheese sticks and salads. During my normal eating I would snack on fresh or dried fruit, veggies with hummus, apples with peanut butter; I try to keep it as whole-food-focused as possible. Not only does this save me money, it is so much better for my overall health.

5. Try Themed Nights

theme dinners for the week

One of my favorite ways to keep my diet simple and minimal, but still exciting, is themed nights. I have a few themes that I like to work around, including tacos and docos (documentaries) night, or meatless Mondays. This is a really fun way to introduce simplified diets to children.

The best part about having a themed night meal plan is that it limits the scope of your shopping so you know it’s breakfast for dinner on Thursday and you don’t wander around the store looking for ideas, you can jump right to the things you need.

6. Intermittent Fasting

intermittent fasting for weight loss

I found that my body naturally fell into to this pattern of 8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting. For me and my schedule it works well. I eat lunch around noon and then dinner around 6:30pm, from there I may have a few pieces of cheese at 8pm if I’m feeling like I need more, but then I’m good for the rest of the night, skip breakfast and then don’t eat until lunch.

This 16 hour window is enough to firmly put yourself into autophagy (where your body weens out under performing cells and builds new cells). What’s interesting is that the amount of autophagy that occurs during a 16 hour fast, up to around 20 hours is very effective.

Longer fasting has been shown to only give an incremental effect, so I don’t see much need for it.

8. Vitamins And Supplements

vitamins

In general supplements and vitamins are largely ineffective be our body’s don’t absorb them very well. The big thing I’ve learned is there are many mitigating factors that help your body absorb them.

For example you need vitamin K2 to be available to facilitate the absorption of vitamin D, which then in turns let your body absorb calcium. Add to this that your body can only take so much in at a time, you sometimes need to space the dose out.

I only take vitamin B12 with Folate, fish oil pill for omega 6 fats, potassium, and magnesium. To this I’ll throw in a dusting of nutritional yeast (vitamin B) and some MCT oil here and there. I also will use Himalayan pink salt for general minerals.

The rest is pretty much a waste of money and I only keep these because there is some decent science behind it or my body responds well to them.

9. Which Cooking Oil Is Good For Health

  • Olive oil
  • Grass fed butter
  • Avocado oil
  • Ghee
  • Coconut oil

Oils was another one I had to learn about and luckily my go to oil, olive oil, was one of the better oils out there. I only keep three oils around for cooking: olive oil, butter and avocado oil. Many people like coconut oil, but recently it’s come under some scrutiny. Ghee is great I just haven’t gotten into it.

healthy oils for cooking

The big thing to understand is smoke points. When an oil hits its smoke point it can start to produce oxidants and other negative by products. The reason I use avocado oil is for high temperature cooking or grilling. Avocado oil has a smoke point of 520 degrees compared to olive oil which is 320 degrees.

10. Keep it Nutritious

wholesome foods for health

A simplified diet is a whole-foods focused, nutritious diet. I like to say I cook with ingredients, not foods. Ingredients are the most basic form, while foods have long list of a combinations of ingredients. Focus your meals around whole grains, beans and legumes, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Don’t forget that you can grow your own food to with these simple steps to setting up a garden with easy to grow vegetables.

I like to get my food as close to the source as possible – this means farmers markets for produce, bakeries for whole grain breads, and bulk stores for whole grain pasta, and dried beans. By constantly having the staples on hand, you’ll be able to make such a variety of meals.

Minimizing my diet has improved my health, relieved stress, and made me a happier person. There are so many benefits to eating more simply and healthfully, your wallet and your body will thank you.

Your Turn!

  • Would you consider simplifying your diet?
15 Comments
  1. Oh my gosh! This has been my favorite and most liberating part of simplifying my life! I stumbled into a cooking routine when I started shopping at Costco and was really cracking down on the grocery budget. I wanted to see how long I could go without getting more groceries. So, it made me start using up frozen foods that were sitting there, and canned pantry items, and then I started replacing only the items I absolutely needed, and voila! I was consitently making the same breakfast/lunch/dinner options and it was amazing! All the wondering about what to make next, and time and energy expense that comes with that, was gone!! I spent so little time thinking about food last week, and I loved it! I finally started to read books I have been wanting to read but always blamed my schedule. I couldn’t agree more with this concept. Plus, I don’t think it’s bad to eat the same few things on rotation. If every meal is something special, than nothing is special, and it creates a lifestyle of constantly indulging – which can lead to bad habits. Sometimes I’ll have the same dinner 3 nights in a row. And I really like it this way!

  2. The cognitive unburdening of eating the same meals regularly is a big plus of eating this way.
    But not getting novel foods in, new spices etc. means you’re missing out on a lot of phytonutrients that you don’t need (and certainly not in large quantities) but that are still really beneficial. Variety and novelty in whole foods and spices is beneficial.
    Maybe a good middle road is to be as seasonal as possible in one’s eating, which I guess you would tend to do if you get food from local sources like farmer’s markets.

  3. As a full time carer this is a brilliant idea to simplify my life – ease the catering and cooking burden. Plan to follow and freeze meals to make things easier. Any recipes would be an added bonus!

  4. Inspiring ! If only I could eat dairy foods and gluten !!!

  5. Still seems too much to me but probably not once i tried it. Dh is the one that thinks he needs variety except with foods he loves like sherbet. Wait! Is that even a food?

  6. Divorce, enforced retirement, and a rather small pension forced many changes in my life.
    I moved to a very small village in the Free State (South Africa), and built myself a small house (well half-built because I ran out of money) I accept the fact that my pensions will probably expire before I do so my plan is that my garden will feed me. I take account of the threat of climate change and am experimenting with drought and heat tolerant vegetables.
    On the food side at the moment I am still buying food. I rely on beans, lentils, tomatoes, and onions. (onions from the garden), oats and wholewheat flour. I like to keep a weeks worth of ‘bean stew’ in single meal containers in the freezer. In the main the bean stew is made up of beans, onions, and tomatoes, plus anything I can get from the garden. The only fruit I’m getting from the garden just now is apricots, and peaches.
    In a lean month I live on bean stew, and fruit, a lot of fruit. My indulgences are quality instant coffee, and box wine.

  7. I eat very simple whole food that I make from scratch at home with very basic ingredients and have some variety when I occasionally eat out. Grocery shopping has never been easier and I always have something ready to grab and go when I leave the house because I prep boiled eggs and grilled chicken or salmon for the week. No more canned or packaged food. I love this way of living. Some people have a passion for cooking and that is fine but for me I would rather focus more on healthy simple meal preparation. The less ingredients the better.

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  10. As soon as I read the the idea of a minimalist diet, I thought that’s exactly what I’ve been doing this year. And then I went through the article and got more excited as you mentioned first keto and then intermittent fasting.

    I’ve been eating The Ridiculously Big Salad (RBS) for a year now. NOTHING like all the keto food prep plans you see, where several people spend a half day planning and prepping for a week. Nope. I can cook in a half hour enough protein for 8-10 meals, and the daily assembly takes about 5 minutes.

    This GREATLY simplified my shopping and my cooking, saving me time and money.

    *Me* has been minimalized significantly also; 65 lbs less of me than a year ago. 😉

    And I’ve lost these meds: lasix, lisinopril, 2 insulins, prednisone, liothyronine, carvedilol, DHEA, metformin and several supplements.

    Minimalized my A1c right out of diabetic and prediabetic range, down to 5.1% as of last round of blood work.

    The results have been fantastic, sure; nearly unbelievably so given my complex medical history.

    But it’s the minimalism of the specific implementation of keto/IF using the RBS model that makes it sustainable for me. Real nutrient-dense food, cheap and easy; likely the reason I’ve actually stuck to a diet for a whole year.

  11. Love this. I hate constantly deciding what to cook, what to eat. It puts more emphasis on food than I feel it deserves in my life.

  12. Through experimentation over the years I have found that the best diet for myself is very basic: meats, vegetables, fruits, eggs and whole dairy. Very much like the diet my Indigenous ancestors ate and thrived on. I no longer have any sugar (including honey and syrups) in my house and this past year I have given up all (yup, you read that right – ALL) grains and legumes, especially soy which I am allergic to. Mind fog gone. Pre-diabetes gone. Bad cholesterol gone. Achy joints gone. Energy? More than I had fifty years ago (oh, did I mention I am a septuagenarian?). I keep it simple too – there is so much flavour and variety available there is no reason to ever be bored. PS: I love the fact that you are not monetised.

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  14. This one is very interesting to read. Simplifying food with a minimalist diet is very helpful to all. Your thoughts here show how better to apply this minimalist diet and it gives the best recommendations.

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