3 Healthy Dinners to Lose Weight and Gain Muscle Strength

It is already well known that there are no quality results achieved by training if exercise is not in line with proper nutrition. We can train every day, but if the basis of our diet is fast food and we eat only once or twice a day, we will find it difficult to achieve the set goals of a slim line or good definition.

If we care about proper nutrition, primarily for health, and then for appearance, we will often “break our heads” about what to eat for dinner, especially when we come home hungry after a quality workout and an exhausting work day. How to satisfy an empty stomach, and at the same time, with a smart choice of foods, restore the energy spent on training to the muscles?

The hectic pace of life does not leave us much time for cooking, so the desire through this text is to show how it is still possible to have a healthy and varied dinner with quick preparation. Because who likes to go to bed hungry with a feeling of “rumbling” in their stomach?

Here are three recipes for healthy evening meals that require a maximum of 15 minutes of preparation.

1. Polenta with Melted Mozzarella and Sesame Topped with Tomato Sauce

At the first mention of polenta, most people see a scene of porridge with milk, a meal that irresistibly reminds of childhood, but it is not even close to the same dish!

Polenta is a nutritionally valuable food that contains only 44 kcal in one serving (approximately 60 g of cooked polenta). It is rich in beta carotene, provitamin A, and other vitamins and minerals. It is also a very good source of thiamine (vitamin B1) which raises immunity, and helps the body convert food into energy and cope with stress.

Ingredients:

• 60 g of yellow polenta
• 50 g mozzarella
• 100 ml tomato sauce
• olive oil (tablespoon)
• sesame seeds (two small spoons)
• marjoram spice/ ground basil (optional)
• salt

Preparation:

According to my own experience, the ideal ratio is in 200 ml of hot water (not boiling) previously seasoned with a pinch of salt, marjoram and olive oil, put 4 tablespoons of polenta and mix all the time, and in 3 minutes you should get an ideal medium-thick mixture.

Serve the polenta on a plate and immediately cover with finely chopped pieces of mozzarella and season with sesame seeds.

Heat the tomato sauce over a low heat without oil for 3 minutes, and pour it over the dish. It would be ideal to use homemade tomato sauce, but you can also use purchased liquid tomatoes or canned peeled tomatoes.

As an addition to the dish, you can always serve 50 g of canned tuna (previously drained).

2. Tzatziki with White Cow’s cheese

Fresh cow’s cheese is a high-value food that contains 20-40% protein (depending on the type), so as such it is especially recommended for athletes and physically active people who have a greater need for protein replacement after exhausting workouts. The advantage of this food is that it has almost the lowest energy value among cheeses, so 100 g of cow’s cheese is 103 kcal.

If we consume only fresh cow’s cheese as an evening meal, the biggest advantage is that it does not need to be prepared, but it is enough to reach into the fridge and satisfy your evening appetites. But for true gourmets, cow’s cheese itself will be scarce, so the following is a description of Tzatziki dishes with cow’s cheese.

Tzatziki is a traditional Greek appetizer that is most often served as a spread with slices of bread. If we add cow’s cheese to Tzatziki, we will get an interesting and even more nutritionally rich spread.

Ingredients needed:

• 2 larger cucumbers (canned)
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• Greek yogurt (100 ml)
• olive oil (2 tablespoons)
• fresh cow’s cheese (250 g)
• white pepper
• dill
• salt

Preparation:

In a deeper bowl, put Greek yogurt, cow’s cheese, and cucumbers and garlic previously chopped into as small pieces as possible. While mixing the mixture, season it with olive oil, white pepper, dill and 1-2 pinches of salt.

The resulting mixture is used as a spread on wholemeal bread (2 to 3 thin slices). If we make a thicker mixture (more cow’s cheese, less yogurt) we can eat it without bread with the addition of, for example, salads with seasonal vegetables.

If the smell of garlic that inevitably remains after a meal like this bothers you, the Greeks say it helps to chew a parsley stalk. But it should not be forgotten that garlic is a natural remedy for the prevention of seasonal flu and colds, so it is advisable to consume it regularly.

3. Tuna and Sesame Seeds salad

It is sesame seeds that give a special taste to this classic salad and you should definitely try it! It is a rich source of vitamins and minerals, and 100 g of dried sesame seeds also contains 11.8 g of dietary fiber and 714 mg of phytosterol, which lowers blood cholesterol levels.

It is an excellent source of copper, manganese, calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, zinc and is a good source of selenium.

Canned tuna is a well-known food that is a low-fat protein source that will nourish the muscles after a hard workout.

Ingredients:

• fresh seasonal salad
• canned tuna (previously squeezed, 50 g)
• Edam yellow cheese (50 g)
• sesame seeds (2 teaspoons)
• balsamic vinegar (2 tablespoons)
• olive oil (2 tablespoons)

Preparation:

In a deeper bowl, place the tuna and fresh seasonal salad and cheese, previously cut into smaller cubes. Season the salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and sesame seeds.

If the hunger is too great, we can enrich the salad with one to two handfuls of pre-cooked whole wheat pasta (fusilli).

For each of these evening meals, it takes a maximum of 15 minutes of preparation, a little determination and imagination, and maybe some new evening meals will be created.

In addition to the well-known rule that we consume as much as we consume, the amount of individual foods depends on the person (metabolic rate, physique, age, gender, physical activity), so you should definitely adjust your diet to your lifestyle.

And finally, try to eat healthy and tasty because “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are” is not said in vain 🙂