Cooking at Home is the Recipe for Healthy Weight Loss

People who eat home cooked food most nights of the week, consume up to 140 less calories a day than those who rely on ready meals, restaurants and takeaways.

That amounts to over 50,000 calories in a year - the equivalent of 14lbs of fat.

The study from John Hopkins University¹ also found that the home-cooked-food group ate less fat, sugar and salt and more fibre.

“When people cook most of their meals at home, they consume fewer carbohydrates, less sugar and less fat than those who cook less or not at all – even if they are not trying to lose weight,”

says Julia A. Wolfson, MPP lead author of the study. She went on to say: 

“The evidence shows people who cook at home eat a more healthy diet."

Wolfson and co-author Sara N. Bleich, PhD, researchers in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, analyzed data from the 2007-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from more than 9,000 participants aged 20 and older.

The survey asked detailed questions about what participants ate during a 24-hour period as well as other eating behaviours such as fast food in the past 30 days.

The study found 8 percent of participants ate home-cooked dinner once or less a week and consumed an average of 2301 calories a day.

The forty-eight percent of participants ate dinner cooked at home six to seven times a week and they consumed 2,164 calories a day.
The research also found that those who cook at home more frequently are less likely to choose fast foods on the occasions when they eat out.

But wait, you say, I haven't got time!
At the end of a busy day you get home to an empty fridge, no energy and you're starving - it's too easy to make bad decisions on what to eat; takeaways and fast food seem an easy option.
We’d suggest the first place to look is at WLR’s articles:
Check out our helpful article Easier Evening Meals for some time-saving ideas.

If it's cooking skills, or knowing how to cook healthily, that's holding you back take a look at Laurence's Healthy Cooking Tips