One suggestion is to make more "double-duty" dinners.  These are dinners that you make once, but make enough for two evenings (or you can use the ingredients two nights in a row).  These types of dinners are great for foods that taste good as leftovers (which not all foods do!).  Usually these foods are casserole or one-pot dishes with meat (or meat substitute) that won't be dry the next day.

The one down-side to these types of one-pot meals, is that they can add a lot of fat and calories if you depend on them solely to fill you up, or you prepare them using fattening methods.  However, you can avoid both of these pitfalls by first adding a lot of easy to prepare foods that are naturally low in calories (like salad, raw vegetables, and fruits), adding broth soups, and baking rather than frying.  For example, if you make a casserole dish, stick with one piece (about 1/12 of a 9x13 pan) and fill the rest of your plate with a tossed salad, and even add some fruit with dinner or for dessert, and possibly a broth soup, if needed.  This dinner can be quick to make and eaten two nights in a row, saving you time and calories.

Here's a great recipe to get you started.

Healthy Eggplant Parmesan

2 Eggplant, large, peeled and sliced into 1/4" slices

Whole Wheat, Panko Italian Breadcrumbs (you can add your own Italian seasoning if you can only find plain whole wheat or you can use whole wheat seasoned)

3 eggs, beaten

Spaghetti Sauce (36 oz., about one and a half jars)

Fresh Mozzerella (or shredded, if you prefer) (10 oz)

Fresh Basil, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

Fresh Parmesan, shredded

Olive Oil, use an olive oil sprayer, if you have one

Prep time: about 10-15 minutes

Cook time:  40 minutes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  While the oven is preheating, dip the eggplant slices into egg mixture, allowing the egg to drip off the eggplant, then place the eggplant into the breading and coat. Place breaded eggplant slices onto greased cookie sheets and bake in oven 5 minutes each side.

Place a small amount of spaghetti sauce on bottom of 9 x 13 baking pan (just enough to coat the bottom.  Remove eggplant from oven and layer eggplant, sauce, and fresh mozzerella.  Repeat layers until pan is full.  Top with chopped basil and parmesan cheese.

Bake in oven about 30 minutes.  Serve with salad and eat for two nights!  If you have a big family, just double the recipe and make two pans at once.  

TIP!  If your family is hungry, eat the salads while the eggplant is cooking!  You could also start off with a fresh fruit salad or even a fruit sorbet!!

You could make this on your day off from work and it's ready to eat the next day!  You can also freeze this (make sure its well covered) and bake it later in the week.
 

The thing with Paleo, is that like many diets, there is some truth to it and and some logic.  It's kind of like a religion (or politics).  You can make something sound good, have it make sense, then you can tell someone an enormous amount of lies, but they will believe you because you made a lot of sense, initially.  (Maybe that's a bad example, but it works in my mind).   My point is, many things contain half-truths and this misleads people.

Paleo diet is based on the concept that humans have existed for thousands (hundreds of thousands, millions in some form) of years and grains were only recently introduced into our diets about 10,000 years ago.  So supporters of this diet claim that humans primarily existed on a non-grain diet, therefore, we are not meant to eat them.  You can easily see someone hearing this for the first time saying to themselves "yeah, that makes sense!  Maybe we shouldn't eat grains!".  Go one step further and note that the obesity epidemic is happening at a time where people are eating high-carbohydrate diets.  Now we really have a connection!  Go another step further and notice that people who go on Paleo diets, lose weight!  Bingo, we have a winner!  Well, not really...

Let me address each of these, in reverse order.  Yes, people do lose weight on Paleo, just like they do on Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig or any other diet.  When you take in less calories than you need, you lose weight!  It's pretty simple, basic math really.  When people go on what I would term "restrictive" diets (diets that promote eliminating foods and food groups), you inadvertenly reduce your caloric intake.  For example if you normally eat a cheeseburger at lunch, but now your on paleo so you just eat the meat, you reduced your lunch by 230 calories.  Also, when people go on diets, they usually do other things to try and lose weight like increase exercise and reduce other less-nutritious foods like desserts. 

Second point, grains and obesity.  In 1960, 13.4% of adults (in U.S.) were obese; in 1991, 23% were obese; and now in 2012, 34% are obese.  In a matter of 50 years, we went from 1 out of 9, to 1 out of 3.  The problem is not grains from 10,000 years ago, the problem is from something(s) taking place within the last 50 to 60 years.  People have been eating grains for a long time without obesity being an issue. 

Lastly, the point about millions of years without grains, or other forms of agriculture.  Yes, we existed on completely different diets long ago.  But the idea of evolutionary change is that species will change over time to adapt to their environment.  This change occurs because of every species' need to continue survival.  It is possible that agriculture was invented because it was the only way to continue survival (perhaps the food normally consumed was running low, or was getting difficult to maintain and feed everyone).  Innovations develop out of human need.  Producing grains creates a large amount of calories, with nutritional benefit, with reduced amount of land compared to raising livestock.  (And to be truly Paleo, you would not consume livestock, only wild animals.  However, most Paleo dieters don't follow this).  Remember what I stated earlier about half-truths?  Well, if you discredit agriculture, you really need to discredit any type of food discovery including cooking.  We used to eat raw animals before our ancestors discovered fire.  Therefore I would ask a Paleo supporter, "is cooked food making us fat?" (Welcome to the Raw Foods Diet...., again, half-truths).

Not every innovation is good, but most have made human lives much better.  Everything from cooking, growing crops, canning foods, vaccinations, prosthetics, etc... have allowed us to increase our life expectancy from about 19 years old (Paleolithic times) to 77 years old (today).  Oh yeah, when we lived Paleo we were lucky to make it to 20 years old.

Innovation also allowed us to discover vitamins and minerals, and how important they are to optimal health.  We have vitamins, A, D, E, K, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, and more.  One vitamin, B6, serves many important functions including energy metabolism.  Without B6, you're body could not break down stored glucose (glycogen) into available glucose for energy.  B6 is found in grains, beans, fruits and vegetables, as well as lean meats and some kinds of fish.  The Paleo diet is low in B vitamins.  One of the benefits of a balanced diet that is diverse and includes many different food groups is that each food group has a predominance of certain vitamins or minerals.  When we start removing entire food groups, we also remove a large portion of certain vitamins and/or minerals from our diets which can lead to deficiency or poor health.   

One thing I will say is that there is some truth to all of this.  But it lies in the fact that as a society, people are eating too many of the refined carbohydrates, not healthy nutrient-rich grains.  Some aspects of Paleo are good because they help people eat more whole foods and less refined foods.  This is good.  The problem is found more in the restrictive nature of the diet.  You would be better off learning the whole foods concept, but remembering that natural foods in each category bring well-balanced nutrition and optimal health.  

The key to successful, long-term weight loss is making healthy lifestyle changes, however, this needs to be combined with monitoring your energy intake and usage.  Most of us eat more than we think, and our foods contain much more calories, fat, sodium, etc... than we usually give them credit.  If you really want to lose weight, you must learn to keep track of what you eat and how much you exercise.

When I teach a college course in Introductory Nutrition, I have my students keep track of everything they eat for 3 days using a software program that computes their nutritional data.  When the students see what their diets are really like, they nearly cringe in their seats.  They are shocked to see how imbalanced their diets are, including various deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, and fiber, in addition to being surprised by how little, or how much calories and/or fat they are consuming. The same occurs with clients who first begin to keep food journals. 

Keeping a food journal, ideally with software that will compute the nutritional data for you, can be an eye-opening experience as well as a helpful tool to keep you within your recommended calorie range for weight loss.  Suppose you need to consume 1800 calories a day to lose 2 pounds per week.  If you keep track of your food, you can make wise decisions throughout the day about your food choices to ensure you stay at around 1800 calories.  Without tracking this information, it is easy to eat too much, or at the wrong times.

Keeping track of your food intake will not only keep you within the right calorie range for weight loss, it will also make you more aware of what you are eating and help you work towards eating a more balanced diet.  You would be surprised at how easy it is too consume too much fat, too little carbohydrates, or too much sodium.

I recommend using a journal program that is portable, such as one that you can use on your mobile phone or other mobile device, so that each time you eat something, you can input your food.  If you wait until the end of the day, you are almost sure to forget things you ate.  Try to record your foods immediately.  I often will do this while eating a meal at home and it helps me to decide whether or not I should eat more, should stop eating, or should eat something different.  

Which brings me to the next important point about food journaling, it isn't just for people trying to lose weight.  Everyone from time to time should do this just to make sure they are eating a well-balanced diet and bring consciousness to daily food consumption.

There are many programs on the internet that are great for helping you keep a food journal either for free or for a small cost.  If you're serious about wanting to lose weight, I highly recommend keeping a food journal and using it daily.  The more you use it, the easier it is to utilize.