Disclaimer: The advice on this website has come out of my own experience in my own particular situation. Where it contradicts your nutritionist’s advice, please ignore mine. Your nutritionist knows best.
In your early days, it may be difficult at first to motivate yourself to cook more than an egg, so you might be looking for appropriate takeaway food or something straight from the supermarket shelf that’s nutritious, comes in small portions and is easy to digest.
Disclaimer #2: I’m writing from Australia, so some of the products I recommend might not be available where you are, or come with different names, sizes or units of measurement.
Your first thought might go to baby or toddler food. You can certainly give it a try, but I must warn you that, as an adult, you might find it bland if not unpalatable. A viable option might be frozen meals for pre-schoolers which weigh in at 200gm.
Another option is dairy food. You’ll find prepared custard and, of course, yoghurt in your supermarket fridge. You might also enjoy ricotta or cottage cheese, soft cheeses such as fresh mozzarella or bocconcini, haloumi or feta, or mild cheese in individual portions such as cream cheese triangles, cheese slices or sticks and mini Babybel.
Fish is light and easy to digest. Some fish shops sell grilled fish by weight, and I can recommend sashimi if you like Japanese food. In the supermarket you’ll find snack size cans of tuna with a variety of flavourings. (Other canned fish may have bones so it might be best to avoid them at this stage.) In the fridge you’ll find smoked salmon, and, in the freezer, oven-ready fish in a variety of forms and sizes. (However, fresh or frozen fish fillets can be cooked from scratch in a matter of minutes. See Five Minute Fish)
Also in the freezer, you’ll find oven-ready potatoes and roast vegetables, small pastries such as sausage rolls, party pies, pastizzi and little quiches, as well as Italian and Asian style finger food. In the fridge you’ll find falafel balls, vegetarian bites and dips. Many coffee shops and bakeries also serve small pastries.
Your local butcher and chicken shop will have meat balls, rissoles and skewers which just need to be popped under the griller. In the supermarket freezer you’ll find oven ready frozen chicken tenders and nuggets, which, of course, are also available from your favourite fast-food outlets.
Sliced roast beef, pork and turkey are available from the deli. You can find roast, pulled and sliced chicken in the deli and the fridge. On the shelf you’ll find snack size cans of shredded chicken with a variety of flavourings.
On the supermarket shelf you’ll also find single serve cans of baked beans and spaghetti as well as single-serve flavoured microwave rice. You’ll also find snack size cans of flavoured chickpeas and beans. Pasta and potato salads can be found in the deli or the fridge.
Soup is another handy standby. The simplest option is to heat up some liquid vegetable, chicken or beef stock, perhaps with a little seasoning, to make a quick consommé or you could add some crushed instant noodles or a few vegetables to make a light soup.
You’ll, of course, see a wide range of powdered instant soups in the soup aisle, but I wouldn’t recommend them at this stage as their nutritional value is minimal and doesn’t compensate for their bulk. (In fact, you can make soup-in-a-mug from scratch in a few minutes. See Quick and Healthy Snacks: Soup-in-a-Mug.) However, I would recommend a range of single-serve Asian style condensed soups in sachets which are light, very tasty and made from all natural ingredients. (For more see 6 Ways with Sachet Soups.)
Possibly the only single-serve canned soup you’ll find in the soup aisle will be the ever-popular tomato soup. Most of the soups in cans, tubs and sachets will be in larger portion sizes than you want, though you could always eat some and either refrigerate or freeze the rest. You could also do the same with the single-serve fresh soups you’ll find in the fridge.
For breakfast you could have a milky coffee or hot chocolate, a small glass of fruit and/or vegetable juice, a sachet of instant oats or a small serve of plain cereal, or some preserved fruit with, perhaps, a dollop of yoghurt. For a special treat or take-out snack, many desserts are available in small individual serves.
Check with your nutritionist which fresh fruit and vegetables you can eat raw at this stage. However, you can probably consume most of them in a fruit or vegetable smoothie for which a bullet blender is ideal. A batch can go into the fridge and you can drink a small glass or so at a time through the day.
Nuts, dried fruit, oat and muesli bars are also nutritious and available in small portions. However, you may not be able to eat these in your early days. Check with your nutritionist before trying them.
If you’re looking for something a little more substantial, you could consult the entry, Eating In with Next to No Cooking.