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Cheap vegetarian meal that doesn't take much effort to prepare: chickpea masala (low effort conditional on having access to an instant pot or other pressure cooker which lets you make beans and lentils and such unattended in not much time and without pre-soaking). If you don't have one, a pressure cooker is worth having for a vegetarian looking for protein sources. Here's my chickpea masala recipe: https://1drv.ms/w/s!AtRSRUz0eRc7geo7OogUcm-UfoJZyQ

To simplify, just throw all the spices in a bowl without measuring too carefully, roast briefly in frying pan, add oil and onions and fry a bit, add chickpeas and tomatoes and simmer. Made even cheaper by bulking it out with rice. Made fancier by a piece of Naan heated briefly in a bit of butter.

You may prefer plainer foods, but even if so, beans/lentils/chickpeas and rice are cheap and you can mix them with whatever spices you do like to add protein to your diet.

An even lower effort cheap meal: microwave some potatoes until done, a few minutes per potato, add butter and whatever spice you feel like, I like a creamy Caesar salad dressing. Done, and the Internet tells me potatoes are surprisingly rich in nutrients and things.

Even simpler, but still with protein? Peanut butter. From a jar, with a spoon. Best: my local bulk barn has honey roasted peanuts that you can grind fresh in their on-site machine. Fantastic.

Frozen dinners and such are not a good price to decency ratio, in my opinion.

I've been in the same boat. I managed to go from 140 to 150. It took about a year, and required drinking Soylent with breakfast and putting it in a protein shake in the evening. Also gorging on burritos and ribs every night, and eating a hotdog bun (from the local Chinese bakery) every morning.

If you're naturally lean, and not making a serious concerted effort, I think it's unlikely.

fair assessment. I am naturally lean, and am not putting a significant effort at it, and have stayed around this weight for like 5 years

But then again… love finds a way.

Update: the sublet of my appartment from jan to apr stopped and i don’t got a balance for weighing my weight. But i am back at my parents’ and starve slightly less often

@Bayesian are you eating a good amount of protein?

@shankypanky No… i have protein powder but it isn’t very good so I mostly eat bread and yogurt and cereals and oatmeal… and frozen dish or pasta or instant noodles or kraft dinner when im feeling fancy and wanna relive the appartment days

@Bayesian bro needs to start meal planning. count the macros. you need to get hella protein to gain weight, find cheap sources like chicken from costco or smthn. you need to bulk up i got 50 mana on the line

@DerekYao lmao 😂

Bayesian I'm adding this to the list of stuff to talk to you about

@DerekYao I am vegetarian 😟 but yeah planning isn’t my strong suit idk… although there was these two meals at costco that i liked, one was some kind of bulk protein milk, and the other was some kind of instant beans meal thingy, and both were delicious and took 2 min to prepare, maybe i should just buy a lot of those, hmmm much to think about

@Bayesian Start drinking olive oil straight up. Raw

I basically do this, except with water instead of olive oil

@Bayesian 😂

I ran out of cheese and canned beans the othwr week and now im starving 😟

Are you going to the gym ?

@bobbill no, I'm uh doing 40 pushups per day that's all so far

What is our initial state?

@RanaG 139.4 lb

@Bayesian noticed you've added to the description later