Living on frozen dinners (Lean Cuisine, Smart Ones) - any comments

sparky00721

I have restarted more careful eating, after months and months of eating a really astonishing amount of pizza daily. It is just possible that I am carrying a tad too much weight just now - my daughter called me tubby the other day - so I am re-committing to calorie counting, etc.

As part of my renewed commitment I find myself, out of convenience, eating frozen TV dinners regularly - reasonably low-calorie items from the Lean Cuisine and Weight Watcher Smart Ones line. It is working for me in terms of calorie targets, keeping the macros roughly in line, keeping me happy and feeling full. In an ideal world I would be cooking for myself and eating fresh, but I am in the unique position of surely being the only person in the world who is busy due to work and life obligations, and frozen glop is super-convenient.

Any thoughts on whether long-term ingestion along these lines is ill-advised? Any chance of growing an extra-limb or anything unexpected as a result?

missiontofitness

It doesn't teach sustainable habits. Also, if your prices are like the ones at my local store, you're paying $2-$4 per tray for a very small portion. You can easily pick one or two days a week to do a bulk meal prep, so you have meals prepared ahead of time. It will save you a lot of money, and make frozen meals a once in a while necessity, rather than something you are relying on now.

So I would say to use some of that money to get a food scale, pick your days to prep (I usually do mine sporadically throughout the week, but Sunday used to be my big day), and get cracking! You can also freeze bulk meals as well so you can heat them up later on at work or wherever life takes you.

Alatariel75

I second the taking some time on one day to cook your own frozen gloop, but if that's truly not manageable they aren't going to hurt you unless you have a problem with high sodium. Are you gonna eat them forever though? Seriously see if you can make the time to throw together some home made frozen stuff

comm1t_1984

Be careful with the amount of sodium in the frozen meals. I used to like Lean Cuisine Steamers that were inspired by the Top Chef meals. They were great and usually on sale at Walmart.

After a while, I went to some freezer meal workshops and my son loved getting the meals ready at the beginning of the week with me. We just take the freezer meals out in the morning, by the time we get home everything is thawed and we cook it quick and have supper for the night and a few left over meals. This was always nice because it would give us simple meals and quick meals for lunch and it was healthier than the frozen meals.

SchweddyGirl

The major issue with the boxed dinners is the sodium levels...I personally make my own frozen dinners because of this. Plus...when I make my own, I have the satisfaction of knowing what is in it. It is super easy to make your own, you just have to invest in the tuperware, mason jars, etc, and set out a time to mass produce the meals... Chili, pasta sauce, soups, poached chicken, etc...all super easy frozen staples that are in my inventory for when I am too busy to cook.

Kalikel

I think they're a great way to start. They're portion-controlled and can help you get your calories in line, which is the first step.

One step at a time.

sparky00721

Thanks for the comments - much appreciated, particularly in relation to watching sodium content.

I took a quick look at my sodium report for myself for the past week - not too bad at all, but I am only eating one frozen dinner per day, and the rest is fresh (exception being a daily Starbucks bran muffin habit I am having a hard time shaking). I never/rarely add salt to my food otherwise, so overall I am doing okay sodium-wise.

I agree that for me they have been a great way to start, and made transitioning back into more controlled eating pretty painless. But I expect I will work towards some of the batch cooking/freezing suggestions at some point. My cats are not going like it - they have learned to run in terror anytime I experiment in the kitchen, but fingers crossed.

meryl135

For batch cooking, it doesn't have to be gourmet. You can just start with the following simple key ingredients:

* prepare a large batch of a simple, high-fibre carb (I like quinoa or brown rice);
* make a few days worth of protein (think single chicken breasts, fish fillets, lean beef steak, etc.) which you can bake, roast or grill with whatever seasonings you like;
* chop up a large quantity of whatever veggies you like (peppers, zucchini and onion go well together) and sautée them lightly in some olive oil and whatever seasoning you like;

Store each item in a separate container. Then each day you can just add an appropriate serving of each of the 3 separate macro-ingredients to a pan, warm it up and you have a stir-fry. Done in about 5 minutes.

Kalikel

sparky00721 wrote: »

Thanks for the comments - much appreciated, particularly in relation to watching sodium content.

I took a quick look at my sodium report for myself for the past week - not too bad at all, but I am only eating one frozen dinner per day, and the rest is fresh (exception being a daily Starbucks bran muffin habit I am having a hard time shaking). I never/rarely add salt to my food otherwise, so overall I am doing okay sodium-wise.

I agree that for me they have been a great way to start, and made transitioning back into more controlled eating pretty painless. But I expect I will work towards some of the batch cooking/freezing suggestions at some point. My cats are not going like it - they have learned to run in terror anytime I experiment in the kitchen, but fingers crossed.

Please teach me this trick of yours that gets the cats to run from food. I have the opposite problem, lol.

Watching sodium and adding more fruits and veggies is a great next step!!

Sodium is so hard to cut down that I think it's great to read up on it and watch it from the get-go. If you leave it for last, it's like starting all over, so might be easier to keep an eye on it as you go.


http://sodiumbreakup.heart.org/sodium-411/

LizinTx1967

Alatariel75 wrote: »

I second the taking some time on one day to cook your own frozen gloop, but if that's truly not manageable they aren't going to hurt you unless you have a problem with high sodium. Are you gonna eat them forever though? Seriously see if you can make the time to throw together some home made frozen stuff

They will hurt anyone who has diabetis too with all the sugar and white carbs and even if your not diabetic or borderline diabetic like me I just think white carbs and all that sugar in general isn't healthy for you.

In my thread Frozen foods and low carbs I was talking about the Atkins frozen meals which I think have a lot less sugar and white carbs. However Im not going with that either it still has white carbs.

For a quick easy way to make low carb low fat healthy foods Im choosing the low fat frozen and refridgerated meats that WAlmarts have instead. they have roast beef chicken and frozen fish.

Then Illa dd my own vgies chopped up in it and my own clean carbs. I can put it on an open faced sandwich or use crackers to eat it with after I microwave the meat. I can also take the meat out it in a whole wheat or soft corn tortilla with salsa and lowfat cheese and fat free refried beans, so Id microwave it first then put together the taco which would only take a few minutes then remicrowave it and it would still only take a few minutes so its still quick and easy!

That way you get the clean carbs instead of all the sugar and white carbs and way less sodium so its a lot healthier then the frozen dinners.

sjaplo

LizinTx1967 wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

I second the taking some time on one day to cook your own frozen gloop, but if that's truly not manageable they aren't going to hurt you unless you have a problem with high sodium. Are you gonna eat them forever though? Seriously see if you can make the time to throw together some home made frozen stuff

They will hurt anyone who has diabetis too with all the sugar and white carbs and even if your not diabetic or borderline diabetic like me I just think white carbs and all that sugar in general isn't healthy for you.

In my thread Frozen foods and low carbs I was talking about the Atkins frozen meals which I think have a lot less sugar and white carbs. However Im not going with that either it still has white carbs.

For a quick easy way to make low carb low fat healthy foods Im choosing the low fat frozen and refridgerated meats that WAlmarts have instead. they have roast beef chicken and frozen fish.

Then Illa dd my own vgies chopped up in it and my own clean carbs. I can put it on an open faced sandwich or use crackers to eat it with after I microwave the meat. I can also take the meat out it in a whole wheat or soft corn tortilla with salsa and lowfat cheese and fat free refried beans, so Id microwave it first then put together the taco which would only take a few minutes then remicrowave it and it would still only take a few minutes so its still quick and easy!

That way you get the clean carbs instead of all the sugar and white carbs and way less sodium so its a lot healthier then the frozen dinners.

Man am I glad its then of the day and hopefully the nonsense above about the debil sucrose will go unnnoticed.............

LizinTx1967

whats dibil sucrose? nonsense? yes please explain ty.

LizinTx1967

theres been a lot of nonsense in this thread because people keep saying the only danger in those tv dinners are sodium huh? Id say a ton of sugar and white carbs is very dangerous sorry, so I see the nonsense here too.

missiontofitness

LizinTx1967 wrote: »

theres been a lot of nonsense in this thread because people keep saying the only danger in those tv dinners are sodium huh? Id say a ton of sugar and white carbs is very dangerous sorry, so I see the nonsense here too.

Sugar and "white carbs" are not dangerous unless you have a medical condition that requires you to watch your intake of sugar or carbohydrates.

missiontofitness

sparky00721 wrote: »

Thanks for the comments - much appreciated, particularly in relation to watching sodium content.

I took a quick look at my sodium report for myself for the past week - not too bad at all, but I am only eating one frozen dinner per day, and the rest is fresh (exception being a daily Starbucks bran muffin habit I am having a hard time shaking). I never/rarely add salt to my food otherwise, so overall I am doing okay sodium-wise.

I agree that for me they have been a great way to start, and made transitioning back into more controlled eating pretty painless. But I expect I will work towards some of the batch cooking/freezing suggestions at some point. My cats are not going like it - they have learned to run in terror anytime I experiment in the kitchen, but fingers crossed.

Sounds great! I'm sure the fear your cats experience will subside after a few times experimenting in the kitchen.

brenn24179

you can sure lose weight on them. I lost my first 35 lbs out of 50 that way. Not very healthy, all the sodium but it worked weight wise. I got tired of frozen dinners anyway, now eat healthy.

abatonfan

LizinTx1967 wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

I second the taking some time on one day to cook your own frozen gloop, but if that's truly not manageable they aren't going to hurt you unless you have a problem with high sodium. Are you gonna eat them forever though? Seriously see if you can make the time to throw together some home made frozen stuff

They will hurt anyone who has diabetis too with all the sugar and white carbs and even if your not diabetic or borderline diabetic like me I just think white carbs and all that sugar in general isn't healthy for you.

In my thread Frozen foods and low carbs I was talking about the Atkins frozen meals which I think have a lot less sugar and white carbs. However Im not going with that either it still has white carbs.

For a quick easy way to make low carb low fat healthy foods Im choosing the low fat frozen and refridgerated meats that WAlmarts have instead. they have roast beef chicken and frozen fish.

Then Illa dd my own vgies chopped up in it and my own clean carbs. I can put it on an open faced sandwich or use crackers to eat it with after I microwave the meat. I can also take the meat out it in a whole wheat or soft corn tortilla with salsa and lowfat cheese and fat free refried beans, so Id microwave it first then put together the taco which would only take a few minutes then remicrowave it and it would still only take a few minutes so its still quick and easy!

That way you get the clean carbs instead of all the sugar and white carbs and way less sodium so its a lot healthier then the frozen dinners.

Please, can I smack you with my insulin pump?

If a person knows how to look at a frozen meal's nutrition facts and ingredients list, they can easily determine if that meal fits their dietary needs. I'm a TYPE 1 diabetic (don't say that I got it from eating sugar), and frozen meals are a staple for evenings where I don't have any extra chicken breasts in my fridge, and I do not want to take insulin for what the rest of my family is having. There's some brands that feature lean meats and whole grains without a ton of sodium (I am a fan of the Healthy Choice meals) and they make a decent meal when paired with some frozen vegetables. Even when eating these "hurtful frozen meals", I still am keeping my A1C in the high 5%.

Carbs are carbs. There's no "clean" carbs, and there's no "bad" carbs. Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "white carbs". There's refined carbs and non-refined carbs (whole grains), but they're both broken down into glucose -sugar- by the digestive system. The body metabolizes all carbs -excluding dietary fiber and sugar alcohols- the exact same, but the only difference is how quickly the carbs are metabolized (and the subsequent release of glucose from the intestines into the blood stream).

In regards to the OP's main question, I haven't grown an extra limb from eating frozen dinners. It does take some searching though to find food brands that won't blow through your sodium limit and still taste good.

JScottBldrs

Lots of good advice here.............There not going to kill you, but not a good alternative.......don't be lazy, take the time to cook in bulk so you don;'t have to eat them....and it keeps the trash they generate out of the landfill

arditarose

My only beef with them is they're not filling enough. For lunch or a snack, maybe the Amy's light meal-okay. But I need volume. And as far as sodium goes, I'm a salt monster so I bet I put a comparable amount in my own "cooking" (which consists of putting the same vegetables into a pan every night with ground turkey).

arabianhorselover

meryl135 wrote: »

For batch cooking, it doesn't have to be gourmet. You can just start with the following simple key ingredients:

* prepare a large batch of a simple, high-fibre carb (I like quinoa or brown rice);
* make a few days worth of protein (think single chicken breasts, fish fillets, lean beef steak, etc.) which you can bake, roast or grill with whatever seasonings you like;
* chop up a large quantity of whatever veggies you like (peppers, zucchini and onion go well together) and sautée them lightly in some olive oil and whatever seasoning you like;

Store each item in a separate container. Then each day you can just add an appropriate serving of each of the 3 separate macro-ingredients to a pan, warm it up and you have a stir-fry. Done in about 5 minutes.

That is an excellent idea. Why didn't I think of it?

neanderthin

LizinTx1967 wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

I second the taking some time on one day to cook your own frozen gloop, but if that's truly not manageable they aren't going to hurt you unless you have a problem with high sodium. Are you gonna eat them forever though? Seriously see if you can make the time to throw together some home made frozen stuff

They will hurt anyone who has diabetis too with all the sugar and white carbs and even if your not diabetic or borderline diabetic like me I just think white carbs and all that sugar in general isn't healthy for you.

In my thread Frozen foods and low carbs I was talking about the Atkins frozen meals which I think have a lot less sugar and white carbs. However Im not going with that either it still has white carbs.

For a quick easy way to make low carb low fat healthy foods Im choosing the low fat frozen and refridgerated meats that WAlmarts have instead. they have roast beef chicken and frozen fish.

Then Illa dd my own vgies chopped up in it and my own clean carbs. I can put it on an open faced sandwich or use crackers to eat it with after I microwave the meat. I can also take the meat out it in a whole wheat or soft corn tortilla with salsa and lowfat cheese and fat free refried beans, so Id microwave it first then put together the taco which would only take a few minutes then remicrowave it and it would still only take a few minutes so its still quick and easy!

That way you get the clean carbs instead of all the sugar and white carbs and way less sodium so its a lot healthier then the frozen dinners.

Life is so frikken complicated, especially those darn white foods, eh? I like the cracker swap for those white carbs, bravo, you got this.

Sugarbeat

Kalikel wrote: »

sparky00721 wrote: »

Thanks for the comments - much appreciated, particularly in relation to watching sodium content.

I took a quick look at my sodium report for myself for the past week - not too bad at all, but I am only eating one frozen dinner per day, and the rest is fresh (exception being a daily Starbucks bran muffin habit I am having a hard time shaking). I never/rarely add salt to my food otherwise, so overall I am doing okay sodium-wise.

I agree that for me they have been a great way to start, and made transitioning back into more controlled eating pretty painless. But I expect I will work towards some of the batch cooking/freezing suggestions at some point. My cats are not going like it - they have learned to run in terror anytime I experiment in the kitchen, but fingers crossed.

Please teach me this trick of yours that gets the cats to run from food. I have the opposite problem, lol.

+1 In my house it's "hey she's in the kitchen, follow her and someone wake the dogs while you're at it." Or vice versa. One of my dogs knows what cleaning out the fridge sounds like and will come from any corner of the house as soon as she hears the first plastic container hit the counter.

Sugarbeat

Ok, my quote thingy didn't work right. Anyway, OP, if you have a daughter old enough to notice weight gain I'd say you already understand the economical value and probably the higher sodium part and all that. I think if you're keeping an eye on the nutrients label and it fits in your calories, why not? Lets face it, life does not always allow for batch cooking (kudos if you can do it) and sometimes you just need to be able to grab something and go. I don't eat them often for lunch but when I do its kind of a to not need to put something together.

Need2Exerc1se

sparky00721 wrote: »

Any thoughts on whether long-term ingestion along these lines is ill-advised? Any chance of growing an extra-limb or anything unexpected as a result?

That might be cool, but I'd say it's an extremely rare possibility. If you don't already take one, you might want to consider a daily multivitamin to make sure you are getting your micronutrients.

sparky00721

Sugarbeat wrote: »

Kalikel wrote: »

sparky00721 wrote: »

Thanks for the comments - much appreciated, particularly in relation to watching sodium content.

My cats are not going like it - they have learned to run in terror anytime I experiment in the kitchen, but fingers crossed.

Please teach me this trick of yours that gets the cats to run from food. I have the opposite problem, lol.

+1 In my house it's "hey she's in the kitchen, follow her and someone wake the dogs while you're at it." Or vice versa. One of my dogs knows what cleaning out the fridge sounds like and will come from any corner of the house as soon as she hears the first plastic container hit the counter.

Yep, both of my cats, Thing 1 and Thing 2, follow me into the kitchen regularly, hoping that I will have forgotten that I already fed them and that they get a chance to double up on meals. Well, more accurately, instead of following me, they run between my legs and directly underneath where my feet are heading - seems to be a fun game for them, and I swear on occasion I have heard them snicker when they come close to their goal of tripping me up.

They flee from the kitchen in embarrassment for me when they see me in front of the stove, trying to decide whether peanut butter or mustard or some similar random thing should be added to whatever chili or pasta sauce I may be making.

LizinTx1967

abatonfan wrote: »

LizinTx1967 wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

I second the taking some time on one day to cook your own frozen gloop, but if that's truly not manageable they aren't going to hurt you unless you have a problem with high sodium. Are you gonna eat them forever though? Seriously see if you can make the time to throw together some home made frozen stuff

They will hurt anyone who has diabetis too with all the sugar and white carbs and even if your not diabetic or borderline diabetic like me I just think white carbs and all that sugar in general isn't healthy for you.

In my thread Frozen foods and low carbs I was talking about the Atkins frozen meals which I think have a lot less sugar and white carbs. However Im not going with that either it still has white carbs.

For a quick easy way to make low carb low fat healthy foods Im choosing the low fat frozen and refridgerated meats that WAlmarts have instead. they have roast beef chicken and frozen fish.

Then Illa dd my own vgies chopped up in it and my own clean carbs. I can put it on an open faced sandwich or use crackers to eat it with after I microwave the meat. I can also take the meat out it in a whole wheat or soft corn tortilla with salsa and lowfat cheese and fat free refried beans, so Id microwave it first then put together the taco which would only take a few minutes then remicrowave it and it would still only take a few minutes so its still quick and easy!

That way you get the clean carbs instead of all the sugar and white carbs and way less sodium so its a lot healthier then the frozen dinners.

Please, can I smack you with my insulin pump?

If a person knows how to look at a frozen meal's nutrition facts and ingredients list, they can easily determine if that meal fits their dietary needs. I'm a TYPE 1 diabetic (don't say that I got it from eating sugar), and frozen meals are a staple for evenings where I don't have any extra chicken breasts in my fridge, and I do not want to take insulin for what the rest of my family is having. There's some brands that feature lean meats and whole grains without a ton of sodium (I am a fan of the Healthy Choice meals) and they make a decent meal when paired with some frozen vegetables. Even when eating these "hurtful frozen meals", I still am keeping my A1C in the high 5%.

Carbs are carbs. There's no "clean" carbs, and there's no "bad" carbs. Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "white carbs". There's refined carbs and non-refined carbs (whole grains), but they're both broken down into glucose -sugar- by the digestive system. The body metabolizes all carbs -excluding dietary fiber and sugar alcohols- the exact same, but the only difference is how quickly the carbs are metabolized (and the subsequent release of glucose from the intestines into the blood stream).

In regards to the OP's main question, I haven't grown an extra limb from eating frozen dinners. It does take some searching though to find food brands that won't blow through your sodium limit and still taste good.

Ok let me restate it and use I statements. perhaps I got abit huffy because of that statement about my post being stupid dibil,I think its rude.

But let me say this whatever works for you works for you, if your happy with the results from the lean cuisines and WW dinners then I wont tell you not to do it. I did use to do it myself and actually I like a lot of those dinners as well.

However as far as there being no difference between white and whole wheats and no such thing as bad and good carbs I disagree with that based on the way my body reacts to it. Im a borderline diabetic, and if I eat a lowfat low calorie healthy diet including those dinners which I have before, I either don't lose any weight and sometimes I gain from it.

When I switch out to clean carbs which include fruits,vegies, beans, baked potatoes,corn and whole wheat carbs, then I lose anywhere between 2 to 5 pounds a week.

SO if theres no difference between them apparently Im an alien from mars my body is alien because my body reacts differently to the 2. My docter says my body cant handle white carbs and sugar.

My Blood sugar also gets too high and sometimes I have dizziness spells from it and if it gets too high I can become hospitalized from it.

But if it makes you happy then by all means do it but we cant all eat that way sorry.
I

Timorous_Beastie

I ate them for a while, but I can whip up a similar meal that's a lot more filling for less calories and way less money, in not much more time. I always make sure I have bags of frozen vegetables, a collection of different sauces & marinades, and some shrimp, chicken breast and fish.

I work from home, so I can just chuck it all in a frying pan and make a stir fry, but if I worked outside the home, it'd be just as easy to spend a day precooking some chicken and putting it all in a tupperware to microwave. (I wouldn't microwave seafood in a microwave that others use. I know too many people who hate the smell.)