Commercial Pre-Portioned Meals

But yourself some scales and a set of measuring cups - its a pain in the butt at first weighing and counting everything but after a few days it feels like second nature.

You are never going to be far out - if anything people tend to over estimate on the cals.

Can't substitute good healthy food for packaged chemically altered food.

Also add recipes to your food page that you use often it will make the whole process easier.

Happy counting

In cooking, the food scale is your friend. You just measure all the ingredient that you are putting in the pan, add them up, then when you take some out of the batch, you weigh that and divide.

My problem when I was doing the pre-packaged meals is that they were too expensive and lacked adequate protein. You could and probably should supplement the pre-packaged meals with things that it doesn't matter so much if you are inaccurate in calorie counting, like vegetables.

It may take some time, but the suggestion to weigh/measure is a good one. As for preparing home cooked meals, if it's something you make regularly, use the 'recipe' section here! It's actually really helpful for working out how many calories one serving of a meal will come out as. (I personally used it for an overnight oats recipe recently, and it saves me inputting the individual ingredients time after time.)

Buy a kitchen scale, measuring cups and spoons and measure everything out.

Is any one currently eating any pre-portioned meals and how is it working for you?

I am struggling with accuracy in how to figure out calorie intake and thought that I should give these a try.

Just had a Healthy Choice and it was not bad but the calories are only 330. I need to get to 1500 calories
when I work out and am struggling eating them yet I am scared to go over if I cook and am not accurate.

Let me quickly mention that I am a Latina and cook very traditionally. Counting calories is new to me and
can't seem to nail it myself.

For instance I only cook using "Sofrito" always as a base for my food... i just feel like am not getting it accurate.
So I am resorting to pre-counted/pre-portioned meals.

Any helpful thoughts?!

Are you making your own sofrito? Just enter the ingredients in the recipe builder.

It sounds like you are going to enjoy your foods a lot more if you can eat traditionally, so it is important that you learn to figure out the nutritional value.

If you are afraid foods, you will never learn to do this right and will just have to do it over and over. It is better to learn now.

Agreed! Plus those prepackaged "diet" foods are very processed and contain lots of sodium. In my opinion, they are good for a rushed meal or a lazy night but aside from that they are not a good food regimine as they themselves are not good for you.

Thanks for mentioning sofrito, I used it in our dinner tonight!

Sofrito is just a mixture of bell peppers, onions, garlic and tomato that is used as a base. It gets its own name, because it is made in big batches and used up as needed.

If your local store carries it, it is in the freezer section under the brand name Goya. Maggi has just started producing a shelf stable version that is found with the soups and bullions, but I live in Texas and have only seen it one store.

It is a fast and easy way to make sloppy joes or taco meat with veggies, rather than all the added stuff in seasoning packets. I add it to ground turkey or lentils, then add other seasonings according to what I am aiming for. Sloppy joes just get a splash of Worcestershire sauce, tacos get chili and cumin, Indian gets curry powder and some more tomato...

because of my job I take things like healthy choice or lean cuisine for lunches...everything else I make.. I also bring a salad, fruit whole grain snacks and so forth because I try to eat every three hours ( no small feat working at a college)....