Vegetarians on diets

I am not a vegetarian but my daughter is so I cook without meat a lot. Have you tried quinoa? It's a super food and very high in protein. You basically boil water and stir it in. It's really good with dried fruit and/or nuts stirred into it or misc chopped vegetables. My last trip to Costco I found a 4 pack of Seeds of Change Quinoa and whole grain brown rice that comes in a pouch you can microwave (although I don't like to do that a lot because I have heard it is not good to microwave plastic). Each pouch is 2 servings with 240 calories per serving 3.5 g fat, 3 g fiber and 6 g protein. You could have it with fresh or frozen vegetables.

Rice and beans is another good option. You can buy premade boxes that you just cook in water although the cheapest and healthiest would be slow cook rice and dry beans.

My daughters both love pasta with veggies. You can boil the pasta and in last 3 minutes add chopped up broccoli, carrots, red pepper, peas etc. You can then serve with a little grated cheese. It tastes better if you sautee the veggies in a little olive oil and veggie broth and season with Italian seasonings but that is more cooking! My older daughter eats some meat but she doesn't cook it for herself. She is also in college with limited cooking skills so I know she does the pasta/veggie thing a lot! I make up casseroles for her to bake such as a mexican pasta and vegetable lasagna. Let me know if you do want these recipes.

Hope these ideas help!

I am a vegetarian too. I enjoy cooking but there is a lot you can do without having to cool. I eat a lot of cheese, yogurt, greek yogurt with fruit or jam mixed in, beans, lentils, peanut butter on english muffins etc. You can buy one of the Progresso 0 point soups and mix in a can of black beans ( not too much cooking) - that gives me 3-4 servings and with a grilled cheese sandwich keeps me full for a while. I buy La Tortilla Factory tortillas, vitamuffin vitatops and some lean cuisine meals. Hope that helps.

Hi! With the help of MFP I've just lost 18.5 lbs. in 3 months and passed my goal weight.

As a vegetarian who rarely cooks, I came into a kind of routine: 1/2 cup non-fat yogurt with an apple or blueberries and 1 or 2 tablespoons of walnuts for breakfast. Lunch is ideally high in veggies (the tips about soup are good and a veggie omelette is portable if you don't mind eating it cold). Often I'd steam frozen edamame (low-cal and super high protein) -- it tastes to me like green peas. On the way to work, I'd often take a cheese sandwich on Ezekiel bread, or Fritoes black-bean dip on Triscuits. Snacks were often 9 salted almonds with a half-serving (a little more than 2 tablespoons) of dried cranberries or 4 dried apricots. Lately, I've been carrying 50-calorie packs of pretzels. Occasionally, I'd buy an Odwalla protein drink, and I've eaten a lot of oatmeal with fruit and nuts at Starbucks. When at a restaurant, I learned to order just a salad. If I ate over my calorie limit for the day, I'd mentally roll the extra calories onto the next day and either eat less or exercise more so that the total for the two days together was where it should be (2400 calories since I was on a 1200 calorie/day plan).

Now I'm on maintenance and don't know how to do it. I can keep losing weight on 1200 calories per day or I can gain it back. I don't know how to adjust to the 1580 calories per day that MFP recommends. I've been toying with the idea of staying on 1200 calories per day during the week in my familiar routine, and doubling that on the weekends so I don't continue to lose. It's so easy to eat 800 - 1200 calories on one meal out. A weekly burrito and a few slices of pizza would quickly put me into the calorie-range for the week. What do you think? How would you recommend doing maintenance?