Lean Cuisine and Slim Fast.

If you're satisfied by them, go ahead and use them. But many find more success in eating more whole foods and avoiding sodium-filled frozen meals or meal replacement shakes that do little to teach about nutrition.

I think the proof that they don't work lies in your admission that you gained weight after losing it. I know, I've made the same mistake.
I think the further your 'reducing' diet is from your 'normal' eating regime, the less likely you are to maintain weight loss. Try soups and milkshakes instead. And use a few exercise calories to make homemade food from fresh ingredients.
Convenience slimming products are fine in an emergency, or once in a while. But they are not useful for finding your 'forever' diet. They are also excruciatingly expensive.

lenoresdream wrote: »

Also how realistic is that for long-term success? Can you keep the weight off long term?

This^

I did SlimFast years ago....yet here I am again. I don't want to be a repeat customer.

I use Lean Cuisine meals from time to time.....but they are NOT a substitute for portion control. I do measure & log regular food too.

Measuring & logging the (same) food that you will be eating during maintenance is eye-opening. Learning appropriate portion sizes gives you tools to keep the weight off.

I have a friend who used diet shakes ... I think it was slimfast ... to lose weight but she ended up gaining it back after she went to regular food again.

I tried eating prepared meals as a means to get me started on losing weight at one time. It was more to get my body used to smaller quantities of food than as a means to weight loss. But then I ended up with a health problem because my sodium intake was too high and so I had to go back to eating regularly prepared foods.

On another note, I always was curious about how come the small portions of food actually consumed in these prepared meals was able to keep my satiated when regular food in those quantities left me ravenous. This made me suspicious of what all those ingredients whose names I could not pronounce were and wondered if I'd be better off without them.

I don't like Lean Cuisine brand because the sodium levels are too high-- but I do occasionally eat other brands such as Healthy Choice or Evol.

I don't find meal replacement shakes like Slimfast to be at ALL satisfying-- they don't fill me up, and leave me feeling hungery. I'd rather have a big huge pile of salad or a big bowl of veggie soup with lots of fiber in in so I actually fell FULL.