meal plan

like nutrisystem or just a personal menu??

Are you looking for a persona menu to follow? I've found that you find a few things that you like for each meal that's easy and rotate them in and out of the menu or stick with them until you get sick of it.

I sort of follow a menu, one I laid out for myself- but i only started 3 wks ago so I wonder how long I before I change it.
Breakfast is always one serving of Kashi Go lean plus one serving of fruit, usually a banana-260 cal (I don’t drink the fat free milk I put in so I don’t really count all of it).
Morning snack is 1 cup of Mountain Fresh fat free plain yogurt (120 cal).
Lunch is pita with spinach, cucumber, red pepper, onion and 1.75 ounces of Tofu, of maybe 2 slices of lean turkey, and one tbs of hummus (300-330 cal). This covers my whole grains, veggies, fiber, and protein. I'll usually have more fruit (strawberries or clementines with lunch) (50-90 cal),
Afternoon snack is 2 Wasa crackers and maybe a special K snack bar, or 24 pistachios or 12 almonds (170 cal).
Dinner: I make something from scratch but it is almost always 2 cups of a medley of cooked grains (Quinou, brown rice), black beans, veggies and protien (fish, ground turkey, chicken), often on top of spinach (400-500 cal).
Spinach is soooo good for you i try to have at least 2 cups a day. Sometimes I will eat a frozen meal with a spinach salad.
That usually totals 1400 cals. I'm on a 1300 cal diet but always bike to and from work so I usually can guarantee an extra 150 cals.
If I've gone to the gym, which I often do, i might use these calories for evening treats....cheese, skinny cow ice cream etc.

It was tempting to do this. Being on Jenny Craig before, and knowing that I lost weight following their laid out meal plans seemed easy to me, but I knew as soon as I was not following their meals, I would revert back to my old eating habits. So, I re-trained my mind to think healthy and learned to cook for myself. Besides, it is fun experimenting with recipes. And by preparing your own meals and planning them out, you really learnt to read labels and follow serving sizes, which in my humble opinion is one of the keys to weight loss!!