Counting Calories, using Frozen Meals

I eat frozen meals on occasion. I like the convenience when I don't have time to cook. I see where one could lose weight while eating just frozen meals, however that still leaves you with work to do when you get to maintenance.

Losing weight is just the first step. Look for some permanent changes that will also help you during maintenance.

Figure out how to cook some of those meals yourself. https://www.skinnytaste.com/ http://www.cookinglight.com/ Learning how to reduce calories in favorite foods will give you tools for life. Look into batch cooking....make some of your own frozen meals.

You might also want to weigh your frozen meals if you find you are not losing as expected. Package weights aren't required to be spot on. There will be times when you are eating more than you think.

Arianna52 wrote: »

Thanks to all.
So far I had Smart Ones from Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine. LC had a funny taste, (beef did not look tasty) and both had 700 milligrams of Sodium. Our daily intake should be limited to 1200 miligrams. I can feel the effects of too much sodium.
I made my research and Amy's and Kashi had the lowest sodium.

Thanks 88olds...will add more veggies next time.

Goal: 140 lbs.

Do you have a medical reason to be at 1200? That doesn't correlate with any of the recommendations I've seen for people who don't have to limit for health reasons.

https://sodiumbreakup.heart.org/how_much_sodium_should_i_eat?utm_source=SRI&utm_medium=HeartOrg&utm_term=Website&utm_content=SodiumAndSalt&utm_campaign=SodiumBreakup
Sodium targets were recently changed in 2017. Heart association recommended no more than 2300mg a day max. Ideal target for sodium is now 1500mg a day.

Yes, frozen meals are pre-measured, convenient, and a lot of them have some semblance of balance. There's a lot going for them. I use them too.

However, sooner or later you'll need to eat other kinds of foods. Eating a high frozen-food diet has hazards, as you can tell. Also, I don't know about you but at some point I'd want a nice salad, or a friend will invite me to brunch, or I just simply would get tired of frozen dinners.

And that's part of the process: not just limited your diet to pre-measured foods. One of the reasons "Jenny Craig" is so appealing is that you don't have to think about what to eat, you just get a meal. But the problem is after you lose the weight, you're not going to live on that food the rest of your life...and now you don't know how to eat real food. Oops. But by learning flexibility and thinking through your food intake, you're better prepared.

Have you thought about maybe looking into meal prepping and freezing meals for a week or two at a time? You can get freezer/microwave/dishwasher safe containers off of Amazon for around $12. I used to live off frozen dinners but now I batch cook once a week and make enough for that week. Usually spend less than 2 hours on prep day, so not too bad, and I then have a freezer full of (mostly) homecooked frozen dinners. (I cannot master the art of grilling my own chicken, so I'm still buying that pre-cooked... one day)

I eat several Lean Cuisines a week, always over an entire bag of frozen veggies. I don’t worry about sodium. Here are my favs: butternut ravioli over sugar snap peas; shrimp Alfredo over broccoli and mushroom mezzaluna over spinach.