Help a girl out. What are your favorite meal replacement shakes/bars?
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shira324
Posts: 156 Member
For the month of January, I'm planning on eating quick, easy, diet products like shakes, bars and frozen meals for both breakfast and lunch. I'll do my best to make balanced, healthy dinners, and will ease back into meal prepping my other meals later. I'm trying to kick-start my weight loss for this year, and will also be paying attention to my water intake and sleep.
I generally go for Slimfast shakes, Balance bars, Lean Cuisine, and Kodiak cups. I would love to hear your favorites! If you know of any discounts or good retailers, please include that too. (Anyone know if the Nutrisystem food has improved lately? Last I heard it was all pretty unappealing.)
Again, I need easy, on-the-go packaged foods I can grab on my way out the door. (I do have a freezer and microwave at work.)
I generally go for Slimfast shakes, Balance bars, Lean Cuisine, and Kodiak cups. I would love to hear your favorites! If you know of any discounts or good retailers, please include that too. (Anyone know if the Nutrisystem food has improved lately? Last I heard it was all pretty unappealing.)
Again, I need easy, on-the-go packaged foods I can grab on my way out the door. (I do have a freezer and microwave at work.)
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Replies
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You don't need to kick start weight loss. Weight loss happens when you eat fewer calories than you burn. No special kick start required.
You also don't have to buy "meal replacement" or "diet" foods unless you just like the taste of those things. They don't do anything special for weight loss. They simply provide a quick prepackaged meal option just like any other prepackaged food.
My advice would be to meal prep on the weekends if you're in a hurry during the week. You can make several servings of foods you like, portion them out into individual containers, and freeze or refrigerate them so you can just grab them on your way out the door. I especially like using my slow cooker for this. I can make a big batch of something like soup or chili with very little work on my part, then store it in individual portions.8 -
I'd make a bunch of oats for the fridge and make a couple of casseroles to take for lunch over the week before I'd reach for any of the things you are suggesting. It sounds expensive and un-filling.6
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Thanks. Just to clarify, I'm not looking for advice about my method or motives. I'm simply asking if people have suggestions about brands/flavors of packaged products.
If you want to tell me that I'm making a poor choice, please don't respond.13 -
When I am doing shakes, I like the Premier Protein shakes, they have many flavors to choose from. My favorite is the Banana one.1
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For the month of January, I'm planning on eating quick, easy, diet products like shakes, bars and frozen meals for both breakfast and lunch. I'll do my best to make balanced, healthy dinners, and will ease back into meal prepping my other meals later. I'm trying to kick-start my weight loss for this year, and will also be paying attention to my water intake and sleep.
I generally go for Slimfast shakes, Balance bars, Lean Cuisine, and Kodiak cups. I would love to hear your favorites! If you know of any discounts or good retailers, please include that too. (Anyone know if the Nutrisystem food has improved lately? Last I heard it was all pretty unappealing.)
Again, I need easy, on-the-go packaged foods I can grab on my way out the door. (I do have a freezer and microwave at work.)
Not grab-and-go, but just takes a few minutes of prep the night before (brew the coffee over the coconut so it can rehydrate and soak the chia seeds in a little water):
I've done pure meal replacement powder and it was dreadful. It's worth the effort to add stuff to make it more palatable.
When my time was more limited I used to batch-cook (now called Meal Prep) lunches and dinners on Sundays so would have food ready through Wed or Thursdays.1 -
Thanks. Just to clarify, I'm not looking for advice about my method or motives. I'm simply asking if people have suggestions about brands/flavors of packaged products.
If you want to tell me that I'm making a poor choice, please don't respond.
Make your own...then you can have any flavor you want.3 -
I would look at the huge variety of frozen meals and the protein and calorie counts, and decide which look tasty enough to want to try. I think that's probably a better bet for lunch than a shake. I used to get Amy's sometimes and enjoyed some of those, but haven't had a frozen meal in a while. Biggest issue with the healthy ones is that they can be a tiny amount of food (supplementing the veg can help with that), and low in protein.
You could always try Soylent 2.0 for the morning. I'm not really a fan of any commercial shakes. Protein powder plus greek yogurt and some berries would be similar and like any shake you need to mix up anyway.
My assumption is that you are finding the idea of cooking in the morning or ahead for breakfasts and lunches overwhelming so want to get cooking dinner down first but not spend a bunch of cals on breakfast and lunch bought at a restaurant?1 -
While I’m not a fan of meal replacement, I use products by Quest Nutrition in between meals. You can buy them anywhere (Walmart, Target, The Vitamin Shoppe, grocery stores). All of their products are HIGH protein and low carb. They taste great and keep me full.
https://www.questnutrition.com/
I also enjoy Atkins products as well, more as a snack than anything.3 -
You're just not going to get a lot of agreement with your plan.
I used to make protein smoothies, vanilla protein powder goes well with pretty much any fruit and some vegetables. I stopped doing that because it's ridiculously expensive and I was always hungry, and I like food.4 -
On the go.... Not always easy to eat at home. Wierdly, egg mcmuffin's (300 calories) are one of the best sandwiches you can grab at a fast food joint. Yes, sodium is high, but everything else isn't too bad. The new stats on an egg white delight version aren't worth it IMHO (save 20 calories and lose a yolk????!!!).
Another choice is Starbucks Reduced fat Turkey Bacon sandwich. An egg mcmuffin clone for 210 calories. They also have a spinach feta egg-white wrap at 280, and their sous-vide egg bites come in at 170 (red pepper), 240 (Chicken chorizo), and 320 (bacon gruyere) if I remember correctly.
If they have any of these in the store, get them. They come in frozen into starbucks, and they defrost/heat them in a convection oven. Not sure of alternate brands, but it's a starting point.
Quaker overnight oats aren't bad either. prep the night before (add milk and chill). As for lunch, I usually just use leftovers from the night before (or a prior meal frozen). Much easier to deal with.3 -
Combat Crunch chocolate chip cookie dough and their cinnamon twist protein bars and Oh Yeah One glazed maple doughnut protein bars are my current favs.4
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You’re asking for help with what is generally considered an unhealthy and woo part of weight loss, and get salty when people point this out, then get all PA because you’ve had a sarky response to your salty comment?
Perhaps read the forum rules.
And understand that MFP is about a calorie deficit and healthy balance, not glorified dust masquerading as a miracle weight loss powder.
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A lot of things labeled diet aren't worth the extra price, but there are great grab & go healthy foods that don't have the diet label.
The above mentioned Starbuck's Turkey Bacon and the Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Sandwich. Do NOT get the Dunkin Donut turkey sausage sandwich, it is a calorie bomb in comparison.
Instant Oatmeal, Belvita Breakfast Biscuits, and Fiber One bars are also filling breakfast choices.
I won't be much help on the lunch front. I hate frozen meals, so I either take the time to pack a well rounded meal or buy a healthy lunch.
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I really like Lara bars for taste and satiety. But they seem to have not a lot of protein for the amount of calories so depends what you are looking for there.
**Why do people always insist that you have to do a plan that you can do for the rest of your life. No one wants to keep losing weight for the rest of their life. It makes no sense.**10 -
Thanks. Just to clarify, I'm not looking for advice about my method or motives. I'm simply asking if people have suggestions about brands/flavors of packaged products.
If you want to tell me that I'm making a poor choice, please don't respond.
Agree. I use Quest also a web site that has they all Diet direct free shipping with a minimum order also I like Bari wise from them0 -
I really like Lara bars for taste and satiety. But they seem to have not a lot of protein for the amount of calories so depends what you are looking for there.
**Why do people always insist that you have to do a plan that you can do for the rest of your life. No one wants to keep losing weight for the rest of their life. It makes no sense.**
They're not talking about the calorie intake. A lot of people (including me in the past) have approached weight loss as, "Until I shed this excess poundage, I'm not eating any dessert, no bread, no pasta, and no more than a tablespoon of fat per day. I'll have grapefruit for breakfast and cabbage soup for dinner and all cooked food will either be steamed or boiled." And, lo and behold, the weight comes off. Wonderful! And then the next thought is, "Well. That's over! Now I've been dreaming of a deep-dish pizza and a brownie sundae and I've earned them!"
To be clear? Nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence. But a lot of people, once the weight is lost, go right back to their old eating habits. So of course the weight comes back.
By "plan you can do for the rest of your life" what's generally meant is, "If you're willing to give up chocolate entirely when you're at a healthy weight, then by all means abstain while losing weight. But if you know that all the while that you're restricting calories, you're going to be dreaming of that chocolate bar you're planning to have when you reach goal, you'd probably be better off working in a couple of squares of Ghirardelli or a fun-sized Mars Bar or a couple of Hershey kisses or what have you." The way I eat now is probably the way I'll be eating for the rest of my life. More calories at goal, sure. But I haven't eliminated any foods during my weightloss that I plan on eating at goal. I don't indulge in them all the time, but nothing's forbidden.24 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »I really like Lara bars for taste and satiety. But they seem to have not a lot of protein for the amount of calories so depends what you are looking for there.
**Why do people always insist that you have to do a plan that you can do for the rest of your life. No one wants to keep losing weight for the rest of their life. It makes no sense.**
They're not talking about the calorie intake. A lot of people (including me in the past) have approached weight loss as, "Until I shed this excess poundage, I'm not eating any dessert, no bread, no pasta, and no more than a tablespoon of fat per day. I'll have grapefruit for breakfast and cabbage soup for dinner and all cooked food will either be steamed or boiled." And, lo and behold, the weight comes off. Wonderful! And then the next thought is, "Well. That's over! Now I've been dreaming of a deep-dish pizza and a brownie sundae and I've earned them!"
To be clear? Nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence. But a lot of people, once the weight is lost, go right back to their old eating habits. So of course the weight comes back.
By "plan you can do for the rest of your life" what's generally meant is, "If you're willing to give up chocolate entirely when you're at a healthy weight, then by all means abstain while losing weight. But if you know that all the while that you're restricting calories, you're going to be dreaming of that chocolate bar you're planning to have when you reach goal, you'd probably be better off working in a couple of squares of Ghirardelli or a fun-sized Mars Bar or a couple of Hershey kisses or what have you." The way I eat now is probably the way I'll be eating for the rest of my life. More calories at goal, sure. But I haven't eliminated any foods during my weightloss that I plan on eating at goal. I don't indulge in them all the time, but nothing's forbidden. [/q
I like you...lol0 -
I really like Lara bars for taste and satiety. But they seem to have not a lot of protein for the amount of calories so depends what you are looking for there.
**Why do people always insist that you have to do a plan that you can do for the rest of your life. No one wants to keep losing weight for the rest of their life. It makes no sense.**
Because if you eat in a completely different way while you're losing weight, it makes it a struggle to maintain the weight loss when you're done and return to "normal eating." You haven't learned anything about how to eat in a way that fits your preferences and lifestyle while still eating a reasonable amount of calories.
In contrast, if someone eats "normally" but at a deficit, when they meet their goal they can simply eat more of what they were already eating.
There are people who can have success with a temporary plan, but at some point they do have to figure out how they're going to maintain the loss for the rest of their lives (which is the goal, right?). I think many long-term maintainers here happen to be in the "choose something you can do for the rest of your life" camp. Why? Because we know that weight loss is just part of overall weight management.10 -
I've been working a few earlier shifts at work so for my first meal of the day (usually at 11) I'll have either a protein bar or a protein cookie. Been eating Quest's CCCD, having that with cereal, & a few string cheese. I find that tides me over until I can go home to eat my main meal of the day & one more snack.
There are a lot of easy to go things you can take that aren't meal replacement shakes or even protein bars if you want to eat other items.
There are a ton of different frozen meals in the freezer aisles, frozen steamable veggie bags, you could make tortilla wraps & put whatever you want inside, peanut butter & jelly, yogurt, string cheese, peanut butter 2 go cups, soups, etc.0 -
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