I try to eat between 1200-1500 calories a day and have been having a lot of success this time around (a decade of dieting!) by planning my meals, which consists primarily of Lean Cuisine meals.

Anyone else need the structure of pre-packaged meals like Lean Cuisine? Anytime I try to eat a meal cooked by hubby, I have no control and eat several more servings of everything! The Lean Cuisines help me keep my portions under control. They taste good to me too! Lots of veggies in them now!

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Shelly
180/163/140ish

From all I know, pretty much all pre-packaged food has loads of sodium in it, so you should keep an eye on that. That, and piles of preservatives and heck knows what else in those things. Plus, I don't think it tastes anything like the real deal. I eat ready meals occasionally, but certainly wouldn't base my diet (as in 'the stuff I eat every day') on it. Do you think you can eat that stuff for the rest of your life?

I agree San. A lot of people are badly affected by the sodium and other chemicals in such foods. I certainly am. Give me real food any day. It costs less for the same sized portion and is not too time consuming once you know what you are doing. You can actually have quite a large serving of healthily cooked vegetables and lose weight. They not only fill you up but provide all sorts of vitamins.

Eventually you're going to have to learn self control about meal portions and how to cook healthy meals for yourself. What will you do when you're in a situation where you can't eat a Lean Cuisine or other packaged meal?

If eating Lean Cuisine or any other "diet meal" product helps you learn proper meal sizing and provides an way for you to ease into losing weight, I don't necessarily see a problem with that. But I personally don't think that eating Lean Cuisine exclusively is a healthy choice - or one that will help you long term.

Ideally the meals should be a PART of a healthy diet - just like any food.