[fleshintogear]

Hi everyone,

I am a new mother, I work full time and I'm also a picky eater. I have scouring the internet looking for a diet that will fit my busy and picky life style but I'm having trouble finding the right one for me. Here is what I am looking for and I'm hoping you can give me some suggestions:

Currently I have been looking through meal plans on the internet and trying to substitute certain things for others but I'm finding it more difficult and time consuming than I can currently handle.

I realize I'm probably asking for a lot here but if anyone knows of ANY diet that will accommodate my life style, and I don't mind paying for a service, I would really appreciate any suggestions or advice you're willing to offer.


Thank you so much!

[fleshintogear]

Also, here is an example of the kind of thing I am looking for:

Breakfast: MultiGrain Oatmeal
1.50 cup -- Milk, 1%, with added vitamin A
1 cup -- QUAKER MultiGrain Oatmeal, dry

Lunch: Chicken and Rice
2 tbsp -- Soy Sauce
1 breast, -- Chicken, bone and skin removed
1.50 cup -- Rice, brown, cooked

Snack: Fruit: Grapes
1 cup -- Grapes, red or green, raw

Dinner: Lime Chicken (17 mins)

1/4 cup -- Brown Rice, before cooking
0.12 fruit (2 inch diameter) -- Lime
0.01 cup -- Corn-starch
0.12 cup -- Apple-Juice
1 tsp -- Bouillon Soup Cubes, reduced sodium (dry)
0.50 breast, -- Chicken Breast, skin removed
Preparation Instruction:


Mist skillet with low or nonfat cooking spray, raise to medium heat then add chicken. Cook for 8 - 10 mins, or till tender ,* Flip breast over and brown.

In a large bowl, blend juice from lime or lime-juice, apple-juice, corn-starch and bouillon. Put ingredients into a skillet and cook till it's thick. Add sauce on top of chicken.

PM Snack: Carrots
5 large -- Carrots, baby, raw


This menu is PERFECT, unfortunately I was only able to find one day! But it gives the foods, amounts and cooking instructions and does not contain fish, nuts or eggs. I just need a service that does this for each of my days (or gives me a couple weeks of food ideas that I can repeat throughout the month).

[josey]

Calorie counting. You eat what you want (picky eater), you plan and prepare and you make it as healthy as you want. I do lots of big batch cooking and freezing. Some full dishes, some to quickly finish during the week. Lots of small portions so I can use them for lunch (usually smaller meal for me) or dinner or mix meals up.
Oh and it is free to join something like myfitnesspal.com online which makes it quick to calculate and plan your meals.

Dieting i.e. weight loss is mostly restricting your food. Exercise helps but is not necessary. Try to up your walking (to the car or office) and use stairs and you have a basic workout.

[mandalinn82]

eDiets will do this for you.

http://www.ediets.com/start/

[bargoo]

The plan you posted does not include but very little vegies.
I agree with calorie counting, you can plan your meals in advance , once you get used to it , it takes very little time. You are not restricted to certain foods , pick the ones you like. And one of the best features of calorie counting. It is free.

[fleshintogear]

I have been using fitness pal and calorie counting. My problem is that right now I just don't have as much time as I could like to planning out my meals. hence, needing a program that does it for me.

I'll take a look at ediets for sure. Thank you for the suggestions! Keep them coming!

[bandit bear]

In all honesty if you can afford it, Jenny Craig is a great plan. You can tailor it to your needs. Last time I checked there was only one or two fish entrees, and a couple of entrees with eggs for breakfast and there really isn't nuts. It's expensive, but the food is tasty and planned out for you week by week and you can substitute a couple of the meals. Like for example, on the night you have salmon, you can swap it for something else.

[mermaidadrift]

breakfast
eat oatmeal for breakfast everyday. steel cut oats if you can - takes a little longer to prepare but what i've done in the past is cooked up a whole week's worth and just warmed up a portion every day. throw in a handful of your favourite berries - frozen or fresh - the change makes it feel like a whole new meal. i also make fruit compotes (without sugar) and add that instead of the berries when i've had time to make it.

lunch
the biggest salad you can find. as many veggies as possible. one day put in cottage cheese as your protein (i don't eat dairy right now but i lost 50 pounds last spring following this plan), another day tuna, another chicken. change them up. i mix tuna and cottage cheese together and i like that tastes. for a faster lunch i will take 2 wasa breads, smother them in cottage cheese or hummus then cover them in tomato slices. so yummy.

dinner
whatever protein you want but a reasonable amount (size of your palm) and as many veggies as you want (bok choy, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, whatever!) and i usually eat a half of a yam (sweet potato as well).

i was STUFFED every day and lost a fair amount of weight in a relatively short period of time.

if you're not a gym person, start walking. i started this when i was selected for a 6 month jury duty - everyone was bringing treats in and i thought either i am going to gain 20 pounds or i am not. i chose not to and walked home (about 45-60 min) that night.

i'm half way to my goal. it's not a diet. it's healthy eating. but give up sugar - it's your enemy on so many levels. you will hit a point where you will cherish a raspberry for it's beauty and its sweetnesss!

[fleshintogear]

Thanks mermaid! I'll give that a try as well.

[Intotouch]

Hi. Monica Grenfell's books all have detailed meal plans with low calorie foods for maintenance and weight loss phases. The meals incorporate all food groups and are tasty. They are safe balanced meals plans. None of them take forever to make either.

I feel like a hypocrite recommending these now as I have recently decided to stop pure low calorie dieting and to try refeed days as I've plateaud but at least I kept my weight down on this principle for a long time. In other words it will work up to a point. Good luck!

[sontaikle]

Originally Posted by fleshintogear

I have been using fitness pal and calorie counting. My problem is that right now I just don't have as much time as I could like to planning out my meals. hence, needing a program that does it for me.

I'll take a look at ediets for sure. Thank you for the suggestions! Keep them coming!

Honestly if you're calorie counting you don't really even need to plan your meals. I live at home with my parents and I don't get to plan my meals out all that often and I have to work with what's in the kitchen.

I know I could buy my own food but my father and brothers would eat it before I would get to so it would be a waste of money

Sometimes when I do know what dinner is in advance I do plan out my meals, but otherwise I just count whatever I eat and make sure to stay within my calories for the day. After a while you learn what the counts of certain things are so you don't even have to look it up.

[bargoo]

Originally Posted by fleshintogear

I have been using fitness pal and calorie counting. My problem is that right now I just don't have as much time as I could like to planning out my meals. hence, needing a program that does it for me.

My breakfasts and lunches don't vary much. It doesn't take much time at all to plan dinner and snacks.
I found that once I got used to it it doesn't take me more than five minutes to plan my meals for the day.

[Esofia]

You probably want a good recipe book or several, rather than a meal plan. That way you can find the recipes which suit you and then just cook them repeatedly, or do variations on you. Anyone whose diet is limited for whatever reason (being a picky eater, veggie, food allergies, religious reasons) is more likely to find that suggested food plans don't suit them, and they then waste the very time that they'd hoped to save in adapting them. Calorie counting gives you the most flexibility to pick your own type of diet. Once you find favourite meals with a useful calorie count for you, it'll settle down into a routine. Meanwhile, try picking a few key ingredients that you need to use up/fancy eating, put them into google, and see what sort of recipes turn up. I often do that when I've got as far as working out that I plan to use, say, carrots and red lentils, but haven't figured out how I'd like to cook them.

Bulk cooking is always useful when you're short of time or energy. Make a big patch, divide into portions, jot down the nutritional info per portion (look up recipe calorie calculators for this) and freeze the portions for later. Soups are great, and I am very fond of peppers stuffed with corn and beans.

There really is no reason why you can't work around not eating fish, eggs or nuts, by the way. Plenty of us here are vegan, including myself, and as for nuts, I'm on a low-fat diet due to gallstones so I rarely eat nuts any more. You really can eat anything you like on a diet, the important thing is that you have a sensible calorie deficit, that the food is reasonably healthy, and most importantly, that you are happy on the diet and can keep it up comfortably long-term. 0.5 - 1lb per week is a sensible rate of weight loss to aim for, by the way.

Exercise - diet for weight loss, exercise for fitness. You already have enough on your hands with the job and the baby without fretting about scheduling a strict exercise regime. I can't exercise myself due to a medical condition (and am still losing weight nicely, by the way), but if you ask around, I'm sure there are exercise programmes designed for people who are busy and can only spare five minutes here and ten minutes there.