[mdchick88]

Thanks everyone!! This is why I love this site, I was blissfully unaware, and then I looked at the sodium in all of my Lean Cuisines and YIKES!! I'm getting TONS of sodium in these, I never would have checked it before. Time to reevaluate my meal plans!

[RunnerChemist]

Lean Cuisine and other pre-packaged food are a good place to start, but I find I can eat a lot more for my calories with home made foods. I eat the same thing all week, which might not work for you, but it simplifies my cooking to one day a week.

I also focus on whole foods and lots of vegetables, because it is important to me to be full. I can eat lots of broccoli for 100 calories.

My basic menu:
Breakfastatmeal with cinnamon, almonds, rasins and nutmeg, made with water and brown sugar. You can adjust this to the number of calories you want.

Lunch: Hard boiled egg, broccoli, a grain (quinoa this week) and fruit. Nonfat greek yogurt for snack. (120 calories, 16 g protein)

Dinner: Huge salad, with cottage cheese and avocado for dressing, and another protein source.

I am eating about 1300 calories a day. I eat mostly vegetarian, so I focus on protein.

Good luck!

[Fat in Hong Kong]

Today, I've started counting calories again after a long time of swopping and changing from one plan to another. I find counting calories suits me better. I recently tried an online plan which also counted all of my daily nutritional values such as carbs/protein/fat/sugar/sodium/etc, and to be honest, I became so obsessed trying to get it all right, and trying to eat the correct amount of everything each day, it was doing my head in!!

Consequently, I gave up with it! I'm now of the opinion that if you stick to the right amount of calories, and choose mostly good healthy foods, rather than packaged/processed foods, or junk food, then overall you should be pretty much eating a healthy balanced diet. There's no need to obsess about whether one day you have eaten a bit too much protein, or not enough carbs ... If you're choosing the right foods it will all even itself out. One thing I was shocked about though, was the amount of sodium and sugar in packaged/processed foods ... I now make sure I limit these and always check the nutrtional label if I do buy any.

[dragonfly21]

I use sparkpeople.com and I love that it gives shows you your recommended ranges of carbs, fat, and protein so i follow that to eat balanced! I do eat lean cuisines a 1-2 times a week when I am way too hungry to take 20 minutes to prepare a big meal. I think it's a good calorie counting fall-back meal- esp. if you can have some sort of a fresh veg also!