I used to eat lean cuisine all the time but I stopped because I started trying to consume mostly unprocessed foods. Most Lean cuisines have a lot of salt and sugar and they also contain a lot of "isolated" and "modified" ingredients, food coloring, etc. Also if you're not eating the "spa classics" the carbs that you're getting are highly processed and quickly digested (like white pasta and white rice).

I used to really love the Santa Fe Style Rice And Beans though!

aneleh--That is a great idea! I'm so clueless when it comes to actual cooking (thanks to a lifetime of Doritos, Kraft Mac + Cheese Singles and, yes, Lean Cuisine Meals) and the other day my dad had to tell me how to do a simple pan-seared fish filet. I'll definitely use your advice.
I didn't pick 800 or anything like that, I'm not aiming towards that--According to livestrong.com I should be getting about 1900 calories a day. But when I actually start watching every morsel I eat and recording it and seeing how it breaks down into fat/protein/carbs and how many actual calories I'm eating, it's like I have a fear of raising that number too high. I never use up my allotted calories for the day because I enjoy the (false) sense of willpower I get when the site says I have 1000 more calories to eat for the day and i'm getting ready for bed. But, on the positive side, Daily Plate has really helped me learn WHERE my cals are coming from--for example, when I first started, my fat content was 50% every day! Now I'm really good at keeping it below 25%.
However, for the record, yesterday I ate 1100 calories so I am working to improve.

ronni62--FORTY ONE PERCENT MORE LIKELY TO GAIN WEIGHT????? Yikes. So I guess I'll be drinking more water from now on.

Thanks everybody for your support and advice. It's really really helping me. I LOVE 3FC!

FWIW, i've been working on replacing frozen meals (bistro MD) with my own version, to keep the costs down and nutrition up, but also to avoid having to deal with a lot of cooking and have stuff ready to go whenever i need it. the initial learning curve is taking some time, but it's already paying off, and i only spend about 4 hours a week doing food prep, have endless variety, great nutrition (low sodium - huzzah!) and it takes a TON better than it did when i was trying to cook for a week at a time. had never heard of sous vide, hadn't used a foodsaver, and i certainly don't think it'd work for everyone, but if you're looking for options it's worth considering. details in my blog link in my signature.

cheers!

Thanks! that sounds like a great idea! I'll definitely go check that out.

There's a similar correlation between each cup of decafeinated coffee and heart disease and high blood pressure - but the reason is not that decaf coffee causes heart disease and high blood pressure. Rather if you have high blood pressure or heart disease, you are more likely to drink decaf - and the more severe your problems, the more likely you are to drink decaf. (That is that a person with severe heart disease or high blood pressure is not only more likely to drink decaf than folks without the problems, but also more than folks who have less severe problems).

I think it's just as likely, if not more so that the more overweight you are, the more you may rely on diet soda to satisfy cravings for regular soda or other higher calorie foods.

I never cooked much either before dieting... but I learned! If you can follow simple recipes, you may find that you lose your taste for lean cuisine.