Hello all. I recently began logging down everything that I eat while adjusting my calorie intake here and there...and still tweaking with it. The past couple of weeks have been a major learning experience for me, as far as learning what I want, when I want it, and how to approach it. So here's my problem. A few days ago, I bought some frozen meals, (I believe its the Safeway brand) something similar to the SBD and lean cuisine things since I dont cook. The one I had yesterday for lunch was 300 calories, and I allow myself a total of 400 for lunch...so I ate it with a bowl of grapes. However, I noticed that I wasnt satisfied. I drank a couple BOTTLES of water before it was time for my snack (in which I was counting the seconds until) then ate my snack....then realized that I started shaking...felt paranoid...or something like it...i dont know exactly what I was feeling...but it wasnt good...(im prediabetic) Then I binged.....popcorn...seafood....chips..cookies...e tc. So I tweaked my plan again last night..and the same thing happened again today. Im thinking its the frozen meals that arent big enough?? It was a good amount of calories...but I never thought about the portion size of the meal, vs the calories in the meal itself. Would I be better off making something of my own, like an open faced sandwich and some mulitgrain chips with a salad....?? Forgive me if I sound like an idiot...I was just baffled because I usually only pay attention to the calories in the meal, as opposed to SIZE. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

This is the key to calorie counting success: there is no correlation between calorie density and fullness. It sucks, but there it is. Therefore, if you're on a low-cal diet, you want to get as much volume as possible so that you don't go hungry.

So that means veggies, lean proteins, egg whites and whole grains--stuff that will make you feel full and satisfied without breaking the calorie bank.

Some people are happy with the frozen meals, but I always prefer to make food. You could make a lovely big wrap for your lunch, stuffed with chicken or shrimp and veggies with a little side salad; or a nice soup with a side salad, or baked seasoned rice and veggies with a side salad. If you're lazy about prep work, do all the chopping for your salads on the weekend and then grab handfuls for your salads as you go. Make giant pots of soup and pre-portion them in those disposable Glad tupperware containers and keep them in the freezer to grab on your way out the door.

Put extra veggies in everything and make sure that all meals contain a decent amount of protein. The combo should make you feel full and then keep you full for a few hours.

You should *definitely* be able to have a great, filling, tasty lunch for 400 calories. No one should starve, not even you!

i've heard that your stomach does react to some degree to the volume of food in it. a suggestion is to eat some broth-based soup (not cream-based of course!) at the beginning of a meal because that and other water-based things fill you up more as far as volume goes but not as far as calories. however, you did say that you drank several bottles of water, so i'm not sure if this is the case for you. just a suggestion. best of luck!

Hey huniebunie

I lost my weight counting calories and making liberal use of Lean Cuisines. But I always added vegetables. A big salad with 1 TBS of full fat dressing, or 2TBS of lowfat dressing, give you a lot to eat without adding too many more calories. Or, I might have 3 oz. of green beans or some other vegetable on the side.

It could also be that you were reacting to the sugar in the grapes. It's a simple carbohydrate, and I figure you must have eaten 30 of them to add 100 cals. So, perhaps your blood sugar spiked and then crashed.

Try increasing nonstarchy vegetables and decreasing the really sweet fruits and see if that helps?

Jay

Thanks everyone!!! Great advice!! I've never tried Lean Cuisine's before...I bought some SDB meals...which were on sale for a dollar each at our local grocery store. I enjoyed them...however, needed to add another serving of veggies. I usually do drink a bottle of water prior to eating...as it seems to help a lot.

I believe I can stand cooking once a week, to prepare my meals. Another question though, when I cook something, how do I add up all the calories? Do I add all the calories to every ingredient? and then divide it by the number of servings? or would it be easier to look for a recipe that has the nutrition facts already posted, such as soups? I believe ive seen some recipes on the other boards here which have the info on it...right? Thanks again!!

Personally, I prefer cooking my own meals, even if I'm not a great cook and often rely on easy recipes. Frozen meals don't cut it for me. (I have a colleague at work who lives off Weight Watchers frozen meals these days, and when I say how much food *I* have in my plate compared to *his* little thing, I'm honestly glad I've taken the time to fix my own meal!) Not to mention that with all the added ingredients to help the food keep longer, there's bound to be one to which I won't react too well.

And yep, there's no correlation between the amount of calories and the fullness factor. A pizza is very high in calories, even if you eat only two slices, but two slices won't be enough to keep you full for the next four hours.

As for calculating the amount of calories when preparing myself, indeed, I just count every ingredient, then divides according to the number of servings. Most recipes I've found anyway include the total calories for 2/4/6 people, that kind of thing, since they're based on quantities for 2/4/6 people etc. I don't find it easy to get recipes with the exact amount of calories just for one person, not to mention that I'm not sure if I can trust the word 'serving': it really never means the same thing according to the people you ask about it!

I am also prediabetic (and gestational diabetic as well)and I was wondering about the amount of protein that was in the frozen dinner that you ate. Some of them are really starch based, and some don't contain meat at all...so that was actually most likely the cause of you feeling unsatisfied, and feeling like you needed to eat. (Like you were crashing.)

You will probably have to be more careful choosing varieties that have more protein in them-like choosing entrees that have more chicken, beef, fish, etc. in them over the ones that only have a little or none-such as fettucine alfredo, egg roll and rice, etc. Some of the best Lean Cuisines are the ones that contain whole grains like brown rice, instead of white noodles or white rice, as well. (The description of the meal will usually say whole grains, etc.)

Fruit usually doesn't give me any trouble at all-even grapes and bananas-which are sweeter fruits-as long as I am consuming enough protein at each meal.

However-if you are prediabetic...even if you are feeling bingy-it isn't a good idea to load up on the chips, cookies, and other refined carbs like you did after the meal in question. If you are hungry, eat more protein, fruit, veggies, dairy, or whole grains etc. instead. The refined carbs and sweets will make you crash more later on.

You need to read Volumetrics! It's all about research that's been done that shows that volume/weight of food is the most important thing in determining how much we eat, not calorie content. So we eat about the same weight of food on average every day, whether that adds up to 3000 calories (fat laden/sugary foods) or 1400 calories (veggies, soups, fruits). To see how well something will fill you up, compare the calories to grams. A 1:1 ratio or better is good. So if calories are equal to or fewer than the grams you are getting in the meal, you're doing well. Big salads with low cal dressing and broth based soups are some of the most filling volumetric foods.

And skip the chips! even wholegrain ones are not very filling!

As much as I like the frozen meals (some taste great, and the convenience is wonderful), I find that they never fill me up and because they tend to be so much higher in sodium, I really crave something afterward. Canned soup does it to me, too. For that reason, I've totally given up on them for my lunches. I always cook dinner, so it's not a problem for me then. Perhaps if you try making a few easy dishes and doubling the recipes so you can divide up the leftovers for subsequent meals, you'll be better off. Cooking Light website lets you do an advanced search where you can limit recipes to 5 ingredients or less.

I have never been able to be satisfied with a frozen dinner alone, as tasty as some of them are. It's just not enough food. I like the suggestion of eating some veggies along with the dinner. For a while, I was doing my cooking for the week on the weekends. I would make a lot of soups and freeze them in individual portions. This worked out well except that I began feeling like I was spending all my weekend cooking. Now, I make dinner every night but I make sure it is fairly simple. For calorie counting recipes, I do two things: I use a recipe software to input the recipe (I use Mastercook) and then I use the scale feature to scale it down to one portion. I could stop there because it does give the nutritional information for the recipe, but I don't trust the nutritional info so I input the 1 serving into Fitday (I use the software version but I think you can do this with the free version too) and see what that says for the cals etc. Good luck!

you're probably as anti cooking as I have been in the past. For some reason, finally at 31 I have found a new love for cooking (finally!). But in the past I have had to lose 80 pounds of baby weight twice, and spent a lot of dough on Subway. I'd have my fiber One cereal for breakfast, maybe a garden burger patty sandwich for lunch and a full foot long turkey/ham sub from Subway, with all the veggies for dinner. I was nicely stuffed.

But its not cheap and its not the recommended smaller portion spread.

Thanks for bringing this up. You are DEFINETLY not alone on this! These frozen meals may satisfy some but not me. I can eat one and about 1/2 hr to an hour later I'm poking around the kitchen looking for something else. If you don't care to cook maybe you could pair one of these meals w/a mixed blend salad and low fat/low cal dressing?

I'm also prediabetic and get "shaky". Agree that maybe you should look into the higher protein low carb varieties. I've decreased my carbs over the past 2 month and have not had ONE sugar crash since-AMAZING from a girl who's suffered her entire life w/the shakes, sweats, and being light headed.

If you want to venture into making your own lunch I think a wrap would be great-I just love them! I make my own using a 10 in wrap, take a can of chunk chicken add about 2 T light mayo or lite ranch dressing. Shake some lemon pepper in and mix it all up. Spread on your tortilla with some shredded greens and yum! It's so filling that many time I cut the wrap in half and save for a snack.

Oh that's makes me think of something else, if you're prediabitic you may want to consider doing the mini meals - this helps me keep my sugar stable throughout the day.