Ok day 4 for me and want some good food, just made a nice beef stew and lots of fresh veggies, hope this will be good, sick of frozen diet food.. do you think this is a bad idea so early in my restart diet?

I'm not sure what a restart diet is. What plan are you following?

Beef stew can be pretty healthy if you make it yourself. I certainly wouldn't have a problem eating stew since I can easily fit it in my calorie range.

.

LOL I just restarted my diet from a year ago. I am just counting calories, and watching Fat

Ah .. .ok. So let me ask you a question ... why do you think beef stew is a bad idea "early" in your plan?

I guess I"m trying to understand your question better.

You say you're counting calories, so if your stew is full of healthy veggies, and it fits w/in your calorie range, then why would it not be a good idea? And what makes the "early" part of your plan any different from a later part of your plan as far as eating something that fits within your calorie range?

.

I have been eating frozen to get a count og the calories, but I just measured .5 of a cup out....I just hate having a pot of it around but solved it by calling my sons roomate shes coming by to get the pot for dinner

I count calories, so here's what I do:

- weigh/measure everything that goes in
- cook the stew
- let it cool
- weigh amount of finished stew
- divide into servings (freeze most of it)

I tend to go a little overboard on the precook and freeze stuff, but it's been the best way to keep on track. Last week I took 7.5lbs of trimmed a blade roast and cut it into pieces. I stewed it with a few mushrooms, onions, red wine, brandy, beef broth, flour and garlic/pepper/salt/bay leaves. It's really just meant to be stewed beef. It ended up making enough for 20 servings, so I've frozen it in double portions. I'll reheat it with potato (if it fits into my daily plan) and whatever vegetable I have handy.

The calorie count for the meat/onion/mushroom/gravy portion ended up being just a little over 300 calories per person, so it works nicely into my daily eating plan. I could have made the portion slightly smaller (if I'd wanted it to be fewer calories, but I didn't). The per portion weight of the stew was 7.25 ounces. In comparison most frozen meals go 8-10oz for the whole thing. I only mention that to show it was a generous portion.

Cyber - if this is going to work for you, you're eventually going to have to learn how to measure out calories in whole food and recipes. You cannot keep eating frozen diet foods for the rest of your life.

It's very easy to calorie count a recipe. I use this site: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com. It allows you to enter your ingredients, figure out how many servings, and then gives you calorie and fat counts as well as nutritional information.

Based on what you said in an earlier post about having to restart things, I think you're going to have to break your dependence on frozen diet food before weight loss can be a *permanent* thing for you.

We're certainly all here to help you with that!!

.

yea, the first week or so is hard need to watch my calories, by mid month I will cook I eat 2 chicken tenders and veggies... I can live on it

http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php


I found this to be the most user friendly. Accurate, easy, no searching for ingredients, just type it the way you would write it.

frozen diet food blech! portion our your stew into containers and freeze right away and eat up! have a big old side dish of extra veg yum! now THAT's food!

I gave the rest away not that strong yet, just like the 100 calorie snacks not good if you eat all 6 packages ... I learn quick, so my diet is steady on day 5
if i can just get thru the first week again