I'm finding I'm really really mourning my old food. Even with weight loss, I'm feel so unsatisfied. I'm on week 3 of changing my eating patterns, week 2 of WW. I can't seem to find any satisfying foods. I can't find any decent quick easy tasteful receipes. I'm getting so frustrated. I can't give up, but I'm so unhappy. I can not work out in any conventional way because of my schedule and responsibilities. (however we have a horse farm so I do get excersize hauling hay, grain, feeding, etc) Cooking is a nightmare, and I can't come up with anything to make even if I have the time. I'm getting sick of oatmeal, sick of subway for my out eating, sick of hard boiled eggs, etc. I just have no idea what to eat. Fruit which I love just makes me more hungry. Veggies can be very unsatisfiing. I'm just lost and have no idea what to eat.

My old diet used to consiset of
Burger King Wopper meal
Taco Bell #1
McDonalds Big mac
Gyro sandwhich, with fries ranch dressing, and salad with ranch dressing (fav)
3 Chicago Hot dogs, and Cheese fries (fav)
Joe's Crabshack Chicken Cob salad with Blue Cheese dressing (fav)
Joe's Apple a'la mode pie

I don't want to give up but I need help finding satisfaction. Can anyone help?

WOOOOO Do I hear ya!!!

I was just mourning through Trader Joes. I am on No Wheat , No Sugar , No Dairy and Calorie counting the rest. I have been on a plateau for 5 days. I am walking and journaling every thing that goes into my mouth.

I want Creamy Cheezy anything. I am craving Indian food, so I am coming up with alternatives that taste good but not satififying the cravings.

The bottom line is that it was that Fast Food , cheezy goodness CRAP that got us here in the first place. It is the Devil. It is was makes me sad and happy at the same time.

I will not settle on being this size forever. I am done with CRAP. The loss of food makes me depressed but never as depressed as I am for being FAT.

I am making myself a t-shirt>>>>>>>>........ NO CRAP, NO FAT!

Good Luck Everyone!!!!

Move forward...... try finding ways you can make those favorites at home.... healthier. Sure, it will be a little different, but it helps! Maybe you could look up the hungry girl website and see if they have remade some of those things. They are good at it and they give you the points value. I see you like burgers.... have you tried a Boca burger (it is a soybean burger found in the frozen vegetarian section) it tastes like a school's burger (from years ago). You can have a DOUBLE Boca burger (2 points each), onion, mustard, tomato, lettuce, on an orowheat bun (1 point), and 2 pieces of laughing cow cheese (1pt each) and I PROMISE you will be busting at the seams. Throw in some fries in the oven or onion rings (3 or 4 points) each..... Just find your own way to make things.

Good luck-- and hang in there. PM me if you need to..... by the way where in TN do you live. I live across the river in Arkansas.....

I find that I mourn the "freedom" to just eat and not count points. It's not exactly the same thing, but I think it's related.

A lot of the foods that you mentioned above have tons of flavor enhancers in them. Less processed food is probably going to seem bland by comparison for a while. You are retraining your palate, which can be as tough as physically training the body (just imagine how hard it would be for those of us non-hay-bailers to do that w/o practice!! lol!).

Do you like to cook? Maybe you could try a new cookbook. I can't say enough good things about Lorna Sass's pressure cooking cook books. They have great recipes, and because they're cooked in a pressure cooker, they take a fraction of the time of other recipes (ex., I made black bean soup from dried beans in 12 minutes).

Alternatively, you could try the good old crock pot. A tasty WW-friendly meal could be simmering away all day while you're out taking care of the farm. I think that WW just published a slow cooker cook book, but no doubt there are ton of free recipes online.

The hungry girl website sometimes offers "lite" versions of fast food favorites. Perhaps one of those dishes could satisfy your cravings?

This problem is a tough one to solve because it deals with emotions. I wish I could offer more, but at least I can say, "I hear ya and I know how you feel".

At one time I weighed 235. This was about 20 years ago. I lOVED fried foods. I'm Southern, fried foods are in my blood! But after 6 months of losing weight and cutting out fried foods etc. believe it or not, I lost my taste for them without even trying.

Back then, I thought I was not enjoying an eat out if it wasn't fried. Now, occasionally eat fried foods but it's pretty rare and I don't miss them. When I go to McDonalds I have a quarter pounder and instead of fries I have the yogurt and berry parfait.

This is one way I also deal with the things I love. I don't deny myself. I eat what I want but I tone it down. If you're not into making home version (which I also do) then once a week, eat something you used to eat only just eat half and save the other half for the next day. I do that with Pizza Hut. The other day I had one piece of a large veggie and saved another for the next day's lunch. I am trying to learn to enjoy the fact that I will have a favorite food two days in a row instead of stuffing down all I can eat in one day. It's more satisfying.

So don't give up. You CAN do it!

What I would do is eat a Whopper Jr., try the Fresco meals at Taco Bell and use wpa's for the stuff you crave like a gyro so you can have that w/those fries you like.

I'm very happy with classical cooking. Give me spaghetti and meat sauce done my way and I do use lower fat ground beef, a good pasta and also I enjoy soups and stews. I can enjoy a lot of foods that most people find boring like a broiled steak and be happy with that. Food is easy but sweets aren't.
So what to do? Easy... I am bound and determined to fit the snacks in the day I want and work on the rest within an allowance. I love pasta like an Italian and can easily eat a pound box but now I need to count it and weigh in ounces. If that larger portion is what I carve, I can do it but points have to allow me to eat it and stick within my points budget.
You still have to make some sacrifices but not cut fav foods out altogether.

Moveforward - I totally know where you're coming from!!! I have been on WW for over 8 months now, and I still feel like that on occasion! I want to eat and eat and eat sometimes and not count or measure or settle. But I can't, at least not every day.

However, I do want to let you know that it gets easier, and I don't mean you stop missing how you ate before. What I mean is that as you get the hang of things you can start to learn how to work some of your faves back into your diet. For me, that's the occasional hamburger happy meal (10pts with Diet Coke) instead of my usual fast food. Or ONE big ol' hot dog and a bag of baked chips and some carrots to fill up on.

Personally, I feel that the whole WW thing doesn't work for many people because they never get past the part where it's still a diet into the time when it becomes a lifestyle. As long as you feel like you CAN'T eat the things you want, you're going to go right back to them in times of stress or when you finish the "diet", and then where will you be (answer: right back where you started). I don't think you can be successful until you can learn to work your favorite foods, be they hamburgers or pizza or hot dogs or chocolate cake or whatever into your diet on a regular basis. Like in one or maybe two meals a week - not daily like we used to. Use those weekly points to enjoy some stuff on occasion, and if those aren't enough then do some activity so you get activity points. Even cleaning the house can earn you quite a few points, at least for as long as it takes me to clean mine

At first, for maybe a month or two, I was terrified to eat out. I didn't know how I would eat less than before and still stop. I didn't want to be out of control of what I ate. I didn't really eat any fat in my diet. I didn't want to use all my weekly points.

And then, one day, the fears started to ease, and I found I could do the occasional hamburger and still not go over my weekly points. I even have a favorite giant caramel roll on occasion - I'm just careful to make sure those particular occasions are at least 4 weeks apart (really. I count )

Good luck! Hang in there, and try to find some stuff you can start to work back into your routine. Like VisitorX suggested, what about a sandwich at McD's without fries? A Big Mac seems to be 13 pts, 10 without sauce, according to my tracker. (Maybe ask for the sauce on the side and put on just a thin spreading.) 10 pts plus a Diet Coke or water plus perhaps some 0-1 pt veggies and you'll have a pretty reasonable meal (if you can't live without the fries, they're only 5 pts for a small one.) Let's say that's 5-10 pts more a regular dinner would be for you - take those points out of weekly points or activity points. Then make sure you're sitting down (not driving, not reading), and ENJOY THE HECK OUT OF THAT BURGER!!! It's a treat to be enjoyed, not fuel to be stuffed in your face on the run. Then don't do it again for a week or so.

Hope that helps some! Good luck!

My two cents from experience,
Aym

I thought I'd share some of my favorite healthy meals too:

Chili (make it with lots of beans and not too much meat in the crock pot, and then pack into Tupperware for many future easy meals) - with 1-2 Tbsp of fat free/low fat shredded cheese on top. Mine is like 6 or so pts made like that.

Soups, also in crock pot into bunch of Tupperware. Unless they have cream in them most soups are pretty low cal. HungryGirl has a fantastic Southwestern Soup I can't live without. I think theirs is 5 pts each for the 1 1/2 cup serving size I eat, and it's as filling as a chili.

PB&J - one of my faves, especially when I need to eat on the run. As long as I make it with the WW or other low cal (45cal/serving) bread, light jam, and a thin layer PB of it's only about 6.5 pts per 2 sandwiches

LeanCuisine - another big fave. The new Spa line, esp the Apple Cranberry Chicken, is to die for. Especially easy when you're out all day and tired. About 5 pts each.

Whole Wheat pasta ROCKS! I was shocked. It's really filling, and tastes good once you get past the fact it's brown and speckled . I love the tomato sauce featured in the week 1 book. It makes a meal that doesn't taste diet at all to me. Also makes days worth of meals for me. About 6.5 pts per serving the way I make it.

Cereal. I know, it should be for breakfast - but it's easy, and as long as you're careful which you get it's healthy, for any meal of the day. Kashi Honey Sunshine is my absolute fave (check the organic section if it's not with the cereals - 1pt for the first serving, 2pt per serving thereafter). I generally don't need to actually consume more than about a 1/3 cup milk for 2-3 bowlfuls, because I don't drink the rest of the milk afterward (and if it gets tossed, I don't need to count points for it!) 3 bowls plus milk = 5.5 pts (on that cereal, calculate it yourself. The online numbers are a bit higher than calculating based on the nutritional information on the box - maybe it's changed?)

SNACKS so you're not starving! I eat (give or take) 1/4 of my calories at each meal and 1/4 in snacks a day. 1/3 cup Craisins, 1 1/2 cup baby carrots, 1 Weight Watchers 1pt candy bar, 12 Kellogg's Tomato and Herb crackers, and a baggie with a serving of Kashi Honey Sunshine are my typical snacks for the afternoon. If I think I'm going to be starving, I'll replace one of those with a box of lower calorie frozen veggies. Both servings in the Green Giant Immunity Support box (broccoli and red and yellow peppers) are only 1 point, and it's quite filling and only 3 minutes in the microwave.

Hope that gives you some ideas! Good luck to you! The early weeks were the hardest for me. Just think of how you were eating a few weeks ago (personally, my breakfast of champions was 2 jumbo hot dogs from the gas station, a single size bottle of chocolate milk, and 1-2 20oz bottles of Cherry Coke. That's ... 28-32 points, just for breakfast. I can't believe I'm admitting that in public). Any wonder I was hungry for a while, and lost weight quickly, when I tried to drop immediately to no more than 33 pts a day? You're doing fantastic just to get started! Even if you are a bit over your weekly points at first, just make sure to set yourself limits (like 45 the first week, then 40 the next, then go back to 35, perhaps) so you don't just give up - that's my theory anyway. It will take some time, but you'll get the hang of it.

Good luck, and keep asking if you need more food ideas!
Aym