So ive decided on doing an experiment with frozen entrees such as Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine...Ive decided that for exactly 6 days i will eat a frozen entree meal each night. I have a budget of 100$ for the week for groceries and its going to take about 30$ for 6 days worth of dinners..which should leave me roughly 35$ to spend on breakfasts and 35$ to spend on lunches for the week. So i figured a day of eating would go something like this:

Breakfast: 1/2 cup of cooked oats with 1/2 cup of blueberries with 1/2 cup of yogurt.

S: Cheesestring (skim)

Lunch: 1/2 cup of hummus with 1 cup of vegetable sticks and 1 cup of tomato soup and 1 apple

D: Frozen Entree of choice

Desert: S.F jello

Im just curious to see whether or not it will end up being cheaper for groceries than normal. Because each frozen dinner costs 5$..can we make a dinner meal from fresh ingredients at home for that same cost?

What do you think?

Do you think weight loss will be possible with such a routine?

Yes, your menu will lead to weight loss. It looks to be 800-1000 which is not a lot.

There doesn't seem to be enough veggies so you might want to add fresh or frozen to the LC or SO. My local grocers usually has LC or SO for $3-3.50 so I think your budget would allow for fresh or frozen veggies.

I use frozen entrees when time is an issue.

Good Luck.

LOL that's too funny. My bf had suggested frozen dinners once in a while- so one day we had some and now I am hooked. I went out yesterday and got 14 meals. For breakfast & lunches I am packing 600-700 calories worth of sandwiches, salads, etc (I am at work 10 hours). Then a frozen dinner and an evening snack (usually ice cream in some calorie controlled portion). I keep the whole day 1200-1300 calories.

I love them because- no prep, no clean up, no planning, portion controlled.

I will still cook a few times a week when we have his daughter or guests for dinner.

The grocery bill was about same for me- I bought what was on sale and had a few coupons. A lot of them ended up $2-3/each.

So far it's been 4 days and I have dropped 6 lbs and gained 4 hours

I can't do those frozen entrees. Something about them always leaves me wanting more to eat. They just don't satisfy me. BUT- I hope it works for you!

$5 for a frozen entree?

I do see them out there at that price, but I also see them much lower.

Target usually has lean cuisine and the like on sale for $2/each; regular price no more than $3.50. My local safeway is normally very expensive, but occasionally there are deals for 5/$10, meaning $2 each.

Where are you shopping? I would look around for cheaper frozen meals.

And, yes, you can make lots of meals with fresh ingredients for less than $5/serving, but you have to be willing to eat all six servings of whatever it is. For example, I made Julia Child's French Onion soup the other day. 6 servings. $1.50 worth of onions, $8 worth of beef broth, a small amount of white wine, flour, butter, etc. which I had already. Then I bought some bread $4 (but I only use half of it for the soup) and gruyere that I can use for more than just soup ($8). So, cost per serving is less than $20 total, or $3.33 cents a serving.

Wow, frozen entrees are expensive up there in Port Hardy, BC! Here in the states I can get them for less than $3 without a sale... So, I don't know, with the prices there, can you cook dinner for less than they cost? I do a lot of "one pot meals" that I cook one night and they last for several. This week it was red beans and rice. My guess is I spent $10 (give or take) on all the ingredients for it and it made 5 servings. It's also vegetarian, so no meat, which can add to the cost. I don't know what you'd pay for the same ingredients, but in this case it was cheaper to eat at home. But might have been about the same had I been able to get Lean Cuisines on sale for $2 (which you can for some, but not for others).

My concern is that you're barely eating any food! We're all different, but I know when I was your weight I lost at a good clip on 2000 calories a day. So my concern is that it's not sustainable (maybe not for 6 days? I don't know)

im just wondering why are you doing this? and why 6 days? i dont think there is anything wrong with frozen meals although i agree you should maybe add some extra veggies, they will give you extra nutrition and also bulk it up a bit so you should be fuller for longer.

I think you need to shop around.

My Raley's just had a sale of Smart Ones. They were 3 for $5. When I was at Wal-Mart the last time the Lean Cuisine were $1.25. I also just bought some Healthy Choice dinners for my mom and they were $2.50 to $3.50. You can call all your area grocery stores and ask them to do a price check for you.

I do think you can lose weight this way.

Just an observation, the original poster lives in Port Hardy British Columbia. It's kind of isolated and it's very possible that items like Lean Cuisines are very expensive there, no matter what. So low prices at our local stores may not apply to her.

Yeah, I was gonna say that $30 for 6 days sounds like an awful lot! I can usually buy two for $5 -- at the most! I love these meals but they don't satisfy me 100% even when I eat them VERY SLOW. I'll always have to pair it with a side salad. Then I'm satisfied. I eat the salad first and then about 15 minutes later I'll eat the frozen meal. And I drink a whole bottle of water along with it. The sodium can be bad if you are sensitive to it.

I also keep a few left over containers when I am done. I use them to guage portion sizes when I eat non-packaged meals. Or use them for left overs I take to work. I can throw the container away after the 2nd use instead of lugging around tupperware or something. I just cover it with plastic, microwave it, eat it and pitch it. :-)

nice idea!

I like these meals when I'm in a hurry, but by themselves they don't seem to satisfy my hunger. Plus they usually have a lot of sodium, which is my enemy right now.

I'm a fan of occasional convenience. Clean eating is a nice ideal, but sometimes having a no-fuss meal matters more.

With that said, though, your menu as it looks right now just plain doesn't seem like enough food. I agree with DixC, that looks like it's under 1000 calories a day. I wouldn't find that sustainable over the long haul as a sedentary, childless woman of 41; is that sustainable for someone much younger, taller, and probably busier than I am? I don't know that it is.

If you're trying this as a means to lose weight quickly, you might run up against what I recently did. After a stressful week during which I under-ate for about four or five days running, I weighed 203 pounds--but as soon as I returned to my usual plan, I popped right back up to where my weight was "supposed" to be. (I went to 206 and am currently at 205, so no lasting harm was done.)

It made me SO freakin' angry that if I hadn't had the folks here at 3FC to talk it over with, I might have gone off my plan for the first time since late October. My "crash diet" was inadvertent, but your experiment sounds similar to the way I was eating; you may find yourself with a bounce at the end of your week as I did.

Given your height and your age, you could probably eat double the calories that your current meal plan contains and still lose weight.

I predict by day 6 you will want some "real" food. I average about 1 frozen meal per week, usually for lunch, and I just haven't found one I really like, but eat them for convenience.

I'm in BC too. Remember "American convenience foods" are more expensive for us up here in Canada, especially BC which has a high food tax as well. Then you add in that the OP is not living on the mainland but on an island (and a far away part at that) so you're adding in tons more transportation costs.

Food in the US (except Alaska, Hawaii) is quite cheap compared to here - that's why many of us Canadians cross the border on the weekends just to grocery shop!

Yes, you will lose weight on such a meal plan but the question is - can you sustain it? I always suggest people start higher and go lower as time goes on. If you can't sustain a 2000 or 1800 calorie meal plan then no way will you sustain something like that (which btw leads to muscle loss and other complications).

Slow and steady wins the race. I've seen a lot of your posts - until you realize that this is a slow process then you might continue in circles. Good luck.