Maybe I worry too much but I think I have a bit of a food phobia now... Today at work, my friend TW decided to order in from Heavenly Ham. I bring a lean cuisine daily for lunch. I was going to go ahead and order something from HH but asked TW if she thought there were a ton of calories. She said yea. And I asked her if she thought it was 1000 calories or something scary. She said yes. So, I decided to NOT get HH even though I really wanted it. I don't believe in a million years that a sandwhich is 1000 cals but I am afraid to eat any food that doesn't have the calorie count on the package (unless it's fruit or veggies). I think I have a problem! I can turn down a donut so I know I have willpower also but this food phobia needs to be nipped in the bud so I can eat like a normal healthy person instead of a freak that can only eat packaged food. Any tips!?

Any tips for me regarding non-packaged foor (i.e. recipes) for a single person for healthy dinners (or other meals) would be awesome too. Thanks everyone!

I'm not sure if this is what UR looking for...but here is a wonderful link so you can get an ideal of what your eating and maybe ease away your food phobia. I personally I feel KNOWLEDGE IS POWER when it comes to food!!
http://www.calorieking.com/

I was going to suggest the EXACT same thing. I think it's healthy that you are eveluating your choices, that's what this is all about. But that doesn't mean you have to eat only pacjaged foods. There is a ton of information out there.

I'm not sure if this is the sandwich your friend order but on that site I found this. ( Under food Data Base)

Classis Sandwiches: The Heavenly Original
Serving Size:1


Calories 804 ( Kilojoules 3360 )
% Daily
Value*
Total Fat 55.8 g 86%
Saturated Fat - 0%
Cholesterol 131 mg 44%
Sodium 1513 mg 63%
Total Carbohydrates 43.6 g 15%
Dietary Fiber 3.5 g 14%
Sugars -
Protein 31.8 g
Note: A dash indicates no data is available.

When I was just starting out on this weight loss journey, I ate a lot of packaged meals, too. It's nice to know exactly how many calories you're ingesting. No muss, no fuss. But you're right -- to eat "real" food, and to make choices in situations where a packaged meal is not an option, you will probably want to become better informed. Restaurants, parties, weddings, potlucks, buffets.. they all offer confusion if you're not armed with some basic information about how many calories are in things.

What I did, and still do sometimes, that helped me a lot was to spend some time looking up the calorie/carb/protein counts before I went somewhere. I knew I was going to a wedding, so I looked up punch and cake and normal "potluck" food like baked beans and cole slaw and potato salad. I knew I was going out to lunch with my friends at a burger place, so I looked up different styles of burgers, fries, salads, etc.

After a while, you'll get kind of a running list in your head of your favorites. Slice of bread, about 100 calories. Pat of butter the same. Cup of spaghetti, about 200. Tomato sauce about 50 for half a cup. Grilled chicken breast about 200 calories. quarter pound burger about 300. Bun extra. Fries about 350 calories for a normal "fastfood" serving. Salad and veggies I don't count mentally unless they've got full-fat dressings or cheese sauces. They still go into Fitday, though, so I can track my servings of veggies each day.

Packaged meals are a great thing, and can help take a lot of the guess work out of your food choices. That's why plans like Jenny Craig provide food. But they are, like most things, just one tool in your arsenal of weight-loss tips and tricks.

Yes, a sandwich at a place like that CAN have a scary amount of calories. As others have said, the key to dealing with "real food" situations is KNOWLEDGE. Calorie King or the website of the restaurant itself will have the nutritional info, and it would only take a minute to zip to your computer and look it up before deciding. If you think you can handle it, you can always order whatever and eat PART of it so as not to go over.

It's not phobia, it's smart. What will take you into phobia is if you continue to act out of ignorance, or if you start demonizing even reasonable portions of healthy foods. There is NOTHING WRONG with sticking to your plan (Lean Cuisine) in the face of another food opportunity. I think some people are too quick to jump from something that's known and controlled to something unknown or over-limit in the name of "but I have to learn to eat real food!" My motto is -- whatever works. If getting the weight off and keeping it off means, for you, sticking to a narrow range of controlled foods, then that's what you have to do. I think doing that for a while, until you really feel your feet under you and you feel confident in your skills, is actually necessary for long-term success for a lot of people. For some people the restrictive period might only be a few weeks, for others it might be months or years. Don't worry about what you SHOULD be able to handle, that you SHOULD have "willpower" in certain situations. Do what's NECESSARY to keep you on track. You'll know when the time is right to start testing your boundaries. Maybe that time for you is now, but you really have to arm yourself with some serious food and nutrition knowledge first. That's what's good about Jenny Craig (my program) -- when done right, you get the portion control AND the knowledge to start making choices on your own when you're ready. If you're not on JC you can do the same thing, but you have to learn a lot more about food values, especially commercial foods.

I'll tell ya this -- after a lifetime of obesity I've lost 170 pounds so far. I was successful this time because I adopted "whatever works" -- whatever I had to do to set myself up for success is what I would do. If that meant never having a bite of favorite fattening foods again, well, I was prepared to pay that price. I would forget about some pie-in-the-sky world where I could face down a platter of pastries or nibble on a few chips and be satisfied and happy and not want moremoremore. I eat out quite a bit now, but I didn't have a restaurant meal for the first 3 months I was on my program, and it was another few months before I had a second. I've had quite a long time to practice my skills and be grounded in what I know I need to do, and even then the compulsive demons still take over sometimes.

So, learn all you can about food and nutrition and especially restaurant foods. Branch out when you are ready, but don't feel guilty or abnormal if you have to stay in your comfort and controlled zones for now. Do what you have to do. Whatever works.