i was wondering if its safe and should lose weight living on low calorie ready meals? the heinz weight watchers ones all seem pretty good {around the 250 calorie mark} would it be healthy and safe to diet with these? say 5 meals a day and mabey some fruit?. 5 sounds quite alot but im quite a tall well built man, and apparently 2500 calories is reccomended for a man each day so would 5 of these meals working out to 1250 calories a day be a reasnable way of losing weight?

Honestly, that does not seem like enough calories for you to be healthy. I remember reading that men dieting should target around 1500-1600 calories a day.

I think that sounds much too low. 1200 is the lowest women should go withouth medical supervision, so a "tall well built" man would want to be quite a bit higher. Multiplying your body weight (in pounds) by 10 should give you a good estimate. Try it for a couple of weeks and see how you do.

As far as relying upon ready meals, it's probably not such a great idea. They are usually high in sodium and very processed. Nutrients are lost in each step of processing, so the closer what you eat is to its 'whole' form, the better.

It might help to know why you want to eat all ready meals. Is it inconvenient to cook, or is counting calories the problem? I see you're posting from the UK and availability might be different, but here are some things that are easy to prepare and total up:

Cottage cheese or yogurt with low-sugar high-fiber cereal and fresh or frozen berries

Sliced apple with natural peanut butter and low fat cheese

Wraps with any lean protein (baked tofu, chicken, etc.) and fresh veggies

Any lean protein and veggies stir-fried with a little oil and some broth served with brown rice


I could go on and on! Maybe one prepared meal a day and couple of simple meals and snacks you prepare would work? Good luck!

hi again MissEvie would 4 of these meals and one normal healthy dinner in the evening be better? im also starting lifting weights at home so i think i need to have the right kind of food to maximize any improvments to my body. but im not sure what food to eat really.

hi 3Beans thanks for your advice and suggestions i was considering the ready meals for a few reasons, one it i havent learnt how to cook yet, altho this could be a good time to learn the second reason was they have the calories printed on the pack, and it would save weighing out seperate ingredients. but i do have some digital kitchen scales at home.

I agree with the previous post, ready meals are just crap, essentially. They can be ok on occassion but not as a main source of food.

Try starting out really simple! Learn how to roast chicken breats, they take like 2 minutes to prep and 20 min to cook, while that is cooking, heat up some brocolli in the microwave and some rice on the stove. All in all, you will have about 5 min of prep time then just waiting until everything is done!

There are a TON of great and easy recipies on this site.

Just remember when shopping to try and buy things that are not processed, as organic as possible (of course cost can be an issue, as it is with me) so try going to a Farmers Market or plan your meals around sale items. That's what I do! It is not hard to learn to cook, just find some quick and easy recipies!

I second missEvie on the chicken, broccoli, and rice Quick, easy, and good. The ready meals I would say are okay for maybe one meal a day per day. Use Fitday or some program like it to help with your calorie counting. I am not a gourmet chef, I usually have:
Dinner:
1 4-5 oz chicken breast, 1 cup of broccoli, 1 cup of a mixed vegetable mix or a small salad
Lunch
1 can (6 oz) of tuna (no mayo but a little mustard) and 2 slices of bread, 3 oz of baby carrots
I have a protein shake for breakfast, and I have fruit in between meals for a snack.
I don't have to weigh anything I just read the labels. I also buy my veggies frozen because If I buy them fresh they would go to waste before I got to eat them.

thank you girls for the advice my sister is currently dieting too so i think il see if she can show me how to cook some simple things, if not il just go for it and see how i go.

yupyup--frozen meals are not only overly-processed, but talk about sodium city! It is recommended that adults not consume more than 2400mg of sodium a day, and a single frozen dinner can have up to (or over) 1000mg, so if you're eating 4-5 a day, I'd be willing to bet money that your blood pressure would skyrocket!

I hate cooking. I do it, but I hate it, so I never do anything too complicated. There's no reason you can't have a big sandwich as a meal for 250 calories (about the same as a frozen meal). Just use 100% whole-grain bread (I buy an all-natural bread to avoid high-fructose corn syrup as well), lean meats (turkey and chicken breast are great), mustard, veggies (tomato, lettuce, spinach, onion...), and don't pile on the mayo. I actually avoid mayo by using a very flavorful honey dijon mustard or even a flavored hummus as a spread.

Tired of sandwiches? Toss a few chicken breasts in the oven to bake and then store in the fridge to eat throughout the week. Add a light bbq sauce, a teriyaki sauce, some spices, garlic...the possiblities for a piece of chicken are endless! Slice it up and make a wrap or a sandwich, mix it in with some frozen veggies on the stove for a bit to make a stir-fry, drizzle some marinara and reduced-fat cheese on top for a non-breaded chicken parmesan...can you tell I like chicken?

Other quick and easy meals--takes just a few minutes (and very little skill!) to cook a couple eggs with some non-stick spray on the stove. I buy turkey sausages and just cook them in the microwave for 4 minutes, and voila! I also like reduced-sugar instant oatmeal, canned fruit (packed in juice, no syrup), tuna with hummus instead of mayo, pasta (doesn't get much easier than boiling water and dumping out a jar of sauce!), smoothies (milk and fruit and a blender--that's it!)...

wow some great advice and suggestions here , thank you

Hi, I actually just got off of frozen Lean cuisine and Healthy Choice meals for dinner every day and lunch most days. I did this for quite some time. I had felt that I didn't want to spend money or time cooking. My life was hectic with work, and I couldn't be bothered with complicated grocery shopping and cooking -- it was just another thing to deal with. A little over 2 months ago, I made a committment to avoid frozen meals. I think I became nutritionally deficient after eating those for so long. Now, I can't imagine going back to my previous diet of frozen meals.

It is really easy to cook low calorie meals instead. I don't cook anything that takes more than 15 minutes of active effort. Somehow I forgot for a while that it was possible to cook quick easy meals. They're so much better! I had fooled myself into thinking that the frozen meals were so great.

Some of the things I've made for dinner:

Chicken fajita burritos w/ chicken, fajita seasoning, fresh salsa, onions, green peppers, garlic
Broiled tilapia with cajun seasoning w/ rice and veggies
Fish or chicken with veggies simmered in curry sauce (got the sauce from Trader Joe's) over rice (Indian food at home!)
Jerk chicken drumsticks w/ rice and veggies (bought Jerk seasoning)
Pasta with spaghetti sauce adding veggies or shrimp to sauce
Chicken and veggie stir-fry over rice (I've bought a lot of stir fry sauces)
I've replaced the rice with corn on the cob a few times.

You could probably be healthier by making the sauces yourself, but I haven't quite dedicated myself to that yet. I'm also bad in the sense that I buy frozen stir-fry veggies that I use in everything. Fresh would probably be best, but they cost more, perish, and require more effort. Maybe in the future! As you can see I use a lot of store-bought seasonings/sauces -- this saves loads of time and really makes tasty cooking easy. I can cook more complicated things, but I prefer not to right now, and this easy food still tastes great!

You're getting some great advice, but you may not be able to do all of this all at once... ease into it. Make sustainable changes.

And I agree that you would probably need a lot more than 1250 calories! Though you don't tell us what you weigh or what you want to lose!

The American Heart Association's Quick and Easy Meals cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/American-Heart...e=UTF8&s=books) is a great source of easy peasy meals. And it includes nutritional info for every recipe, so you won't need to figure out the calories on your own as long as you follow the recipe (you can vary the spices if you want, which don't usually impact the nutritional content).

Breakfast can be very easy. I eat the same high fiber cereal with soy milk every day. Finding a low calorie but nutritious cereal (there are lots out there) that you like would be much better for you than eating a frozen meal and just as easy (and probably more satisfying).

Lunch can also be easy. PB&J sandwiches were a staple for me for a long time. I've now branched out to turkey and ham sandwiches. I also make some other more creative lunches, but I eat sandwiches once or twice a week (and I always have a PB&J on Sundays---mmmmmm, peanut butter!!).

I do eat lean cuisine and weight watchers entries from time to time, usually for lunch when I am pressed for time, but not very often. I am convinced that they have more sugar and fat than food I make myself and that they get the calories down mainly by reducing the portion size. I find that I can eat a lot more food for the same calories when I make it myself. I also find that I get hungry again quicker when I eat the frozen entries. And then there is all that sodium and the lack of nutrients. Oh and the taste. Years ago I ate frozen entries every day for lunch and it got to the point where I just couldn't stomach them any more (and this is unusual for me, normally I can eat the same thing over and over again and never get tired of it). They just don't taste as good as food I make myself. I think that if you eat them everyday, you are going to get tired of them very quickly.

And I agree with the others that 1250 calories per day sounds way too low for you. I am a woman, 5' 3", weighed 150 when I started my diet, and 1200 calories was my limit when I started. I lost 1.5 to 2 pounds per week at that level. Since you are a man, taller, and well-built, you clearly should be eating more calories than I started at. Add a little exercise and you'll need to eat even more. I now weigh 118 and 1200 calories would way too few even for me because of the amount of exercise I get.

To lose weight, you should eat 500 calories less than the number of calories you would need to eat to maintain your weight. So if it is recommended that you eat 2500 calories to maintain your weight, then you should lose weight at a reasonable and safe rate at 2000 calories per day. This is more of an art than a science, so you might need to adjust the numbers a bit, but 2000 is probably a good starting point. If after several weeks, you aren't losing weight at that level, you can try dropping your consumption down by 100 calories every couple of weeks until you start losing.

- Barbara

Lots of good info here. Thanx! I also am doing alot of chicken breats with rice and veggies most nites.