free online menu planner to give ideas
 

You can sign up for a free account at www.nutrihand.com which is a service similar to FitDay. A unique feature is a menu planner that can customize menus based on different cuisines and calorie limits. They offer menus for Mediterranean meals, including recipes. You can choose if you have limits on fats, if you are a vegetarian, etc. Of course these menus are not based on the Sonoma Diet, so you will have to do some tweaking. But it may give you some ideas, especially during Wave 2 when you have more food options. You can access their recipes, though to be honest, the site navigation isn't that good and you have to jump through hoops to get to them.

I think you can only get one day's menu at a time, so you'd have to visit regularly. They offer a premium service, but I don't know how it compares.

Suzanne-thanks for that link. I've been writing a weight loss curriculum for work and that will come in handy. In fact, may save me a lot of money and aggravation (hiring a dietician to write meal plans)

I just downloaded Accuchef for putting all these recipies in. It is shareware, but trial doesn't expire. I sorted main ingredient by Wave 1, Wave 2, etc. I love how you can copy and paste online recipies in there. I spend 10 minutes editing the grocery store so it is easier for me to use my own catagories. It also has a meal planner and then you can print the grocery list. Can I post the link to download?

http://www.accuchef.com/

Yep, that links allowed :) I use Mastercook, which I love, but I also like trying new software. Thanks for the recommendation!

Thanks - I'll have to check that out. As a recently "retired" WeightWatcher receptionist I no longer get free their e-tools. I've discovered ***********.com which I've been using to track weight progress, nutrition (with a meal planner) and fitness (with suggestions for program). It is also free and has recipes and a message board but I like this one dedicated to Sonoma Diet. *********** seems to focus more on high carb and lower protein (55% carb/30%fat/15%protein) and Sonoma seems to be higher protein than carb.

I'm always looking for new ideas - I'm at goal but have a personal goal that's 5-10 pounds lower.

thanks.....TJ

Oh, thanks for the links! I used to use MasterCook a lot, but it never really got along very well with Windows XP, so I eventually gave up on it. This might be a good alternative, especially if it's easy to copy and paste recipes into it.

i'd love to be able to use either one of those cooking programs (i've got a couple of file folders full of dog-earred recipes that i spend ages leafing through) but neither is for macs! any mac-friendly suggestions?

i've answered my own question. just went to the apple website and found at least 10 different programs that i could put on my mac (at home, not here at work, so i'll have to wait and look more into them tonight). many of which boast how i can download recipes to my ipod (seems like a small screen to be reading from while cooking). but more importantly i could download my shopping list to my ipod! no more loosing my paper list.

but i'd love to hear if anyone has any first-hand experience with these types of programs for macs.