Sample menus. Feel free to print and use this if you'd like. That's why I put it on a white background!!! :o)
***For BREAKFAST I have one of the following:
*Bagel and lite cream cheese and a banana.
*Bowl of cream of wheat and a piece of fruit.
*A couple of slices of toast with a little bit of butter/jelly.
*A couple of lite pancakes (if you have a Kroger near you, their brand of pancake mix is very low fat/calorie) with lite syrup.
*A bowl of cereal and banana.
*A medium egg fried with Pam and eaten with a piece of toast or a 1/2 serving of grits (hello, I'm a true southern girl here!).
*A medium egg scrambled with a little bit of lite cheese in a pan sprayed with Pam and a piece of toast or grits.
*If you like breakfast sausage, Healthy Choice has some really good sausage that is only 50 calories and 1.5 grams of fat for two patties!
I usually drink a cup of coffee, but sometimes will have a glass of skim milk instead. If you don't drink skim milk currently, do not try to change to it all at once or you will be disgusted by it! Just wean yourself to it by buying some and each day mix a little bit more skim milk with the version you currently use until you are at 100% skim milk.
Breakfast usually is around 300-350 calories and 2-5 grams of fat total.
***For LUNCH I usually have either:
*A sandwich with low fat/low calorie meat (I love the Healthy Choice meats because they taste good, are low in fat and calories).
*A pineapple sandwich with a little bit of mayo.
*A grilled cheese sandwich made with lite cheese cooked on a pan sprayed with Pam.
*A Healthy Choice pizza with a bowl of lettuce and fat-free dressing (Note: Lean Cuisine also has pizzas, but the Healthy Choice ones are lower in fat and calories, and the taste is the same in my opinion).
*A Healthy Choice hotdog with a bun and Wow chips.
With the sandwiches I have either the Wow potato chips or Pringles fat-free ones. The Wow chips REALLY DO taste like the regular fattening ones. If you haven't tried them I would suggest you try eating a few at home when you don't have to go anywhere in case you have trouble digesting them. Some people's stomachs can't handle the Olestra and get diarrhea. I have a sensitive stomach, but have no problems digesting them. Sometimes I will have pretzels with my lunch instead of chips. To drink I have either 8 ozs of skim milk or occasionally will have 1/2 can of a soft drink. I've slowly weaned myself from a can of soft drinks daily at lunch to this.
Lunch is usually 350-450 calories and 4-6 grams of fat.
***For DINNER some sample meals are:
*1/2 chicken breast either baked with seasoning on it with two different vegetables, 1/2 cup each and sometimes a small dinner roll. (3 oz of skinless chicken, which is about ½ a breast, is 140 calories and 3 grams of fat. It’s not listed in most food books and I had a dietitian hunt it down for me).
*A dinner of just veggies. You can eat a heck of a lot of veggies and get a low amount of calories/fat. For example, 1/2 cup of sweet peas, 1/2 cup of lima beans, 1/2 cup of carrots and 1/2 cup of black-eyed peas if all eaten in the same meal is only 300 calories and about 2 grams of fat. It is really a LOT of food when you measure it out.
*A smoked pork chop with a couple of veggies.
*Steamed shrimp and a baked potato. Lite sour cream and butter on the potato.
*Baked or grilled fish and veggies.
*HealthyChoice has a wonderful sphaghetti sauce. I will sometimes make it, putting in a little ground beef, and between the sauce and pasta I have 10 grams of fat and 400 calories.
*I keep on hand in the freezer some microwave meals for when I don't feel like cooking or have a late afternoon and don't have the time to cook. Healthy Choice, Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine, etc. have lots to choose from. However, if you'll look at the labels you'll see that the Healthy Choice ones are healthier with less calories/fat than the other brands.
Dinner is my "biggest" meal of the day and I usually have been 350-500 calories and 4-8 grams of fat in it, but if I eat the most at that time I don't get hungry in the evening.
For snacks I would recommend carrot sticks with fat-free ranch dressing; popcorn cakes; lite crackers; fruit or jello. At first I would get hungry between meals sometimes and I'd grab one of the above and have just a few bites. Usually it would be enough to shut the stomach up. Now I rarely get hungry between meals, but have the above ready when I just "have" to have something. Also animal crackers are good to curb the sweet tooth as they are low in fat/calories.
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