Lean Cuisines?

Do any of you girlies eat Lean Cuisine meals or Smart Ones or whatever on a regular basis? I typically have a chicken salad for lunch at work but i'm starting to feel a need for variety and I heard Lean Cuisine has no added preservatives or artificial flavoring or anything so i was thinking of picking up a bunch of those. the only thing that worries me is the fat grams in each of them.

if anyone eats these on a semi-regular basis, are they filling? do they help maintain your weight??? furthermore, do they even TASTE GOOD?!

Thanks in Advance for reading/answering my ?

:clap

Their pepperoni pizzas are really good. I eat them every week.

I really like their pizzas a lot, too--their 4 cheese pizza is my favorite, but they're all good. I like to make dinner a light meal, so now and then I'll just have one of these, nothing else except a small salad, and it really does fill me up like any normal meal.(Even w/out salad.) I'd say they are probably excellent as part of a program in weight maintainence/reduction.

You're worried about the fat? Those things hardly have any fat -- you need a little fat in your diet to be healthy! I don't personally think they're filling enough, but I also have a pretty high metabolism. However, if I eat some fresh fruit or something with them, I can make a meal out of it! (Now some of the Healthy Choice meals have larger portions, some of them will fill me up...)

Yeah, I don't find them filling enough either! But they are tasty and good with a piece of fruit or small salad. They aren't my meal mainstays, just as an occasional lunch for when I'm not up to making anything. I saw in the store there were some larger portion packages but the ones I saw didn't have enough veggies. Maybe others do?

i got a few weight watchers and LC meals the other week. they're pretty good! i actually picked up a few more tonight!

i have a low fat diet. they're all around 4-8 or 9 grams of fat which is pretty good since regular boxed meals are like 30 or soemthing like that! and salads are kind of fattening too. i used to get the pre-made salads from the grocery stores, i've checked out the fat grams when i started my diet, and those are like 30-50 grams of fat too!!!

sometimes i'll have some sun dried tomato and garlic sourdough bread (doesn't have any fat) with it

Well, if the package says "Less fat" you can guarantee that they are using hydrogenated/partially hydrogenated oils. Which is straight trans fat...and is even worse than using all natural full cream butter. They are also very high in sodium...and if you cannot read the ingredients on the back and know EXACTLY what it is, then you shouldn't eat it. It's processed and synthetic and your body cannot process/use it.

I eat Amy's. It's all natural and without all the "unknown" words in it. It's pricey, but totally worth it.

Here's my take on it. I eat Lean Cuisine a lot. I was on Weight Watchers and I found Lean Cuisine more satisfying than Smart Ones. Plus, the points are on the side of the box for both brands. And really, all frozen entree's, I have found, are all high in sodium. I think for a couple times a week, they are okay, but not to eat them day in and day out, which is what I've been doing and I'm trying to stop.

But as a review: the ones I've found satisfying are: Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice, Amy's Organic and Marie Callendar (but Marie's are FATTENING but delicious!)

This is an interesting thread for me, because a couple weeks ago, I decided I was tired of either doing unhealthy fast food all the time or buying healthy stuff like fresh produce and having it all spoil on me. BIG waste of money. So around that point in time, I started buying Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine meals to have on hand for quick, easy dinners. I live alone, so there's like zero motivation for me to actually cook. I'll sometimes have a little organic salad and glass of milk or something to supplement. To me, they're not terribly filling on their own.

CamaroChick you sound like me! i spend sooo much money on fresh produce and it always just spoils on me and i am so sick of that cycle!

How many fat grams should a person take in on a day? the LC meals range from 4g to 9g of fat, i assumed that was a lot... on top of that i ALWAYS eat weight control oatmeal in the morning which has 3g of fat... maybe i just dont have a good understanding of how much fat is OK to eat

see, and if i went the LC route... i would be eating one every single day for lunch. you make that sound like thats too often to be eating them :

THE SALADS HAVE THAT MUCH FAT?! see it's hard for me to track fat & calories etc. when i buy those premade salads at the grocery stores. i always throw the croutons out and i use my own dressing, KRAFT fat-free italian..

I LOVE LOVE LOVE THE LC Panini sandwiches. Sound icky, I know but seriously tastes so yummy and the bread even grills in the microwave. I love the chicken club and southwestern chicken. I just got hooked on these last week. I have been using for lunch (sometimes) and dinner (sometimes like on a school nite and I am by myself with no one else to cook for). To me, these are soo good I would eat even if it wasn't a LC.

The standard fat guidelines (recommended by the American Heart Association) say that the amount of calories you get from fat should not be more than 30% of the total calories you eat in one day. So on a 1500 calorie diet (which is a pretty common amount for women on diets, I think), you should keep it below 450 calories from fat. Since one gram of fat has 9 calories, then that means you should eat no more than 450/9 = 50 grams a fat a day. (There are further guidelines about how much of that fat should be saturated fat, etc.) Most weight-loss plans recommend you eat about 20% of your calories in fat, so that would mean 1500 * 0.20 / 9 = 33 grams of fat a day. So 8 or 9 grams of fat in a meal is definitely low-fat!

If you're not sure how much fat or calories you should be eating, talk to your doctor about your lifestyle and ask him for a recommendation. Obviously, your metabolism and exercise level will have a large effect on how many calories you should be eating in a day. It would also be a good idea for you to get your body fat percentage checked since you are eating so little fat -- women should not get below 12% (for some reason we need more fat than guys do, to keep our female organs healthy!).

Here are some related websites:

Fat and calories: http://www.lifeclinic.com/focus/nutrition/fat.asp

Fat intake: http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk...fat_intake.htm

Info on different kinds of fat, sodium, cholesterol, etc.: http://www.msha.com/body_sibling02.cfm?id=286

Body fat percentage and dieting: http://www.healthchecksystems.com/bodyfat.htm

Oh yeah, a McDonald's salad with fried chicken and a regular (not low-fat) dressing has as many calories as a Big Mac! If I'm going to eat that many calories, I'll get the Big Mac /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

I'm no doctor but if you don't have to watch your sodium intake, I GUESS it would be okay to eat a Lean Cuisine every day...I'm not really sure...but speaking for myself, I'm trying not to eat one every day because of the sodium content and then I get bloated from all the salt....but that's just me. Age and weight I guess play a factor in it...I think Lean Cuisine & Health Choice are lower in fat than other frozen brands. I looked at the South Beach frozen meals and they're higher in fat grams.

I love oatmeal too, I make the Quaker Quick Oats when I do eat Oatmeal. Its not instant but it cooks in just about a minute or so and I think its around the same amount of grams as the Weight Control one - except that its not instant.

I'm always looking for something fast, and easy to cook but also healthy.And like you too, I'll buy carrots, celery, lettuce, tomatoes and then at the end of the week I have to throw half of it out.

I find that the lettuce in the bag (there's no croutons in it) is good and I just throw it in a bowl and either top it with a can of water packed tuna or those Perdue Short Cuts (pre-cooked skinless, boneless, chicken strips) and 1-2-3 you have a salad - just add dressing.:icon_chee

I agree that the fat content with these products aren't something to be concerned with, hence the reason they're referred to as diet products. I prefer the taste of LC over WW/SO. As far as them being enough, initally you may struggle to find satisfaction in them, but paired with some baby carrots or a 100-calorie pack (basically a low-cal side snack) you should be good to go. I personally wouldn't eat them every day b/c that amount of sodium is outrageous to me and leads to water retention, but that's just personal preference. You can monitor those individual levels (calories, fat, sodium, and other vitamins/minerals) for free at FitDay.

I used to eat them all the time when I started trying to lose my baby weight. They filled me up (especially with added veggies). The sodium really isn't anything to worry about because they don't have much more than anything else, and you can eat 3 a day and still not reach the govt's max. I hardly eat them at all anymore since I cook so much, but I just discovered Lean Cuisine's new Paninis, and oh my word!! They're delicious!!!! I really love the steak and cheese one. It's great if you're craving a philly cheesesteak!!!

My sodium from other sources when combined w/ LC's is what gets me.