You are here: Home / Archives for ‘meal

Make your meal replacement diet work for you

February 17, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Diets come in all shapes and sizes for people of all shapes and sizes. Some folks can make low-calorie diets work for them, but many people have trouble sticking with the low-calorie foods, or they don’t control portions, or they misjudge the nutritional content of what they are eating. This can make the diet fail from the beginning. For those folks that have a hard time with the plain jane low-cal diets, meal replacement diets are an excellent substitute.

Even meal replacement diets can be cumbersome to do. However there are some tips and tricks to simplify things and give you a boost for making this type of diet work for you.

Variety

When you place your first order, usually the company will suggest a variety of shakes, soups, food bars, etc. It’s very tempting just to choose only the ones that sound good, but you might be surprised by some. After the first order you can be pickier about what you choose.

Organize your daily meals

Rather than make the decision of what to eat from your meal replacement on a meal-by-meal basis, take a few minutes as soon as you get your order to package your food for each day. Grab a box of baggies and start gathering 4-5 meal replacements for the day. A suggestion is a breakfast item, a drink item, a food bar, a soup & a shake for each day. This way when you are getting ready to go work, you don’t have to sort and sift through the boxes trying to figure out what sounds appetizing that day. You just grab a bag and you are good to go.

Make healthy choices for your daily non-replaced meal

Most meal replacement diets allow for one regular daily meal. This doesn’t mean you should go hog-wild and grab that super-sized, fatty meal deal. Why go on a meal replacement diet if you aren’t going to make your own healthy decisions. Most meal replacement diets typically offer a guide to picking foods that will compliment the diet.

Meal replacement meals aren’t only for when you are on a diet

Once you are no longer participating fully with the diet, your body might still crave those smaller meals and you might be tempted to grab whatever is close. Keep in mind that the meal replacement meals are ideal for a mid-morning snack or even for a quick lunch when you only have time for fast food.

Stick with it

This might seem like obvious advice, but too often just sticking with it is the hardest thing to do. Even if you don’t feel like doing the meal replacement diet, just grab your daily bag and do it. As you see your new and improving self, staying with it until you reach your goal will get easier.

Filed Under Health Tagged With , , ,

Meal Replacement Diets for Dieters

February 13, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Meal replacement is condition when we replace our normal meal with a substitution meal. These substitution meals might be a healthy organic diet or meal replacement products like meal replacement shakes. Meal replacement also is a quick and convenient way to get lots of high quality nutrients like vitamins, minerals and also protein. Meal replacement diets consist of formulated food like meal replacement shakes, meal replacement bars, dieting soup and chocolates. Most of the meal replacement foods are low in calories and high in health values.

The effect of meal replacement diets

As what I mentioned earlier, natural food diet consisting of organic food especially like fruits, vegetables, wheat grass, brown rice etc. However meal replacement diets are much simpler. Meal replacement food like meal replacement shakes and diet soup are offered in convenient packing. You are not required to practice any difficult steps for preparing it. Thus you also not required to calculate yourself for the daily calories intake when you use meal replacement food for substituting your lunch. Comparing to organic food diet, meal replacement food diet is much more convenient.

Are Meal Replacement products healthy?

Most of the meal replacement foods like meal replacement shakes are considered organic food. Organic in terms of they are constructed based on natural ingredients. However they are some expert commented that meal replacement foods are not 100% organic. They still consist of chemicals that might harm our body. Some meal replacement food like meal replacement bar is considered less nutritious as they contain high quantity of sugar.

About meal replacement shake

Meal replacement shakes or weight loss shakes is a kind of soy nutrition drink that used to substitute your meal. They contain high quantity of nutrients especially protein and carbohydrate. Protein is for muscle building and carbohydrate is for providing you energy during the meal replacement diets period. At this point of time, meal replacement shakes has been recognized as one of the most effective diet food for dieters. However you should be selective when getting a meal replacement shakes for your diet plan. As they are many of them in the market are not meeting the safety guideline fixed by the state health authority.

About meal replacement bar

If you need a snack for diet, then meal replacement bar is your ideal choice. People called meal replacement bar as power bar as they contain energy for dieters during their diet period. Meal replacement bar is delicious and chewy, there are made of interesting ingredients like nuts, corn, grain and also flavored like chocolate and vanilla. Meal replacement bar considered as the most convenient type of meal replacement food. You dare not need any complicated steps for preparing it. They are ready to eat anytime that you like.

Advantages of Meal Replacement products

Meal replacement food creates lots of convenience for you. They are easy to take and convenient to prepare. Meal replacement food also portable in terms of you can carry them without any burden and worry to wherever you like. Plus you can easily control the calories taking through meal replacement food like meal replacement shakes. If we did a rough calculation, a cup of meal replacement shakes only consists of 60-100 kcal. You will also not taking extra portion of food if you restricted yourself for taking meal replacement food only.

Disadvantages of Meal replacement products

Some meal replacement products provide insufficient quantity of nutrients. This might caused malnutrition for the dieters if they have been taking these meal replacement foods for a period. Besides, experts believe that meal replacement food will cause dieters to become lazy in long term. There will be too depending on the products comparing for preparing their own food. This is dangerous as some meal replacement food like meal replacement shake is not encouraged to take more than 6 months time consecutively. Thus we never know if these meal replacement foods do contain any sight effects in long term.

Who suits meal replacement diets?

If you are obese, then you are strongly encouraged to go for a healthy meal replacement diets. However, if you intend to lose weight quick you can also considered implementing meal replacement diets. Meal replacement diets also useful for people who have no time to prepare their food and struggle for controlling the portion of the food they take. Meal replacement shakes for example is convenient to prepare. What you need to do is just preparing a shaker and get ready with some plain water.

People that shouldn’t take meal replacement diets

If you are skinny enough, then you should keep away yourself from any meal replacement diets. Meal replacement foods like meal replacement shakes and meal replacement bar should become the additional nutritional food for you but not to replace your normal meal. Same too If you are food lovers, then you should not suitable for taking any meal replacement diets. You will find these diets are too simple and making you boring throughout the process.

Filed Under Health Tagged With , , ,

Are Liquid Meal Replacement Diets the Answer?

February 10, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Liquid meal replacement diets have been around for some time now, but many people are still confused about how it really works. The title itself probably gives away how weight loss is achieved, simply replace your meal(s) with a liquid meal.

How does it work?

The principle behind this type of diet is simple. It is based on reducing the total amount of calorie intake each day by replacing meals and or snacks with low calorie liquid products. The diet is aimed at limiting calorie intake to about 1200 calories per day as fewer calories than this can cause rapid unhealthy weight loss.

Replace how many meals?

The number of meals you replace with liquid meals will vary from person to person. For people starting this diet it may be a challenge to replace the majority of meals with liquid substitutes. A good target to aim for is replacing two meals (breakfast and lunch) with a liquid replacement and keeping your dinner a home cooked healthy meal. To start off the diet, try replacing breakfast with a low calorie shake that will still give you energy to last through to lunch.

What are the pros of this diet?

This plan will promote weight loss and is very well suited for people who eat on the run as products such as SlimFast can be purchased in the form of shakes and bars that are low in calories.

What are the cons of this diet?

Drinking shakes in place of regular meals at first can be difficult especially if you’re used to having solid foods. Another negative for this plan is that it may become monotonous after a while, drinking shakes every day making it difficult to maintain.

Overall, this type of diet promotes weight loss by limiting calories while keeping you healthy. The key to the long term success of this diet is to eat sensibly when not replacing your meal.

Filed Under Health Tagged With , , , ,

Medifast Adds Freshly Prepared Brownie to Meal Replacement Line

February 8, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

Many people are excited for the recent release of the Medifast Brownies which are another great addition to the meal replacement line. Now people can treat themselves to something delicious and satisfy those chocolate cravings they get without even harming their diet in any way.

With these brownies all you will need to do is add in the necessary amount of water and bake. With the Medifast Brownies being easy to make and delicious many are definitely going to take advantage of this chocolately delight.

Over the past few years the number of meals available through Medifast continue to keep on growing and with the addition of the Medifast Brownies it seems to be expanding even more. Many people are quite delighted with this addition and many more can’t wait to try it out.

You can incorporate your Medifast Brownies easily into your Medifast 5 & 1 Plan just like you do with any of the other meals. It has been designed to be easy to make so that it is still very appealing to all those that have busy lives. You can make your brownies ahead of time or right when you want them which allows them to be great for those that have busy lives or those that prefer freshly baked.

If you are someone that seems to crave those normally not allowed type foods while dieting then you will love the newest member of the Medifast meal replacement family. Learn more about your options with the Medifast Diet here. Medifast Brownies are the latest addition and we can’t wait to see what is coming up next.

Filed Under Health Tagged With , , , , , , ,

Meal Replacement Diets – What Ones Work?

February 6, 2010 By Karen Hiser Leave a Comment

When struggling with weight loss, sometimes individuals  turn to meal replacement diets to try to loose weight. Diets such as these are not designed to be liquid diets  but rather replace an entire meal while providing the same nutritional content in order for the body to receive all the vitamins it needs to boost your metabolism and get you on a healthy track.

Meal Replacement Diets Designed for Rapid Weight Loss

Popular meal replacements  like  ”Slim Fast “offer a meal replacement shake for breakfast and lunch while eating a calorie wise supper. Along with two healthy snacks a day, this is the entire meal plan which keeps your body fuelled with all the vitamins and nutrients it needs. The idea behind these programs is to correct poor eating behaviour, and supplement what isn’t is your regular diet with what you need to have a well balanced meal. This means that all of the needed vitamins, minerals, and often Omega-3 and anti-oxidants, are divided among the five or six products that an individual will consume in one day.

In addition, when on a meal replacement the individual is requested to include at least one “normal” meal or to supplement the diet products with lean meats or fish, a variety of low-carbohydrate vegetables, and fruit.  While some diets will support low calorie intake, it is basically the same idea. The meal that you do eat must be healthy and not loaded full of carbs or calories. Some diets include skim milk, others don’t allow dairy in the weight-loss stage of the program, each meal replacement program has different requirements. The products that are affiliated with meal replacements plancs range from shakes, bars and puddings (in powder form to which one adds water), to hot cereal, soups, and other items depending on the particular plan and what they have to offer.

How Does Nutrisystem’s Plan Work?

The Nutrisystem program provides prepackaged, non-refrigerated diet meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks. The meals are low calorie, and get a significant portion of their complete nutrition with the added fresh fruit and vegetables. The system is based on low glycemic carbs, with enough protein and fiber that the body needs for proper metabolism. The meal replacement is this case is not is not in the form of a shake but rather pre packaged meals.

The Medifast Replacement Plan

Medifast’s retail program offers prepackaged diet meal replacement foods including shakes, soups, bars, pudding, drinks and cereals.You have   several forms of meal replacement offered to you in order to supplement your eating.The two programs are exactly the same, and the cost is equivalent, so it might be advisable if one is serious about losing a significant amount of weight to consult one’s doctor to find a local sponsor of the program. The medical supervision is particularly important for diabetics, those with heart disease, those over 70, and those who are trying to avoid bariatric surgery.

Medifast’s method is the “5 and 1 diet program” based on five MediFast meals a day and one low calorie, low fat meal prepared from fresh foods. Their plan is designed to be calorie deficient (between 800–1000 calories a day), which forces the body to use fat for energy. Each meal replacement product has exactly 110 calories and the daily total provides all the nutrients and protein needed.

As what true of anything, following the instructions will ensure your success. Meal replacements are designed for the dieter to think they can eat poorly in other areas. These replacements on their own won’t contribute to weight loss unless done in conjunction with the components of the plan. Loosing weight will be a struggle, but worth the end result if you apply yourself.

Filed Under Health Tagged With , , , , ,
Newer Posts »