Please help me balance a busy schedule, heavy exercise, and dietary constraints by suggesting the perfect meal.

sequential — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:29:45 -0800

Please help me balance a busy schedule, heavy exercise, and dietary constraints by suggesting the perfect meal. First, I am operating under the assumption that meal replacement bars can not replace all meals. Though I have been through many days while traveling with just South Beach Meal Replacement bars, which contain 0g sugars, 5g fiber, 19g protein, 6g fat, and a smattering of 23 vitamins and minerals all for the low price of 210 calories per bar, I get the distinct impression this is not as healthy as I can be.

Second, I exercise at least six days a week, burning a minimum of 700 calories per day. My diet is 1400 net calories, which generally means 2100 total calories. Though the meal replacement bars are tasty, they are also filling. I can't eat 10 a day. When I am home, I eat better, but still rely on bars to get my caloric intake at its appropriate level.

Furthermore, I have food allergies (tomatoes, chief and most dangerous among them), intolerances (lactose is ok in small doses), and an over active set of taste buds (few veggies, no alcohol). This severely limits my food choices.

What I'm looking for is a meal that I can prepare in advance that can entirely replace of the traditional American meal. Such a perfect meal should be roughly between 200 and 300 calories. The meal should be nutritionally balanced when multiplied out to a 2,000 calorie diet, though I am not opposed to supplementing my diet with vitamins. Such a meal should use relatively easy to find ingredients at drug stores, grocery stores, or retail locations like WalMart or Target. (In other words, no specialty stores.) Such a meal should be low in sugars (close to 0g), relatively high in fiber (5g or higher), protein heavy (20g or higher), low in sodium, fat, and cholesterol.

Bonus points for preparation that can be done in a hotel room with no kitchen or whilst otherwise ill prepared. That said, if I can find a couple of perfect meals, I'll happily prepare meals well in advance.

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.

Meal Replacement Bar Question

Squid Voltaire — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:47:56 -0800

Is it really impossible to lose weight (in a healthy manner) by substituting two meals a day with some sort of bar? I find that I have pretty good dieting willpower, but only in black & white instances. So, if I say, "No sweets for two months", that's fine and I don't cheat. If I say, "Don't eat too many sweets", however, then it doesn't work for me.

As such, I've had extremely poor luck with diets. "Eat healthy food" is just too nebulous. I also don't have a lot of time, so I frequently cannot pack my lunch, which means I purchase (mostly unhealthy) food frequently.

What I want is a no-thought-required, eat-this-one-thing-twice-a-day meal substitute so that I don't have to worry about it, and will lose weight (this approach being coupled with thrice-weekly gym visits and reasonable dinner). I don't seem to be able to pack a healthy lunch, or measure out my salad dressing, or to remember how many croutons are permissible, &c.

There are a lot of energy bar threads on Ask, but they all seem to be either about snacks, or about how awful energy bars are. (Apologies if I missed the relevant thread that answers this question). It seems like we know enough about nutrition these days that one could manufacture the equivalent of a healthy, balanced fixed-calorie meal in a bar--is this not the case?

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Please help me balance a busy schedule, heavy exercise, and dietary constraints by suggesting the perfect meal.

Meal Replacement Bar Question