Anyone else tried eating frozen food for fast days?

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Anyone else tried eating frozen food for fast days?

This topic contains 21 replies, has 9 voices, and was last updated by  SAMM 9 years, 8 months ago.

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  • Hello, I just started the fasting diet a little over 2 weeks ago. The first week, I had a hard time finding what to eat on fasting days. Trying to figure out how many calories are in what and doing the math to keep under 500 calories got a bit confusing for me because different sources states different calorie amount for each food item. Last week, I decided to try frozen food like Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine and Smart One so I will know exactly how many calories I consume. My fasting days ended up being drinking coffee for breakfast and eating frozen food between 260-320 calories for dinner. I still even have enough energy to go walk on the treadmill for about an hour after dinner.

    The frozen dinner seems to work great last week, so I’m doing it again this week. When I started the diet on January 27, 2014 I was at 142.2lbs. This morning, February 11, 2014 I weighed in at 137.6lbs. I just wanted to know if anyone else has tried frozen food on fasting days and found success long term.

    Whatever works for you mochi πŸ™‚
    I have two ready meals in my freezer for emergencies but so far prefer to cook fresh food or add something to salad.
    Well done!

    Yes – whatever works for you. Ready meals are fine as a stand by.

    I, personally, prefer home cooked food so I know exactly what I’m eating and it isn’t processed.

    Have you thought about preparing low cal meals in advance and freezing them for fast days. I prepare meals for my fast days and make at least a triple quantity then I split into portions and freeze two of them.

    If you use My Fitness Pal app, it has a recipe section – you enter the ingredients and quantities and the number of portions you are making and the app calculates the calories in each portion.

    xx

    Thanks guys, I don’t know why I never thought of splitting the portions. Every time I look at a recipe, I look at the total calorie, which are usually way over 500 calories. However the recipes usually are made to serve 4 to 6 people. I guess I will try that. Cooking on the weekend and splitting up the portions for my Monday and Wednesday fasts. Thanks again for the suggestion! I will definitely make use of My Fitness Pal.

    Hi mochi, I live on my own so I only cook about once a week and portion it all up for the freezer anyway. I have 2 drawers full of single portions (under 500 calories) of various meals that I’ve always liked and ate before 5:2. At the beginning I used to use these (or tinned soups) on fastdays. Now I just use them on non-fastdays (I’m a cereal girl on fastdays now) but they are quick & easy pre-calorie-counted meals for me on non-fastdays, so I can easily tell that I’m within my TDEE but I’m not missing out on any of my previous favourite foods.

    If you don’t want to make your own though – sure, supermarket ready meals are totally fine. I saw an article about how sales of them spiked after the FastDiet books were selling like hotcakes – so I guess a lot of people had the same idea πŸ˜‰

    Thanks Tracy, it really is easy to just eat the frozen foods, very fast and ready to consume in 5 minutes. I’m not a huge fan of leftovers, which is why I typically don’t cook anymore. If I cook, it’s usually for just me and my boyfriend and he eats very little so we end up with lots of leftovers that eventually gets thrown away. He weighs much less than me, so my goal right now is to weigh less than him.

    What’s weird is yesterday on a non fast day, I had a can of Campbell’s healthy request soup (100 calories) and one of the frozen food (310 calories) and felt comfortably full. I could have ate more but didn’t have a need to. Anyway, I’ll look for a good healthy recipe to cook for fasting days and try it out for next week. I will give an update on how well it goes.

    Certainly use frozen foods on fast days, mochi,especially as they are usually calorie-counted for you and give you all round nutrition facts. I like to cook, which I mostly have time for since I work from home. But for those who don’t have time or are not keen on cooking, frozen ready meals are the ideal solution.

    Hi mochi, yep I know what you mean about leftovers, it’s very difficult to just cook for 1 or 2, most recipes are geared towards families of 4-6 I find. That’s why I started portioning off & freezing the ‘leftovers’ of my favourite meals when I left home. I’d photocopied all my favourite ‘family recipes’ from my mum’s Weight Watchers recipe books and those were actually ideal for 5:2 because most of them were suitable for freezing and the individual portions very rarely creep over 500 calories per portion anyway (when you don’t add extra cheese or whatever – which I was wont to do from time to time πŸ˜‰ ).

    So you don’t really need any kind of ‘special’ recipes, just find good solid recipes of your favourites and calorie count them to make sure they’re within your tollerance & make sure they’re freezable. Most of my fave WW recipes actually benefit from being frozen weirdly. There’s a gorgeous tuna lasagna that’s OK when it’s fresh but bloody AMAZEBALLS when it’s been frozen for a while.

    Couldn’t agree more about recipes for 1 or 2. It’s a pain having to do the maths,, especially if, like me, you are discalculic – number dyslexic – and generally rubbish with figures. One possible solution for using left-overs, especially veggies, is soup. “Naff vegetable soup” using tired-looking veg from the fridge, or indeed left-overs, is a speciality of the hermaj house. On winter fast days when salads are much less inviting I tend to make soup. Some of these add up to as little as 70-75 cals per serving or at worst around 140-150. There is a brilliant one in Michael and Mimi’s cookbook called skipper’s soup and andloads more on various recipe sites

    Hi Mochi, I too started a couple of weeks ago and loss seems to be fairly low but steady so far. I save most of my calories for my evening meal (maybe having a couple of ryvita or a bowl of soup mid-morning). My favourite so far is my version of Chicken Caeser Salad with lots of different leaves, usual salad stuff, a boiled egg and a small chicken breast. I have a tablespoon of low-fat dressing mixed with a tablespoon of natural yoghurt. It’s easy and quick and filling too (and I can add a few new potatoes for my husband!). Hope that helps!

    @hermajtomomi ‘skipper’s soup’ sounds intriguing. Can you, or anyone else, share the recipe – pretty please with bells on!! ….I have shelves full of recipe books and am loathe to buy yet another one!! I can’t find the recipe anywhere on line.

    xx

    Glad to, sylvestra. Before I do, just checking that you are carnivorous ‘cos it involves chorizo.

    xx

    I eat carnivs at every opportunity, hermaj. Thanks πŸ˜€

    Yet another thing we have in common, sylvestra, a house heaving with cookbooks, Some of mine date back to the hippy days, e.g. Diet for a Small Planet and Alternative Cookery, which I still use occasionally.

    20-odd years ago I translated 24 volumes of “Cookery Around the World” from German for Time-Life. Since then I’ve found my name online in bibliographies of people in various countries doing Masters’ degrees in food-related disciplines.

    Anyway, here’s the recipe

    Skipper’s Soup. For those who have Mimi’s Fast Diet Recipe Book it’s on p.175 and, wonder of wonders, the quantities are for 1 serving. Calorie count 142 per portion.

    25g good quality chorizo (note from hermaj, try to poke out and discard some of the very fatty bits) THEN weigh it. Less fat, more flavour.
    1 small onion, finely chopped,
    200g (i.e. 1/2 tin) tinned haricot beans, cannelini, butter beans or chickpeas, drained
    300ml chicken stock,
    pinch of smoked paprika
    salt and pepper

    Chop the chorizo into small chunks and heat very gently in a heavy-bottomed pan.When it begins to release some oil (note from hermaj, there won’t be much if you’ve already removed the very fatty bits) add the onion and a little stoick and cook gently until softened. Add the beans and remaining stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Whisk with a hand blender or tip into a food processor and whisk until smooth. Add the paprika and check seasoning before serving. Add 1 tbsp of low fat natural yogurt. One tbsp = 10 cal.1/2 fat creme fraiche works just as well.

    Thanks for that hermaj! I shall definite give that a go.

    My recipe books collection is international and eclectic. As well as my own books I have handwritten ones inherited from my mother, grandmother and mother-in-law.

    I use recipes more for ideas than to follow rigidly.

    Thanks again

    xx

    aarrgghh – read it before you hit submit you fool!! *definitely* πŸ˜€

    I’ve just seen my instructions include the use of a little stoick. What’s stoick when it’s at home? Senility threatens!

    Oh dear! I didn’t notice that – ha ha – stoick …a New York stork? Or a Noo Yoick stoick!! πŸ˜€

    xx

    I’ll keep you a seat in the ‘Home for Ageing Hippies’ hermaj!!
    xx

    I’ve read it’s best not to have white carbs like potatoes, rice and pasta on fast days. That’s why I haven’t had frozen meals since mist have these in them. I guess I’ll start including them if its working for you all. I’ve been wondering if people were having them. Thanks.

    After about a month and a half fasting and making good progress (2 lbs a week) I started eating low cal tv dinners. Although I showed weight loss the next day, i came right back the following. Now I’m finding the weight very gradually coming back. I’m thinking it’s the change in what I am eating. May have to just go back to what I was doing before. Not nearly as convenient but I was pleased with rhe progress I was making then. Give it a try and see how it works for you.

    Mochi
    Good you able to do it.

    In the beginning , and every time I’ve restarted it put more of an emphasis of calories rather than nutrition.
    So if having the frozen meals helps you succeed . Im for that! Over time I started to get used to the fast days and starting eating healthiest carbs on non fasting days. I believe the healthy nutrition on feed days helps the fast days. Where as when I was eating burgers and pizzas on feed days I still stuggled. On fast days. Eventually putting exercise on feed days when I had more energy and aiming to do HIIT exercise on feed days to help lower fats in my blood stream.

    Once I started doing that and trying not to eat till I felt stuffed full on feed days. I got used to eating slowly and around the. 450 calorie meals on feed days . Not sure why this worked by by week 12 I was able to do 4:3 without feeling like I was struggling all day. I guess I just got used to not eating till full and that kept my hunger pangs in check. So once I got used to the 5:2. Being successful for 4 weeks or so . I move on to 4:3 , and that’s when I lost most of my weight.

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