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Healthy foods that don't taste like cardboard!



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K I thought it would be a cool idea to start a post about this. I'm a college student and frequently eatting on the run/poor! And I'm sure you all have crazy lives too. So there's a lot of times I can't get totally fresh food. So does anybody have any healthy packaged food that doesn't taste nasty? Protein bars? prepared meals?

Best thing I've run into is Special K Peanut Butter and chocolate meal bars...I think under 200 cals, 10g of Protein and 5g of Fiber. And they taste like I'm eatting a candy bar, but of course less junky.

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I love the South Beach Living High Protein Cereal Bars in Cinnamon Raisin. They have 140 calories, 10 g of Protein and 3 g of Fiber.< /p>

I haven't really tried frozen/prepared meals. They have ungodly amounts of sodium in them.

I'm don't generally have to eat on the run, but I am prone to making poor choices if I'm hungry and there is nothing quick to eat. One thing I do is prepare things ahead of time and portion them up. A recipe that has gotten passed around here a lot, that I love, is chicken or tuna salad made with the Tostitos Spinach Dip. To a 13 oz can of chicken I add 3 or 4 tbsp of the dip (depending on how moist you like it), and Splenda-sweetened sweet pickle relish to taste. I get 4 1/2 cup servings from this. I go ahead and portion it out into the little 1/2 cup storage containers. That way I just have to grab one and some crackers (also already portioned out into snack-size bags) and I'm ready to eat.

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I do eat a lot of salt:S But I generally make up for it later in the day by taking it easy with my other meals.

Another fine discovery: You can buy the grilled chicken patties from MCd's with no bread! yay to not spending $5 on a sandwich only to throw away the bread! They are really good when I only have 20 min in between classes.

Not a big fan of TV dinners, though I might look into some healthy choice ones. But I can never find one that doesn't turn out soggy or like rubber.

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I like the South Beach High Protein Meal Bars, they taste good and are easy to carry with you.

I am not a tuna eater, but I have heard that the foil packs of tuna are good and you wouldn't have to have a can opener. I think they even come in flavors/seasoned.

I always have some almonds in my purse, easy Protein. I also will have some trail mix in a pinch. I carry around premeasured Protein powder in a baggie, that way if I am feeling like I need something in my stomach I can always get Water and add the protein, shake and go!

You could boil eggs on the weekend, that is a good grab and go with high protein. This kind of goes along with Misty's idea of cooking on the weekend and portioning out servings that you can grab and eat!

Hope this helps!

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Do you have Jack in the Box restaurants there? Their grilled chicken strips are really good - moist and flavorful. 4 strips have 180 calories and 37g of Protein.< /p>

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I'm finished with college and grad school, but this summer I had to do a post-grad workshop at a college and this is what I did pretty much. I drank 1-2 Protein Shakes a day. These are really easy because you just pour the milk and your powder in the blender. Blend it for a minute and your good to go. I also ate the tuna in the foil packets. No can opener required and if you are SERIOUSLY on the go, you can throw some fat free mayo IN the foil pack, mix it up a little, and just eat it right out of the packet. I also kept egg beaters around and what I did was spray the inside of a cup with that fat free cooking spray, pour in the egg beaters, microwave them, and then eat them with a little dipping sauce of some kind (I love peanut sauce, so thats usually what I used). That was a one minute meal. If you have a little more time (but not much more, just a little), and you like tofu, I kept a couple packs of tofu in the fridge. I then cut what I wanted, added a little sauce of some kind to the top of them, microwaved them for a little bit of time and ate them (for example, I put a little low-sodium soy sauce on them for flavor, microwaved, and then used a sesame asian sauce of some kind for dipping). This is not the tastiest way to prepare tofu, but its fast, and gives you a lot of Protein.< /p>

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I'm also a grad student...I'm not able to eat them yet as I am a new bandster but larabars are really great on the go. Also, there are these really tasty nut mixes (can't remember what they're called) but they're all natural and a little sweet. I got the ones that were a mix of peanuts and almonds. They're in little cube shapes and soooo tasty.

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      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. LeighaTR

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

        Now I have a whole new big, bigger, biggest, best days ever. I am out there with those skinny people doing stuff i could never have dreamt of. Food is now an after thought. It doesn't consume my day. I still enjoy the good home cooked food but I eat smaller portions. I leave food on my plate when I am full. I can no longer hear my mother's voice saying eat it all up, ther are starving children in Africa who would want that!

        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

        I don't know at what point my life expanded, was it when I lost 100 pounds? Was it when I left my walking stick at home ? Was it when I said yes to an outing instead of finding an excuse to stay home ? i look back at my last five years and wonder how loosing weight has made such a difference. Be ready to amaze yourself.

        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

    • CaseyP1011

      Officially here for a long time, not just a good time💪
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