Weight watchers processed meals - good or bad??

Lmnover

Hi

Up until recently i thought i had a reasonably good diet,

Special K for breakfast (big bowl with skimmed milk)
Wholemeal tuna sambo for lunch
Weight watchers meal and loads of veg (sometimes fresh / sometimes frozen) for dinner
Also - apples x 2, coffee x 3, ryvita with low fat spread x 1
Weekends - eat and drink normally

I have no will power for portion size so the weight watchers meals are safer for me to eat - ie if i cooked a full saucepan of pasta - i would eat it regardless of whether i could fit it in

Anyway i went to a consultation with Educo gym as i was considering joinin and they thought my diet was criminal because of the processed meals and cereals???

I am about 3/4 of stone over my target weight and do exercise so maybe i need to improve my diet??????? any suggestions???

siochain

processed is the key work, for healthy and nutritious food sit hould be consumed as near a possible to its original state. Processed food sometimes can be handy but not every day.

Do a search on tony quinn in the fitness forum before making your mind up in Tony Quinn.

Best of luck

EileenG

The odd processed meal is fine occasionally (when visiting your parents who live on junk food, for instance) but in general, you'll be much better off, health-wise and financially if you eat fresh food cooked from scratch. It is just as fast to make an omlette, bake a piece of fish or grill a steak as it is to reheat a ready meal, and you know exactly what the ingredients are. Most ready meals have about four ingredients you recognise, the rest are odd chemicals with unknown purposes.

Also, your diet is low in protein. The lastest meta-analysis of diets showed that the more protein in a diet, the more likely it was to be successful. You'd be surprised at the calories in a big bowl of Special K (try weighing your portion, bet you'll be amazed) so you can easily have something like a mushroom omlette for the same calories, and get in far more protein and healthy fats.

Fat has an RDA for a reason. You need fat for good health. Drop fat too low and fat loss will slow too.

Beks

I'd avoid any processed meal at all costs!

barbiegirl

I find processed foods give me heartburn. Try weight watchers core diet cause you can eat what you like of the core foods, all good stuff, veg, real meat, pasta, rice, potatoes, cereals, skimmed milk, fruit etc. and only worry about the added fats like butter, treats and alcohol. Could do the job in retraining your habits. Only cook what you need and then you can only eat that amount :-)