CHE Standards

Toni Said:

Prepackaged diet foods?

We Answered:

As far as tasting good...

Lean Cuisine Margherita pizza
Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine
Smart Ones - any of the sundaes are good

They all taste good and don't have so many calories in them.

But you can't just eat diet dinners all the time. It gets old.

I suggest eating a larger variety of food in smaller portions. That way you don't get bored, and you will eat healthier if you try to eat something that's healthy and different every day of the week.

Boredom leads to failure in dieting.

Get more active, but do something different each time.
Try to do some cardio (ride a bike one day, walk one day, jump rope one day, vary it up) at least twice a week, for about 20 minutes at a moderate pace.
On a couple days, when you don't do your cardio: Do some crunches and pushups and maybe do some weightlifting with 3-lb. weights for your arms... for just about 10 minutes. Keep a couple days where you don't have to workout at all.
You don't have to workout for more than that to start seeing results. And if you keep it light, you won't get tired of it so easily.

Also, a huge thing you can do to lose some weight:
STOP DRINKING POP OR ANYTHING CARBONATED, EVEN DIET POP.
Carbonation bloats you up causing you to look a lot bigger.
Drink water, juice, milk instead.

James Said:

Do anyone know of a good dieting programs for teens (15&up) , where they send food prepackaged?

We Answered:

No don't go there how can it be healthy and maintainable if it's out of a box. I have a plan that will definately work for you and can easily fit into anyones lifestyle.

If you want to do this it is for life so you need to totally change your way of eating and exercising. This is not a diet rather than a healthy eating plan for life. So no more talking diet cause it means time limit.

Here are the golden rules:
Initially cut down to 1200 calories.
Exercise 6 times per week for 1 hours a day. Do three weight sessions and three cardio sessions.
Don't eat carbs after 4pm, never eat carbs within 2 hours of exercise or within 1 hour of exercise.
Drink 3 litres of water per day. You can have a green tea at the end of the day.
Limit your fruit in take to 2 pieces per day.
Never eat dinner after 6pm.
Adopt of low GI eating plan this is sustainable for life!
Make low fat dairy choices

Follow this menu plan as a suggestion:
Breakfast 7am - 1 cup hot water w lemon
20 minutes later have a bowel of oats w water (no honey) OR
fruit salad w low GI soy yogurt
Snack 10am - pear or apple (both low GI)
Lunch 12.30pm - muligrain sandwich w 50g tuna & salad (no butter)
Snack 3pm - low GI yogurt OR skim berry smoothie (no honey or banana) plenty of ice, 1/2 cup skim milk & 1/4 cup yogurt
Dinner 5.30pm - 120g grilled lean meat/fish/prawns/tofu patties (not fried) w spinach salad & mixed vegies (no whites, carbs) OR 3 egg white/soy omlette with ham, cheese and tomato
Snack - 1 scoop of low cal low fat ice cream (if hungry)

Exercise is must be intense. Refer to www.bodybuilding.com for your weights routine. You can do a circuit class but this counts as one weights session. Never do weights two consecutive days have a cardio day in between.

Cardio needs to include running, boxing and spin. If your classes are less than 1 hour top it up with cardio before and after classes. You get the most benefits from exercise when your body is totally fatigued and this is when you see changes.

To maintain you can increase calories to 1500 and reduce exercise sessions to 3-4 times per week. If weight creeps up again due to holiday period etc.. go back to 1200 cal and 6 sessions again.

Good luck it worked for me it can work for anyone.

Wallace Said:

Can you stay healthy on a convenience food diet?

We Answered:

Absolutely not. Even sticking with PBS recipes will result in health problems. These cooking shows feature foods high in cholesterol in meat, poultry, pork, fish, whole eggs, and dairy products. These portions of animal proteins are guaranteed to result in cardiovascular damage. In addition, recipes are high in sugars, fats, and salt. When the chef does mention healthy eating, it is only a modest reduction one of these ingredients. You begin to wonder about funding for PBS and how the food industry got its greasy big hands on this network.

Convenience foods are all about taste and low cost --> profit. When Weight Watchers originally marketed healthy frozen foods, people stayed away from the bland product in droves. Weight Watchers soon learned to copy the other food companies. In the case of healthy frozen dinners, a quick look at the ingredients will tell you that the only reason it is healthy or low calorie is the fact that the food is in lower portions. You pay more and get less. It's just as unhealthy as the larger frozen dinners. Irradiation and preservatives are used to increase shelf life. Healthy convenience foods are a contradiction in terms. Healthy is a marketing gimmick.

There are a few good manufacturers of healthy pre-packaged foods, but they are few and far between. For a healthy overall diet, you must be willing to prepare your own food primarily from whole plant sources. Before changing your diet to a radically healthy vegan diet, I recommend you take classes from the Seventh Day Adventists. They understand nutrition. I do appreciate their insights. Everyone, regardless of religious affiliation, could learn from these good people.

Louis Said:

Is there a prepackaged mail order diet that is inexpensive,but works?

We Answered:

nutrasystem

Felicia Said:

Switching to raw dog food diet! need some advice!?

We Answered:

The problem with premade formulas like Oma's Pride is that it's really not much better than kibble. You don't *really* know exactly what's in it, you don't know the meat to bone to organ ratios, you don't know how it was handled and processed, and it has a lot of junk in it that dogs don't need. Dogs don't need veggies or any other plant matter. They don't need carbs. And, all the vitamins and minerals they need can be found in...you guessed it...raw meat, bones, and organs.

Chicken is best to start out on, yes. And quarters have a higher bone content, so they will help prevent initial loose stool. Just make sure the chicken (or any meat, for that matter) that you buy has less than 100 mg of sodium; any more than that, and the meat has been enhanced and could cause a reaction from your dog.

Chicken alone is not best for a long-term diet, though, so after a couple weeks or when stools are solid, it's best to move on. Variety is key to a good raw diet. Pork is a nice, cheap, red meat and many dogs do very well on it. The bones are perfectly edible to all but the tiniest dogs, but even still I'd let them nibble off all they can before taking away the leftover bone. Beef, lamb, rabbit, bison, and goat are also good red meats, and if you can score venison (elk, deer, moose) from hunter friends or as freezer cleanouts on Craigslist, that would be even better. (Just be careful not to let dogs have the weight-bearing bones of large animals such as cattle or bison...this is a tooth fracture waiting to happen.) Dogs (and wolves) naturally prey on large ungulates, so making these the larger portion of the diet is usually best. However it is perfectly fine to feed birds (chicken, Cornish game hen, quail, dove, turkey, duck, goose) as a good portion of the diet. Fish, too. Especially oily ocean fish such as sardines, anchovies, mackerel, herring, and salmon. Watch out for farm-raised (especiallly from China) tilapia and catfish; these are generally raised in polluted waters, and aren't worth buying.

Apart from that, yes that's basically it. Remember that the basic ratio of feeding is 80% meat, 10% bone, and 10% organ (half of which should be liver). You can hold off a few weeks before introducing organs, as they can often cause diarrhea if fed too much too fast. Good organs besides liver to feed are kidney, pancreas, thymus (often sold as "sweetbreads"), spleen, and brains. Basically anything that secretes. Heart and gizzard are not organs.

You sound like someone's been mentoring you already or that you've done your research, but just in case here's some helpful links below:

http://www.rawmeatybones.com/
http://www.rawmeatybones.com/diet/exp-di…
http://www.rawfed.com/myths/
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawfe…

You should really join the Yahoo group if you haven't already. There's so much information to be found, and plenty of people willing to answer newbie questions. Good for you for choosing to feed raw; have fun!

Juanita Said:

Which prepackaged south beach diet foods are good?

We Answered:

OMG I'VE BEEN PACKING THOSE FOR LUNCH AT SCHOOL FOR A WHILE! SO GOOD!

I like the southwest salad (or something like that) It's really good. I basically like all the ones that you don't have to microwave that are like salads without lettuce. YUM!