just started

“SWG” stands for “sprouted whole grain”. You can switch cheeses. Preferably you stay with unprocessed cheeses, and don’t go too high-fat.

The Menu Planner primarily focuses on single foods, not so much combination foods, with the exception of our recipes. Therefore, you can choose “roll,” “ground beef,” and “cheese” from the food groups that appear during the menu-building process. Even if they don’t all appear together, you can swap out the items in the same food groups at a particular meal, and put together what you want. For example, instead of the 3 oz of chicken, cup of rice, and teaspoon of oil that appears on the lunch menu, you can have that cheeseburger. We do encourage you to make the most of it though – choose extra-lean preferably grass-fed ground beef, a sprouted whole grain roll (generally softer than the usual whole wheat roll) and a naturally made cheese (not processed).

I am one of the site’s nutritionists, and am happy to help.
The Menu Planner guides you along through food choices, and the menus it produces label which meals are when.
Snacks are three times a day, between breakfast and lunch, between lunch and dinner, and after dinner. Salads are OK any time of the day, but vegetable salads are most often chosen to be at lunch and dinner, and fruit salads at breakfast and/or lunch, though either cuold make a great snack. Soups are usually chose for lunch and dinner, especially at the beginning – as long as you go easy on the salt and fat, soups are a great way to fill up so you eat less later, and are often an easy way to get extra vegetables.
I hope this helps – if you are having technical issues, do take advantage of the “Contact Us” link below, and someone will look into it.

Ms Shakoor, to answer your question: weight loss that is too rapid can indeed lead to rebound gain. That is why our planner provides more food than the average.
When you say “too much” – is this relative to how you used to eat, how much fills you up, or how much other weight loss diets provide?
As for the combinations, we would be happy to read what you got that looks odd.

Regarding quantities in each meal, the menu produced by the Menu Planner does produce portion sizes. We are also upgrading our recipes to include serving size information. If you are seeking something to aid in food preparation for your own recipes, I will forward this question to our technicians.
In the meantime, keep in mind that an exchange of grains is about 1/2 cup, low-fat dairy about 1 cup, nuts or seeds 2 Tbsp, oil 1 tsp, whole fruits/vegetables about a cup or 1 piece, with the exception of starchy items, which are 1/2 cup or 1/2 fruit (i.e. banana). One exchange of meat or substitute is 1 oz, but an acceptable serving is 2-4 oz (4 oz is about the size of a deck of playing cards).

Sorry, lost connection in my previous post…I woul love to know how much of what to eat and when if I want to use my own creativity in the kitchen. Also, are eggbeaters ok?

Thanks for the “heads-up”, Patty. Congratulations on your first 20 pounds! I often think that if I had to carry around a 20 lb. bag of flour, it would “kill” me and that is just what we are doing to ourselves.. You go girl!

Lemon curd is just like jam or pie filling, but lemon-flavored (it is basically the lemon part of lemon meringue pie) – you can find it either in the jam/jelly section of the store, or with the baking ingredients. In other words, if you don’t think you’d like it, you can choose a jam or jelly more to your taste.