Tips, Tricks, Recipes & Encouragement!

I hope this is the right place to pose this question. I’m finding it a bit hard to navigate as well. So, I am doing the 14 day menu to just get familiar with things and being told what to do is key for me. lol Anyway, I’ve made some modifications already. This is day one and for b-fast, instead of a peach (out of season) I put 3 tbs of dried cranberries (light sugar) in my oatmeal and followed the rest of b-fast menu. For my snack, honeydew is also out of season so I did the almonds and 12 frozen cherries – no sugar added. For my lunch I did dinner and instead of the rice, I did a Whole Grain Spelt tortilla and instead of the steak I fried up ground white turkey meat (98% fat free) in about 1 tsp olive oil with some spices and cooked up some mustard greens and made a tortilla. Are these substitutions okay – I’m excited, it’s a new plan and I so want this to work.

I’ve been on this plan for 4 days, & I’ve followed the menu and recipes exactly. But I’m really struggling with the amount of food, I’ve felt uncomfortably stuffed and bloated all the time! I’m not even hungry the next morning when it’s time to start all over again.
Can I do half portions or eliminate some things. ie.: Breakfast – 1 and 1/2 cups oatmeal and 1 cup grapes: can I eliminate the grapes or just do 1/2 portion of oatmeal and grapes? I also find that most of the snacks are like a full meal in itself. If I have to eat ALL the food on the menu every day then I’m thinking perhaps this plan is not for me.

Hi, KerryAnn. (1) Meat, fish, poultry, etc.: portions are generally for uncooked, but for something like a very high-water fish (not salmon, but rather cod or sole), go ahead and count it for cooked; (2) vegetable portions: 1 cup raw or 1/2 cooked – here unless you are addressing starchy vegetables (corn, peas), the more the better anyway, especially if the vegetable is “free”.

Hi, Apwapw. If you have been on restrictive diets in the past, it may take a while for your body to adjust to having normal amounts of food. If you have been on such diets in the past, it is actually a good sign if you are not gaining weight.
In the meantime, changing your exercise can be your biggest help – if there is no way to add more, sometimes just changing the type to work new muscles can boost your efforts. You can also try injecting 30-60 seconds here and there of bursts of intensity or strength training in your regular workout. This can be jogging during a walk, or increasing the speed or incline on the treadmill, etc.
The following is a link to the exchanges: https://www.trimdownclub.com/exchanges-lists. You can build your own menu by clicking on the large circular arrow icon to the right of each day of the week (to the left of the food items) in any of your finished menus.

Hi, Lyn. Did you check ‘low cholesterol’ in your profile?

Many thanks Ossie Sharon this is helpful

I’m new just joined the other day and finding it quite hard to negotiate the site and I am quite savvy with PC’s I notice there is no butter or spread given to have with the bread etc and although you can pick from a variety of food for your weekly menu there doesn’t seem to be any normal food that you can pick from ie, poached egg on toast, scrambled egg on toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch etc also no allowances like milk/almond milk that you can use throughout the day if you can’t take your coffee without it.Seems to be an awful lot of snacks and as I don’t eat breakfast till around 9am I find it rather a lot to eat a snack and then lunch can you just eat your snack with your lunch and dinner instead of having it separate.