Okay, so it's been a really long time since my last post, and in that time I've basically fallen into a lifestyle heap - I've virtually stopped exercising, and have done a whole heap of non-reflective, mindless eating. The result is that I'm currently the heaviest I have ever been, 1K more than my previous high eight years ago. I'm also so deconditioned (and possibly anemic) that I'm getting breathless with quite minimal exertion.
For a little while I thought about following the program at RealAge; I still think that's a good idea, but I think I need to take a break from thinking about food, and from being tempted by treats and 'sometimes' foods (that have become everyday foods lately).
With three months to go until a new year, which I intend to spend following the RealAge life making over plan - diet, exercise, supplements, healthy habits and all, I feel like I need a preliminary kick start. And after much thought I've decided to go with Lite'n'Easy, an Australian company that provides prepacked meals in any combination of breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's not cheap - $158 for the 1800 calorie program - but it means I can just eat what's provided and not worry about anything else.
I received my first delivery today. I've started with just lunch and dinner for the first week, partly because I want to trial it and partly because breakfast isn't a problem for me - I usually have one of three things, and they're all high in fibre, low in fat and keep me going for the day. However, looking at the menu planner that arrived this afternoon I may reconsider.
I'm kicking the program off tomorrow, the 1st - and as I'm currently working nights, that means I'll be eating my first Lite'n'Easy meal around 2AM. I'm thinking that I'll follow my usual routine, of having breakfast in the evening, when I wake up, then a meal at work and another when I get home, before bed.
There certainly seems to be a lot of food - although I have to admit I've never seen my weekly intake arrayed in one place (which, now I think of it, might be a little too "You Are What You Eat" for me), I suspect I'll not go hungry. My freezer, which wasn't completely cleared out before, is bursting, and the first shelf of my fridge is full of little bags.
Which brings me to my first concern about Lite'n'Easy - there's a lot of plastic, from the meals and little packets to the bags they come in: each day has a little day for the fridge foods (helpfully printed with the relevant days), and then each section (fridge, lunch - freezer, dinner - freezer etc) had a shopping-sized bag.
I'm also second concerned about the massive increase in my global footprint - I generate very little waste currently, but although the meal bags are evidently degradable and most of the pots etc look recyclable, all that plastic has to be created in the first place. And there's a lot more meat than I'm used to eating, and there's a lot more travel involved hauling it to the packaging and manufacturing centres then out to me.
Finally, although the dinners can be heated in a conventional oven, the lunches and some 'snacks' (they're fairly substantial and look more like meals in themselves) are only microwavable. And I never got around to replacing my microwave when it died, about six years ago.
My Lite'n'East experience started fairly smoothly - the website's easy to use, logical and informative. There's a section that allows you to put in information (height/weight/age/activity level) to calculate the right plan: 1,200 or 1,500 or 1,800 calories per day - I've started on the 1,800 calorie version but will recalculate monthly and hopefully drop down to 1,500 once I shrink a bit.
The menu changes seasonally and rotates through a four week cycle, with the option of having the popular choice for lunch/snack or an optional version. The same alternatives are available for breakfast, which I haven't ordered to start with as I'm happy with my current options and go out for breakfast after work on occasion.
Sample breakfasts include fruit & bran cereal with skim milk, cheese & tomato on multigrain, and an apple for tea; or fruit muesli with skim milk, soy & linseed toast with Vegemite, Greek style passionfruit yoghurt, and a fruit salad cup for tea. So a fairly substantial beginning to the day.
I'd really like to have been able to give my credit card details online and avoided talking to an operator, particularly as the helpline took forever and seemed massively disorganised - I received an email with both an address ID number and a personal ID number, so the simple process of relaying my CC info should have been fairly straightforward. However, she wasn't interested in either of those, wanting instead to know what time I placed the order. Not realising that would be important, and ringing the following day, I had no idea.
I'd already registered online, but she also wanted to know my mobile and work numbers, which I declined to provide, and my date of birth for some reason. That was followed by questions about my height and weight, and exercise routine, so it was probably part of the check to make sure I had subscribed to the right calorie program. I had, however, already done that online, and really wasn't interested in giving out that information to a random stranger. If I wanted a personalised, 'face time' program I'd have gone with Jenny Craig - all I want is the meals, thank you. She then told me that they couldn't guarantee weight loss if they only provided two meals per day; I'm a little stubborn, and that really made me want to say that I wasn't interested in weight loss, just convenience, given that Lite'n'Easy promote their service for that as well.
However, that irritation has somewhat subsided and I'm quite looking forward to my first experience of Lite'n'Easy. - Alex
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