Im a new member, Im 37 want to love about 50 pounds and I have a very hectic schedule. Technically I work  8am-4pm but I am a district manager in charge of 9 stores so if something goes wrong I have to go fix it. So there have been many 8am-1am days. I have a 17 year old daughter who for the most part is never home, especially now that she has graduated high school. My husband has agreed to try this diet (without the pills) but he has so far has had a hard time with the portion sizes so he is eating other things to fill up. My daughter is eating everything smothered in ranch dressing (she is not overweight yet but i fear if she keeps on with the ranch she will be). I bought the Alli cook book but I am way to picky of an eater and only saw about 4 things I would actually eat and the rest of the family said NO WAY. I need some ideas desperately of some dinner ideas at least that are mainly chicken. (I dont care for beef ,the rest of the family doesnt like pork, and they will only eat shrimp as far as seafood). I would really just like to put focus on healthy eating habits ( I am the only one taking Alli) as I know this will go a long way in my home.  Any advice and ideas would be wonderful and thank you VERY much in advance

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Best wishes to you in meeting your weight loss goal!

 The rule when I was growing up was that you eat what's put in front of you.  If you don't like it, then you don't get to eat.  I've brought that rule to my own home and it's worked well for the most part.  The only exception is if the meal is truly horrible and everyone at the table agrees to it.  If it sounds good to you, then try it.  A lot of the things that are now family favorites were initially sneered at by others.

My hunny has had problems with the portion sizes too.  If he's still hungry after a meal, I tell him to drink a glass of water and eat an apple or unsweetened applesauce.  I've also started to tell him to let me do the dishes and then if he's still hungry we'll figure something out.  He's not usually hungry after the dishes are done.

There isn't much you can do about your daughter's ranch dressing fetish without throwing all the ranch dressing away.

The best tip I can give is to go to the library and check out cookbooks and cooking magazines.  Just flip through them for meals that will fit in with your dietary restrictions.  If you can't find any meals that sound good, pick some of your favorites and think about ways to lower the calorie/fat count.

 I'm new to Alli also and am having a hard time coming up with a varied menu for dinners.  I's funny though because my family and I always ate the same stuff anyway but now That I am focused on low fat or no fat my husband is getting board with what he calls The same old stuff.  Now I am lucky because I have a huge garden and my family will eat any vegetalbe that I grow and I grow everything. It is just that I am stuck in a rut.  I have been making a minestrone soup that everyone likes.  It has almost no fat because it is all vegetables except the small amount of sausage that I put in it. And when I do that I cut the portion down to almost 1/4 serving per person.  Because it is soup no one knows that they are not getting much meat in there meal.

 Have you checked out some of the recipies on the myalliplan meal plan?  I can usually modify what is there to make it fit a) the contents of my pantry and b) my family's tastes.  I'm a single mom with three teenagers and sometimes it's hard to please everyone, but they too, have be raised with "eat what's in front of you".   I took some friends out to lunch the other day, and found this great salad with chicken, mango, green and red peppers, lettuce and cilantro.  That may not be your style, but it was amazing!  Just watch your fat grams and calories and you should do ok.  Another thing is to make something your family loves, but is not a 'low-fat' version, and buy a low-fat version frozen meal of the same type of dish for yourself (I do this with lasagna).

Good Luck!

I refuse to make two dinners so everyone in my house eats my dinners from the Alli plan. I just multiply everything by 4 and proceed from there so there are three servings, and a little extra for my husband and my daughter to share if they are still hungy. Most of the recipes are easy and tasty so there has been very little complaining. I even have my daughter (who loves to cook) help me with gathering and measuring the ingredients. I just bake a potato for my husband, since he insists on one every night, we make a big salad, and serve fruit for dessert.

Debbie

I started alli 8 days ago.  I read through the booklets that came with my starter pack before starting the alli.  One of the little booklets has suggestions for meals.  I looked through them and found a sirloin steak dinner with sweet potato and sour cream that I liked and a spaghetti with shrimp and crushed tomatoes and garlic that I liked, another spaghetti recipe with a ground sirloin sauce, and, a couple of other recipes that looked interesting.  I mentioned them to my husband, and, he liked the three I just mentioned and encouraged me to try them and said he would eat them with me.  I used to cook for us whenever we didn't eat out but since starting alli, I had been eating frozen meals mostly and not going out to restaurants at all, and, he'd been on his own mostly re: food.  So, he's happy to have me cook something again.  I just needed time to figure out what I could make for both of us because he's picky, and, I now have the low-fat requirements and my own pickiness issues. 

So, last Saturday, on my second day on alli, I asked him to go out to the store with me and get the shrimp and crushed tomatoes and garlic for the sauteed shrimp and spaghetti dish.  We both liked it, and, it felt to me like I was getting to eat a lot of food, too.  I didn't know before starting alli that shrimp was low in fat.  When we went to the store again, he had me get more shrimp so that I can make that meal again.  Tonight I'm trying the sirloin steak and sweet potato with sour cream meal.  Tomorrow night I want to try the spaghetti with ground sirloin meat sauce. 

Because exercising takes so much time and so does planning my meals, I don't think I'll be cooking much during the week, but, maybe with some advance planning I may be able to cook even on weekdays.  I am now starting my second week on alli, and, this time I want to spend the weekend pre-planning my coming week of meals as much as possible so that it doesn't take up as much time during the week as it did this first week.

I will feel really good about myself if I really learn how to make healthy meals and then actually make them at home not just for me but also for my husband.  I definitely fed him mostly high-fat food before!  He's obese, too, and, his BMI is higher than mine, plus, he has high blood pressure and cholesterol (which I do not), plus some other health issues, and, I always worry about all the "what ifs," like hoping that he doesn't have a stroke or heart attack because of his sedentary lifestyle and high-fat and high-calorie diet.  If I can learn to cook healthy, I'll be helping both of us.