The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[saraak]

This could be a far stretch but hear me out. What if we took light cream cheese and mixed it with vanilla extract, splenda, and a little bit of a vanilla shake (only about 1/4 of one) and made cheesecake. The quick start guide says we could have cheese in place of our meat. So what if we have a salad for our "salty meal" and then have a generous peice of this cheesecake, wouldn't this be legal???

[saraak]

Sorry, forgot to put that we'd have to put some eggbeater or eggs in it too!

[saraak]

I'd love to know the answer to this because the quick start says 1 c. low fat cheese and it doesn't put any exclusions.

[lan]

It sounds good, Sarak.
Did you ever get anything firm about whether we can or cannot have this?
Lan

[Diana]

Interesting suggestion, Saraak!!

In place of the cream cheese of which we're not sure, we could use 1/2 c low fat cottage cheese and puree it. Comes out kind of like neufchatell (sp?).

Help me understand why we would need the shake? If it's for flavor, perhaps we'd be better off with just real vanilla extract.

Just ponderin'
Diana

[Nancy]

Well, Folks ~

Here I am to burst your Medibubble again...

Medifast does not recommend cream cheese on the weight loss phase of the program, low-fat or not. Nix to both. Nix to the Fat Free Version, too.

A person can have either 1/2-1 cup of low-fat cottage cheese, or they can have 3/4-1 cup of low-fat cheese such as Colby, cheddar, etc. Cabot is a brand name of cheese considered to be 'diet' cheese.

Nope, NO cream cheese.

Attention Cheesecake Factory, no worries for you - the Medifast Chefs will not be your competitors!

[aphrael]

you HAD to go and mention the Cheesecake factory didn't you :P

Oh well a special treat at a later date I guess.

[Jan]

Hmmmm
Cheese cake factory. Nancy and I along with Bonnie, Terry and Paul all visited the cheese cake factory in San Diego. But did we eat cheese cake??? nope -- we had salad. Hmmmm all except my skinny hubby Paul -- I think he had a dessert but I getting sooooo good at this I don't even remember what he ate!!
jan

[just_julie]

As long as we're talking about cheese... What is considered lowfat cheddar? What should I look for on the label? How do you measure it - figuring this would be a block type cheese? Just cut up little cubes? Help, please!

[Nancy]

You can shred the cheese or cut it into cubes. The calories for a lean and green meal are usually around 300-320 so figure out the calories for the Green part and determine how many you have left over for the Lean portion.

I never used cheese while I was on the weight loss phase and only occasionally use it now.

For weight maintenance I usually select low fat feta, parmesan, low fat Swiss or Jack cheese and we use it sparingly on a salad, on the Medifast Chili or sprinkle it on cooked spaghetti squash (this is a maintenance meal item, not a weight loss meal). I occasionally buy soy cheese.

Cabot brand is considered "diet" cheese. Look for low fat versions of some the cheese I mentioned above in the dairy case and compare the labels. Sorry to be non-specific but that's the best I can do for you.

[ToyDiva]

Here's a cheesecake idea I got from Robin. It's just one more step when you make your shake - I've used vanilla and chocolate shakes for this. Add about 1 teaspoon or so of FFSF Jello instant cheesecake pudding. This gives it a nice cheesecake flavor and thickens the shake up nicely. I've done it in the blender and in the shaker. YUMMY!

[Nancy]

If you make it with a little less water and really whip it up in the Magic Bullet or a blender, it makes it very thick, almost like a mousse. It is quite tasty and does taste like a cheesecake.

Sortta.

Without the graham cracker or ginger snap crust.

Hey! Crustless cheesecake is not bad, especially when we consider it is hip-friendly!

[saraak]

Sorry I didn't chime in sooner guys. Just started a new job and boy is it helping with this diet. I'm never hungry and not to mention I don't have time to eat so all I have time for it to sqeeze in a shake. (Serving where my husband is a chef so I can burn some calories and get out of the house!)

Yeah, I was dissapointed too about this one. I wrote the medifast nutritionist and she said we couldn't do cream cheese on this diet but it would be a great maintenance recipe. She did, however, say that we could have 1/2 - 1 cup of low fat cheese and she recommends cheeses such as mozzerella, cheddar, colby, swiss, etc. and of course cottage cheese.

I said to add a bit of shake because most of the cheesecake recipes call for heavy cream, etc. so I figured that would be a legal way to substitute for that but so much for that anyway.

Ill just keep shaking and try to think up some other ones. Never hurts trying!!