When I’ve shared with friends and family I’m using Medifast plan to help me lose weight, I get a lot of “isn’t that just shakes and bars?” Just like I shared last month there are 85 different meal options with Medifast, but I admit every once and while I still want some of those familiar meals like chicken strips, mashed potatoes, and cupcakes with cream cheese icing…

Luckily I found a way to stay on the plan AND satisfy those southern comfort dishes that got me into this whole mess in the first place – just modified with healthy ingredients from Medifast! That’s right I’ve created Medifast meal makeovers that you will want to eat AND can eat!  Before you start firing up the oven, make sure you talk with your counselor first at Medifast to show how recipes like this fit into your personalized Medifast plan.

The key for the chicken strips was using a bag of Medifast Parmesan Cheese Puffss!

Keeping them in the bag, I let out a little stress from my day until the puffs were beat to the pits (a fine texture) and then dipped the strips straight into the crumbs on a plate. Blended with a little chicken salt and pepper, I covered the chicken in the crumbs and then laid them on a cookie sheet. With a little cooking spray, on each strip, bake them in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes until brown. That was SO easy, right?

While eating crispy chicken strips, creamy mashed potatoes , and steamed greens was pretty heavenly that night as part of my “Lean and Green” meal for the day, it was that I was able to bite into a pumpkin cupcake with a cinnamon cream cheese icing that kinda took me over the edge…thankfully that was just figuratively not over the scales.

The most important thing to remember with this recipe is to know your conversions! For instance one cupcake is a serving of 1 Medifast Meal, 2 Condiments, and 1 Healthy Fat. There are tons of ways to create a healthy way to create a meal makeover that will still keep you on the Medifast plan!