Serves: 5

Planning meals can be difficult and time-consuming particularly if you are trying to watch the amount of fat and cholesterol you are eating. Let us show you just how easy it can be! Start by determining your calorie needs. The average recommended caloric intake for healthy adults is 2,000 calories. Your needs may be higher or lower depending on your height, weight, gender and activity level. If you are trying to lose weight, you will want to decrease your calorie and fat intake and increase your activity level. Based on your calorie budget, here are some fat and dietary cholesterol goals to shoot for:

* Total Fat - 30 percent or less of total calories per day
* Saturated Fat - 10 percent or less of total calories per day
* Dietary cholesterol - 300 milligrams or less per day

The menus in this section will help you choose a variety of foods that meet a reduced-calorie, -fat, -saturated fat and -cholesterol eating plan. These menus vary from 1,460 to 1,810 calories, 25 to 33 grams of total fat, 7 to 11 grams of saturated fat and 45 to 140 milligrams of cholesterol per day. You don't have to follow these menus in any particular order. Feel free to mix and match meals from different days to add variety to your eating plan. Just keep track of your total calories, grams of fat and saturated fat and milligrams of cholesterol to assure you're not eating too much or too little. It's that simple. It's up to you.

From "Betty Crocker's Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Cooking Today." Text Copyright 2005 General Mills, Inc. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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