* Tons of vegetables, all kinds. I try to eat half my food intake as produce,
* Low calorie bread: I learned three things about bread that shocked me when I first began dieting. First, regular bread has 2-3 times as many calories as diet bread. Second, light bread, with 35-40 calories per slice, doesn't taste any different and it's just as filling. My preference is multi-grain or whole wheat. Third, less is more. Low calorie bread costs about a dollar more and isn't on sale as often. So I buy Aldi brand or several loaves of Aunt Millie's on sale and freeze them.
* Skim or 1% milk. I have also used high protein flax milk but it is very expensive. Plus, Dr. Oz recommends dairy at breakfast for weight loss. Now I'm accustomed to it, I prefer skim milk over 2-percent.
* Spray butter and olive oil butter with no transfat or hydrogenated fat. These varieties fewer calories than regular. I look for varieties higher in MUFAs (mono-unsaturated fatty acids and PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids because these burn or dissolve saturated fat.
* Homemade dressings and mayonnaise. When I first wrote about diet food swaps, I suggested light mayo. I do still use it but far less than I used to. I've created some mayo substitute recipes that are healthier and contain good MUFAs and PUFAs.
* Plain Greek yogurt. I swap full fat Greek yogurt for sour cream and cheese. Yogurt is super healthy, with antioxidants, probiotics and acidophilous. It's my dairy of choice. Commercial yogurts are often high in sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), fat and artificial colors. I originally used fat-free yogurt but now I use whole milk yogurt and eat a little less. I make fruit smoothies with frozen berries ($1 a bag at Dollar Tree), Emergen'C and spinach or spirulina.
* Broth-based, reduced-sodium soup. I've always watered down canned soup to cut salt. The DASH diet advocates reducing sodium for weight loss. I'll be sharing recipes for low calorie healthy cream soups later.
* Lowfat cheese: I eat low moisture mozzarella cheese and cut 65 percent of the calories. I can't taste the difference.
* Turkey, ham and chicken lunch meat. These cold cuts have half the calories as other lunch meats. Turkey hot dogs have 70 calories compared to 100-150 in regular franks. Chicken sausage links have 110 calories compared to 200-250 in regular brats.
* Boneless skinless chicken breast, canned tuna and frozen salmon. These meats have 22-26 grams of protein per serving for a mere 100 to 125 calories.
These diet food swaps helped me lose 100 lbs and keep it off. I cut about 800 calories a day and sacrificed nothing in taste.
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