Cutting calories helps you to lose weight. The choices we make when we decide to eat effect how we manage our weight. If we can choose a healthy alternative to an unhealthy food we can cut calories. For example using low fat or skim milk instead of whole fat milk can cut calories. We can eat steamed or boiled (slightly) vegetables instead of fried. Steam or boiled anything instead of frying is better for us.
Sometimes our cooking methods need to change. Putting a little bit of oil, extra virgin olive oil instead of animal fat is a good change. Stir frying opposed to frying is healthier. Baking our vegetables in a little olive oil is very tasty. We can use real unsalted butter instead of margarine but as always so very light, these tasty foods can add more calories the more we use. Taste is important so we want it to taste good of course.
Healthy Substitutions
instead of Try
Ice Cream Sherbet or Sorbet
Doughnuts Bagels
Chips Nuts or Seeds
White Bread Wheat Bread
Fried Potatoes Baked Potatoes
Portions are important. If we eat too much our stomachs stretch and we need to continue to eat more food than necessary to feel full. Try cutting your portions in half, eat a salad with meals and eat slowly. Eating slow makes us take longer to eat, makes us enjoy our food more and longer and we feel more satisfied. We need to portion foods so we don’t feel deprived of food. We can eat a lot of food we enjoy but we have to be smart with choices. If you cut your portions it’s important to eat a small snack to help tide you over to the next meal. So say you ate breakfast at 7:00 and it was 2 eggs a slice of wheat toast and small amount of grits. Well, at 10:00 you will be hungry so eat a small healthy snack then. I would suggest 1/2 strawberries, blueberries, or a handful of nuts, seeds or even 4 crackers and 1 slice of cheese (low fat). These are healthy alternatives to high fat snacks.
Cutting calories to lose weight is picking healthy low fat foods instead of Processed high calorie and high sodium foods. Healthy eating is something you can learn and enjoy. Healthy does not mean you can eat more of it. Healthy eating means satisfying your body and not eating as much. When we eat processed foods our body lacks the nutrition it needs to do its job. When we eat processed foods we eat more because our body wants nutrition and it’s not getting it from processed foods.
So let’s cut calories so we can see a difference in our weight.