Eating Low Fat, Low Cal Doesn't Have to Be Boring

Sticking to a diet is never easy.  Even mention the word diet, and what usually comes to mind is snacking on carrot sticks and celery, and generally eating a bland and boring reduced calorie diet.  Well, we’ve come a long way in dieting, and I can tell you from personal experience after losing over ten pounds on a different eating regimen, that dieting doesn’t have to be about eating boring foods and deprivation.  

You can eat very satisfying, tasty dishes while dieting, you just have to know how to shop and how to get the most food out of your calorie allowance, which means picking foods that give you the biggest portions for the lowest calorie counts.  For example, a whole cup of broccoli is only about 45 calories.  Make yourself a nice, low fat low cal cheese sauce with fat free cheddar cheese, some milk and a tiny bit of flour, and you’ve got your self a great tasting, low calorie side dish to go with your serving of protein in the form of meat.  

Or you can try making low fat turkey meatballs.  Here’s a trick you may not know.  Look for the 99% fat free turkey breast instead of the 95% and less.  You save a boatload of calories just with those few percentage points, which is something a lot of people don’t know.  A lot of people also don’t know that many times ground turkey, if it’s not 98-99% fat free, is just about the same amount of fat and calories as ground beef, so you’re really not saving as much as you think if you’re buying the wrong kind of turkey.

Bread crumbs come in a low carb variety, so if you’re watching your carbs you can pick those up, or just use regular bread crumbs that come prepackaged, the amount of carbs they add is not going to make or break you.  Instead of using a whole egg, use only egg whites to hold the meat together.  

The rest is just seasoning to you own taste.  You can pair these with a nice low calorie marinara sauce and some fat free mozzarella cheese.  Fat free cheese admittedly does not taste as good as low fat, but you save almost half the calories by going fat free, and you will eventually acquire a taste for it.  

When shopping for chicken breast, make sure you don’t go for those super sized breasts that are often packaged in the large family sized chicken breast packages, but instead opt for the smaller portions that look to be maybe 5-7 ounces instead of 10 ounces.  One of my favorite main dishes is chicken breast, because it’s so versatile.  

One night you can make a marinade with an Asian flavor by using white vinegar, a tiny bit of sesame oil, water, and Asian or Thai spices of your choice, and the next you can make a marinade that’s got a southwest, spicy character using olive oil, white vinegar, water, and southwest or spicy seasoning.  The possibilities are endless and that is why chicken remains one of the favorites on the diet menu.  Plus, it always tastes great if you prepare it correctly.  

Breakfast is a breeze.  It’s very easy for me to eat low fat for breakfast, especially because I happen to love the way it gives me energy and sustains me for a few hours rather than burning off quickly as many carbed-up breakfasts like bagels, danishes and muffins can do.  Breakfast is very simple.  It consists of a low fat, low calorie vanilla yogurt, my favorite is Dannon Light and Fit Vanilla since it is the lowest in calories ounce for ounce, berries, slivered almonds, and one chicken sausage.  

The total calorie count for this is about 400 to 450.  I like to start the day with a larger calorie meal since breakfast is, I believe, the most important meal of the day.  It sets the bar for your appetite and energy levels for the rest of the day, and I believe that if you load up on nutrition and satisfying food at breakfast, you will be less likely to pig out during the day and in the evening.  

The measurements for breakfast are one cup of yogurt, about ¾ cups of berries - I prefer the frozen kind, they stay much better, and if you set them in the yogurt over night you get a wonderful mingling of flavors, and I also love blackberries.  The measurement for the slivered almonds is about 1 ½ tablespoons.  You get a great antioxidant mix here, plus the chicken sausage provides protein and sustainability for longer periods of time since it balances the natural sugars in the yogurt and the fruit.  

Make sure when picking a chicken sausage that you go with one that is 100 calories or less for one link.  I have found that these can be double the calorie count if you don’t watch what you’re buying.  The key here is to conserve on calories wherever you can without sacrificing flavor.