10 Tips for Cutting Calories Without Feeling Deprived from a Bona Fide Foodie!
1. Pre-plan your meals.
This is something I teach all of my weight loss clients. If you are a foodie like me, you will like pondering what fabulous AND healthy choices you will make BEFORE you are hungry! Knowing what you will eat and where you are going to get it allows you the time to not only make a better choice, but also look forward to what you are eating so that the experience of eating it is MORE pleasurable. It is about elevating your eating experience, not depriving yourself of anything.
2. Eat 4-5 small meals a day with some form of protein.
Eating approximately every 3-4 hours keeps your blood sugar from spiking and dropping, which will help you have fewer sugar cravings and eat less at meals. A grazing approach to eating prevents hunger and a spiraling appetite that is the root cause of many ‘out of control’ binge-eating sessions. Another positive side effect is feeling less drained and less bloated after meals. After a large meal, you can feel sluggish. This means you’re less likely to get up and do stuff, which means you, ultimately, burn fewer calories. A small meal digested quickly, means you’ll be available to get up and do stuff quicker allowing you to burn more energy.
3. Choose your carbohydrates wisely.
Eat complex carbohydrates versus simple sugars. Simple carbohydrates or simple sugars are broken down and digested very quickly, but most simple carbs contain refined sugars and very few essential vitamins and minerals. Examples include table sugar, fruit juice, milk, yogurt, honey, molasses, maple syrup, and brown sugar. Complex carbohydrates take longer to digest and are packed with fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Examples include vegetables, whole grain breads, oatmeal, legumes, brown rice, and wheat pasta. Eating simple carbs causes your body to produce greater levels of insulin to balance your body’s spike in blood sugar, as a result of the insulin doing its job, you feel like you need more energy and calories, and you now have initiated the sugar craving cycle, which as you can see is a slippery slope. Eating less sugar will keep you eating less sugar.
4. Drink water.
Every system in your body depends on water. For example, water flushes toxins out of vital organs, and it carries nutrients to your cells. Water has 0 calories, and if you think about how many calories we can consume in the form of other drinks, it is the perfect healthy weight loss drink. I just love sparkling water with fresh lime!
5. Eat hormone and pesticide free foods, or use a veggie spray/wash you can get in most vegetable sections of health food stores that removes pesticides from foods.
Eating this stuff can make you feel tired, and then crave sugar or other stimulants. Why ingest toxins into your system by choice? When you are out and don’t know the source of your food, tap spleen acupressure points:
• Tap on your ribcage under your breast 30 times to help stimulate the spleen meridian. The spleen meridian helps digest food and toxins.
6. Curb your urge for sweets with a piece of dark chocolate.
I travel with 85% dark chocolate. It is low in calories and its slightly bitter taste curbs my sweet tooth.
7. Eat vegetables and LOVE the taste of them by adding truffle salt!
French truffles are just divine, but they are expensive, and the oil looses its flavor about a month after the seal has been broken. You can get that amazing truffle taste in tiny bits preserved in salt. I recommend you sprinkle it on just about everything to give it a richer, fuller taste. It totally transforms veggies after they have been cooked. It has turned brussel sprout haters into lovers!
8. When out to dinner, send the bread away as it comes, or take only 1 piece, and send it away.
Many people have sensitivities to wheat and don’t even know it. But, even if you don’t, eating 2-5 pieces of bread BEFORE dinner is a ton of calories you really don’t need. I know, bread is sooooooo DELICIOUS, especially the good stuff in fabulous restaurants, but there are also other fabulous things on the menu you won’t have as much room for if you eat all that bread first.
Bonus tip: In restaurants with huge portions, order a to go box before you start eating your entrée, and place half of the food in your to go box.This saves you from over eating, and allows you the opportunity to enjoy it again for lunch or dinner the next day
9. Have a Skinny Mindset.
Throughout your day, congratulate yourself for having a skinny outlook on life. “What a great skinny choice! I am so skinny. I feel skinny, oh so skinny! Working out will also help proliferate this outlook!
10. Make eating healthy a fun game with your friends.
I am such a crazy foodie, I often take pictures of fabulous meals before I eat them, so I can remember the experience and share it with my friends. I have started doing this with my fabulous healthy meals on Facebook. Check out some of my favs on TheLaraTouch Facebook page!
