How I Cut Calories and Fat From My Diet

I love food. I love how it looks, feels, tastes and I even love to cook. I'm not an emotional eater but I truly do just enjoy eating. For a person like me, substituting lower fat (or even non-fat) foods for the regular ones is difficult. I decided that rather than just assume that all "healthier" food is bland and tasteless, I would embark on a journey to find things that work for me. After 2 years, I'm still updating my list but, in the meantime, I thought I would share what I've learned.

The very first thing I did was, take a deep breath, and drop soda. Yes, I know this is a tough one for most people and I was a real water "hater" so you can imagine how hard this decision was. After four weeks, I started to notice a difference. I stopped craving it, I was less jittery and I had dropped 8 pounds. I could not believe it. Within six months, I was thoroughly disgusted by soda and today, 2 years later, I mainly drink water with the occasional Crystal Light or Kool-Aid Singles pack mixed in.

Okay, I don't want any hate mail or comments but I must say that I absolutely hate tofu. Really. I don't even like the smell of it. It works for some people and I'm happy for them and I even wish, sometimes, that it worked for me but it doesn't and I've moved on.

What do you do if you hate tofu but don't want to give up meat? Well, for me, the choice was obvious - cut out a lot of red meat. I still eat steak but I pick lean cuts and I remove the fatty bits before cooking. Most importantly, however, is that I made ground turkey and ground chicken my best friend.

To really benefit from eating ground poultry, it's gotta come from breast meat. Understandably, jumping from ground beef to white meat might be hard for some, so what I did was start by eating ground turkey thigh. It still had "beefiness" to it and I learned how to season it to make it taste really good. Gradually, I weaned myself on to ground breast meat and I have to say that I love it. I feel good about the decision, I'm proud of myself and it's really reduced the fat content of my favorite meals (like meatballs or taco night!).

I love to stir-fry food. It's fantastic! I have a nice wok and have learned some really great recipes over the years. The trick to making healthier stir-fry meals is to reduce or eliminate the oil used in the dish. WHAT?!?!? How is that possible???

I was in a mall food court waiting for the man behind the counter to finish making my favorite teriyaki (yummmm!). I watched him carefully and noticed that he did not use an ounce of oil when making my food. He just added small amounts of water to the frying surface to keep the meat moist and added the sauce to it after the meat was cooked. I decided to try it at home and it worked!

What I do is season/marinade my meat and fry it over med-high heat in a wok. When the meat starts to get dry, I add a little water. Play around with it but I really only add about a tablespoon at a time. Then, I set the meat aside, add a small amount of a healthier oil like grapseed oil, fry my garlic, ginger, veggies or whatever, add my sauce, add the meat and voila! It's amazing how little it actually affects the taste once you get the hang of it!

In life, we consume a lot of "extra" stuff to go along with our food and drinks. We add sour cream to burritos, cream to coffee and cheese to... well, let's just say I add cheese to anything I can. I decided that I wasn't going to give these things up. So, I began experimenting with different brands since that can make a huge difference. I was shocked when I found my "ideal" lower fat/non-fat items. Of course, it depends on where you live but here in Western Canada, these are my favorites:

Lucerne Non-fat Sour Cream

Lucerne Fat-free Creamer

Kraft Light Cheddar Cheese

This one was the toughest! Everywhere you go, food is available in ridiculous portions and we've learned to accept these items as "normal." De-programming this thinking can be difficult so I chose to do it the old fashioned way: I weighed and measured everything. I don't really do it anymore unless I feel that I've gone off-course but it helped, at first, to really see what servings are truly supposed to look like and it ain't always pretty. I'm thinking "this is all the cereal I get? Really?" and then my body began to adjust to the change. It took weeks but now I think I'm eating normal amounts of food.

It's always good to exercise, even if you only start with a 5 minute walk every day. This can free up calories or burn off the excess ones you accumulated from those times when you just couldn't resist a treat.

The point to all of this, whether it relates to diet or exercise, is that gradual changes are better, in my experience. Small tweaks at meal time and sneaking in a couple minutes of exercise is a start. Do what you can but whatever you do, commit to it. You may not lose a ton of weight quickly, but the more you take it slow and integrate these changes into your life, the more permanent they will be. So, the weight loss might take more time but it will probably last a lot longer than your friend who lost 40 pounds on a crash diet. I know that I get frustrated sometimes but I look at it this way - I'm not losing weight at a ridiculous rate but the weight that I have lost in the past 2 years has stayed off and that, ultimately, is what matters the most.