Food Swaps to Lower Calories

best way I found to cut calories/replace foods is to shop from the outsides of the grocery store. basically, buy raw meats and fresh vegetables - frozen veggies work and any beans are great too.

Crafty_camper123 wrote: »

I am horrible at consistently logging... but as a background, If cooking at home, I eat a lot of quick to cook dinners. Like tuna and pasta, spaghetti, or just steak and veggies/ and or rice. Just general family cooking I suppose? If going out, it's cheeseburgers, Chinese or Mexican food. I guess I was just looking for things you could reduce/ or replace in generic cooking meals like dinner. I know a few such as reducing the amount of oil/ fats you use, replacing potatoes or rice with cauliflower... Just wanting to get an idea of what modifications people make to classic dinner recipes to make them a bit healthier or lower in calories. Hope that helps...

People have very different ideas about what a classic or generic dinner is, I think.

For me it's something like pasta (tip here, stick to the serving size and bulk out with the other ingredients) with a meat sauce (lean ground beef is low cal, I add a lot of vegetables like zucchini and peppers and spinach, as well as some onions and the tomatoes, you don't really need any fat other than a tiny bit for sauteeing). Or, more often, because faster, I make toppings for the pasta with lean meat (often fish or shrimp, but also chicken) sauteed with vegetables (whatever is on hand) in a little olive oil.

Sauteed meat and veg with rice = stirfry, again control calories with how much rice you eat, how much fat you add, choose leaner meat, lots of veg to bulk.

Other common dinners -- prepare fish, pork chops, steak, chicken (I like breast with skin and bones or to roast a whole one, but obviously that adds a few calories), prepare starchy side (just not too much -- I roast potatoes and sweet potatoes with just a little oil a lot), prepare vegetables and make them about half the plate.

I might make a sauce like with apples and onions and sauerkraut for the pork or something like that.

Stews are another option.

All of this is reasonably low cal, which is why I say it's helpful to log for a while and see where the extra calories are coming from. You might be eating high fat (so higher cal) meat choices or larger servings of starch sides than you realize or using more oil or added cheese or some such than you need, or if you do fat/cream based sauces, that's a source of calories.

Sure you can save some calories by using cauliflower or winter squash or root veg (other than potatoes) in place of a starchy side, but often that's not needed, you can be careful with portions. Fish, potatoes, and green beans plus some cauliflower is going to be reasonably low cal unless you add a bunch of extras or eat a whole lot.

I found figuring out where I got the extra calories helped me eliminate many of them without really feeling like my diet changed that much (I ate a reasonably nutritious diet, though).

MotherOfSharpei wrote: »

I often use ground turkey instead of ground beef for burgers, pasta, chili. Ground chicken burgers are tasty, too.

What % of fat is your ground turkey? For the same fat content, there's really no difference between ground turkey and ground beef. 85/15 is 85/15...93/7 is 93/7 regardless of the animal...

I am a snack master. I love them, more than sitting down for dinner. I live alone now, so I really don't like to sit at my kitchen table. WHEN I was doing well at losing, I ate smoked almonds, just mixed it up a bit with the flavor choices. Rice cakes, Old Wisconsin Turkey Bites (that I also treat me dog with Boiled eggs or a couple slices of bacon. I can do protein pretty well. I have a wicked sweet tooth, so Italian Ice and Fruit Outburst (?) I fell off the wagon hard and am slowly trying to crawl back on.

I use several low calorie options but I don't know if OP would consider them 'healthier' (which is such a subjective term that makes my eye twitch a bit ). But these substitutes really help me hit my calorie targets and since I'm in excellent health and several years into successful maintenance they must not be killing me yet

-I now drink diet soda instead of regular coke (huge calorie saver!)
-low calorie ranch and Italian dressings instead of regular (the Italian dressing I now use only has 15 calories per 2tbsp!)
-'skinny' multi-grain bread instead of bagels-two pieces (comes together like a bagel) is 100 calories and I use this toasted or for sandwiches
-light cheese spread (comes in packaged triangles)-25 calorie per triangle and I use this instead of regular cream cheese
-light canned soups instead of regular (love Progresso Light ones)
-100 calorie Greek yogurt instead of higher calorie ones
-Lean Cuisine, Chilis and Boston Market frozen entrees instead of things like Hamburger Helper, Hot Pockets and 900 calorie pot pies that I used to eat for lunches

And I eat out quite a bit and now chose lower calorie options most times/split portions. One example-I go to Subway every week and have changed my order to a foot long oven roasted chicken sub on the 9 grain bread with cheese, lots of veggies and light mayo. This comes in at around 850 calories vs the over 1,000 calories that made up my old order with different bread, meat and condiments. And I no longer get a bag of chips to go with my sub, which I used to-150ish calories saved right there!

And then I still eat a lot of regular things but I'm careful to measure out correct portion sizes-rice, oats, dried fruit, nuts, cookies, chips, pastries, ice cream/other desserts etc.

Fage greek yogurt instead of sour cream.
Wraps instead of sandwiches. (Most tortillas are 100-120 kcals, bread for two slices is almost always around 200.)
I really like the Smartbalance mayo instead of the full fat mayo.
Halotop icecream! Most flavors are pretty good.

jennybearlv wrote: »

I'm not a fan of substitutions. I prefer eating smaller or fewer portions of the foods I like.

This ^ .......mostly

Squash (or other stringy veggies) are not a substitute for pasta (for me). So it's far better to learn proper portions instead. I won't eliminate bread, but I do choose lighter varieties.

There are lots of substitutions but whether they can really go the distance (lifestyle change) is up to you.

I didn't do much swapping either. Low cal french dressing for my salads. And no sugar added pudding cups. Think that was it.

I did start changing a few things. When making homemade pizza, I make it thin crust now. Cuts calories about 100 a piece. We already ate lean cuts of meat. But I did bulk up a lot of our regular (protein, starch, veggie) meals with more veggies. I also added some egg whites to my scrambled eggs in the morning to bulk it up for only a little extra calories.