I have been substituting Miracle Whip for Mustard. Regular mustard has 0 calories and it helps to make my hamburgers not so dry.

I have always drank diet soda starting back in the 60s when TAB and FRESCA first came on the market....if you drink regular soda, you should switch to diet!....Diet Pepsi is my drink of choice!

fat free cream cheese or sour cream makes a great substitute for butter in home baking recipes.

when I get a grilled chicken sandwich at Wendy's, I ask them to swap out the artisan bun for a regular bun - it saves over 100 calories on the sandwich; take the mustard off and that gets a 410 calorie sandwich down to about 260 calories.

@conniewilkins56 - I have always preferred diet sodas for some reason, probably because that is what we had around the house growing up. I think the regular ones are too sweet and syrupy. I LOVE Fresca. Probably one of my favorites. My other favorite was diet cherry coke. But since I don't do caffeine any more, no more diet cherry coke for me. They make diet caffeine free and diet cherry...but no diet cherry caffeine free

@rieraclaelin - I also love carbonated waters. We have a soda stream, so I often just make bubbly water and add some lemon or lime juice to it. I also find it really filling, so is a great way to get to my next meal without mindlessly snacking.

I've also experiment with swapping Halo Top icecream for my beloved Talenti gelatos. 100 calories per serving vs 300+. There is a big difference, and it isn't always worth the tradeoff for me. I do keep both in the fridge though. When I want quantity, I go for the Halo Top. When I want quality (which is more often than not), I go for Talenti.

Sugar free jello tastes a lot like regular jello.
I know it's not clean, but if you need a volume fix.
I like adding little less water plus frozen strawberries which helps it set up quicker.

@_inHisGrace "clean" eating is a very subjective definition of which you won't usually find any two people who agree. I'm going to guess that because it has artificial sweetener in it, its considered "dirty" food.

"clean" eating is like "healthy" eating; what someone considers to be healthy foods and non-healthy foods is pretty individual.

I love sugar free jello as a dessert because I can eat an entire 4 serving box for 20 calories; comes in very handy when I'm craving something sweet but I don't have calories left in the day.

@_inHisGrace no, its has nothing to do with CICO. It's just a label some people use to categorize foods.

Some people find if they focus on more whole food sources that they have an easier time sticking to a deficit and they need to avoid some foods that they have difficulty moderating. Others are confused by all the nonsense in diet culture and have this idea that some foods are evil and others are virtuous and use that label in their thinking as to what is "good" food and what is "bad" food.

Usually fast food or highly processed foods are considered to be "dirty". some people call foods with an excessive list of ingredients and chemical sounding names to be "dirty".

For me, such a labeling of food is detrimental to my goals. I'm a perfectionist and struggle with these mental concepts of right and wrong or success and failure. Dividing foods into "no no" and "good" makes this worse for me because my mind rebels against the idea of cutting out long lists of food completely which usually leads me to feeling like a failure when I give in and eat something that would be on the "no no" list. I need as much free reign as possible and work instead on compromising with myself by doing what you suggested in this thread - swapping things out to make the item I'm craving lower in calorie but still satisfying - or by telling myself to have a smaller portion. This strategy has worked much better for me; its easier to get my brain to agree to a smaller portion, especially if I get what I want in a smaller portion, than to flat out tell it no, and sometimes, my brain will even decide it can live without the item in question.

For instance: when I find myself wanting french fries, I usually go to McDonald's and get a happy meal with its kid's size fries. I enjoy the 250 calorie hamburger, the apple slices, and the 100 calorie french fry. Yeah, it doesn't fill me up quite as readily as something more substantial would, but it appeases that craving, so I work it in. Fast food is a downfall for me; there's no way I would be able to cut it out completely, so labeling it as "bad" would just compound my guilt problems.

Right now, my mind likes to crave Arby's turkey sliders no cheese and their new sweet potato waffle fries. So I get the fries at a snack size at 250 calories a serving, and get the sliders at 160 calories a serving for the whole slider or if I need to knock the calories down a bit, I'll toss the top of the bun to reduce that down to somewhere around 100 calories, though that took a long time to get myself to accept doing - the whole "you don't waste food" thing pounded into me as a kid......the way I finally could convince myself to toss that top bun was to toss it out to the birds because that way it wasn't just in the garbage and would be eaten.....*rolls eyes*

I swapped the 2% milk I used to have in a bowl of cereal with unsweetened almond milk. I don't taste the difference and it saves quite a few calories.

I also will have half a serving of plain greek yogurt with a tablespoon of hershey's caramel syrup for 110 calories instead of 300+ calories for a serving of ice cream.

And I traded my usual two cheese sticks at 160 calories for a serving of full fat cottage cheese at 110 calories. Still satisfies that fatty craving and keeps me full much longer.

I just cannot swap out mayo........I know it is a nightmare, but given the amount that I have to lose and the fact that i keep it within my calories for the day, its OK..................Am I kidding myself ?

@_inHisGrace - I hear you on the unsatisfying ice cream. At one point, I tried Halo Top, but honestly, I'd rather just have a 1/3 cup of real ice cream for the same calories as a whole cup of Halo Top. Low calories ice cream feels like punishment. That's not a treat. Sometimes you have to pick quality over quantity.

But it sounds like you found a good compromise.

I like Skinny Cow and Weight Watcher novelty ice cream treats....I really like Chilly Cow but I can’t find it in this area....actually, I am not a big ice cream eater....now why don’t they make 0 calorie candy bars?

@conniewilkins56 I'm still waiting for my zero calorie cookies too!