The Easiest Diet - Cutting Calories

Some people may feel that you stop cooking while on a diet, but the opposite is true. People who are serious about taking off weight, and keeping it off, read more about nutrition and experiment with recipes to cut calories and improve flavor then others.

This is the time when it's really important to prepare food attractively and vary your menus. Boredom is the biggest cause for falling off a diet. And when I say diet I don't mean eating hard-boiled eggs and cottage cheese for 5 days. I mean a balanced, varied diet of eating less and cooking with fewer calories forever. If you are aware of calories it's easy. You may even find yourself eating a larger quantity and certainly a better quality of food.

There are many painless substitutions you can make to save calories. For instance by using well chilled evaporated skim milk instead of whipped cream in molded salads and desserts that contain gelatin you save 40 calories per tablespoon. Try unsweetened dry cereal as a topping for fruit or ice cream instead of nuts or coconut. If you replace the graham cracker crumbs with dry cereal in a piecrust you'll save 94 calories per 1/8 piecrust. Plain skim milk, either powder or liquid, saves 12 calories per cup over fortified skim milk, 57 per cup over 2% milk and 71 calories per cup over whole milk.

Substitute diet soda or fruit juices for cokes and alcohol. Cut down on salt. I always use less then the amount called for in a recipe unless it's a bakery type item. Try different herbs and spices instead. Use yogurt in recipes that call for sour cream.

When you substitute 2 slices of Canadian bacon for 2 slices of bacon you save 65 calories. Substituting 4 ounces of broiled chicken for 4 ounces of fried chicken you save 85 calories. Having 1 cup of chicken noodle soup instead of 1 cup cream of chicken soup saves you 105 calories. A poached egg over a fried egg saves 30 calories. Substituting 1 cup of ice milk for 1 cup of ice cream will save you 80 calories and 1/7 of a pumpkin pie for 1/7 of a pecan pie will save 215 calories. 1 cup popcorn for 10 potato chips saves 75 calories.