Weight Loss Diet Tips

Weight Loss Diet Tip Number One:

• Use Almond Milk in Place of Regular 2% Milk

If you use sugar in your coffee.. try replacing that as well with a packet or two of Stevia. Stevia is a natural sweetener that comes from the Stevia plant. It does not have all the potential side effects of aspartame and other chemical sweeteners.

Weight Loss Diet Tip Number Two:

• Eat Something for Breakfast (even if it’s not a lot)

I love grapefruit so I have one almost every morning for breakfast.  Once in a while I change it up and have some honeydew melon or berries with some Dannon non-fat plain yogurt.  That plus my cup of coffee with Almond Milk and I’m good to go.

For those who need a little more for breakfast.. eggs are a healthy option. You can scramble them and add fresh vegetables.. or fold your scrambled eggs in half and voila.. you have a wonderful and healthy omelet.

Sometimes I have eggs for lunch. I spray the pan with Canola oil spray and fry two eggs and put them on one slice of sourdough bread with a small amount of butter. As long as you have only one slice of bread and only use a small amount of butter this will not increase your calorie intake all that much.

Diet Tip Number Three:

• Eat Fruit and/or Veggies at Every Meal

For lunch and dinner.. make sure at least half of each meal is comprised of fruit and/or veggies. You could have an apple, an orange, a peach, a pear, some grapes… or maybe some cucumber slices and a sliced tomato, some baby carrots, a stalk of celery.

Eating a salad at dinner time and drinking water with your meal is always a good idea.  Eat your salad before your meal and drink some of your water.  By the time you get to the main course you will eat less.

Weight Loss Diet Tip Number Four:

• Skinny Girl – The Greatest Thing Ever

As part of your weight loss diet regimen try Skinny Girl products!  The salad dressings come in a variety of flavors.  I have tried several of them and found each of them to be great tasting and with far less calories than most other salad dressings.

I have a couple of favorite salads.. a Caribbean Chicken Salad and a Roasted Beet Salad that I make at least once a week for a light dinner. Both salads are virtually calorie free.. or close to it.

The Roasted Beet salad is really good with a little goat cheese on top. Since the rest of the salad has no calories I usually indulge myself a little and add the goat cheese.

Weight Loss Diet Tip Number Five:

• Use Mustard Instead of Mayonnaise

Bread is not a good thing when you are trying to lose weight.. but occasionally I am just in the mood for a sandwich.  Since you will be getting calories from the bread you really don’t need the additional fat and calories in mayonnaise.  Even the light mayo has some fat and calories, whereas mustard has zero, zip, nada.. absolutely no fat and no calories!  It may take a little getting used to, but it will be worth it.

It totally works with turkey.. but, if you don’t care for your roast beef sandwiches with mustard.. try mixing about 1/3 to 1/2 low fat mayo with the mustard.  At least that way you will still be cutting the calories somewhat while maintaining some of the flavor you enjoy.

I have also discovered Joseph’s Pita bread, and Joseph’s Lavash bread, which both make a good roll-up style sandwich and have less calories than bread.

The Pita bread is a little thicker, so if you prefer your roll up sandwich to be a bit thinner try the Lavash bread. The Lavash bread slices are huge! I normally fold them over and cut them in half. I find that half a slice is perfect for a turkey roll-up with turkey, lettuce and tomato.

Diet Tip Number Six:

• Snacks and Desserts

For afternoon and evening snacks.. munch on celery and carrot sticks, cucumber spears, little grape tomatoes.. or some frozen red grapes.  I divide my grapes into snack size portions and put them in small Ziploc freezer bags.  They keep longer in the freezer.. and you can just pull out a bag whenever you get the urge to snack on something a little sweeter.

For dessert.. or for an occasional treat.. see my page on Vitalicious products.  Vitalicious vita brownies have only 100 calories each and will satisfy your sweet tooth.  Another one of my favorite desserts is Haagen Dazs in the single serve cups.  The raspberry sorbet has 110 calories with 0 fat and 0 cholesterol.  I like the idea of the individual serving size.. that way I know I will not be tempted to eat too much.

I also like the Mott’s unsweetened applesauce in the individual serving size containers. It comes in Cherry and Mixed Berry flavors. I like a little something sweet after dinner.. and this is perfect. Each individual cup has 0 fat grams and only 50 calories.

Weight Loss Diet Tip Number Seven:

• Cut Out All the Sugary Drinks

Giving up my Coke was a toughie for me.  I really don’t like the taste of diet soda .. and besides, all of those drinks that are artificially sweetened use chemical additives that are much worse for you than sugar.  Both Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi contain the artificial sweetener aspartame.  Have you ever Googled “aspartame side effects”.. scary stuff !!

However, there are now several stevia products available for use in your coffee or tea.  A lot of bottled drinks are now available as well, which contain stevia instead of the artificial chemical sweeteners.

Stevia is not an artificial chemical sweetener.. it is a natural sweetener made from the Stevia plant.  You can buy Truvia.. which is a Coca Cola brand, Pure Via.. is a Pepsi brand, and several others on the market as well.  I don’t quite understand why Coke and Pepsi each own and distribute a Stevia product but they don’t use it in place of aspartame to sweeten their diet sodas.. Go figure.. ??

Vitamin Water uses stevia to sweeten many of their bottled drinks.  Look for the bottles that say Zero on the label.  The lemonade flavor (gold label) is quite refreshing.. and has ZERO calories !

Another option is to water down your juice drinks.  An 8oz. glass of Cranberry juice has 130 calories and 32 grams of sugar.  You can cut that in half by mixing the cranberry juice with some sort of carbonated water.  I use Arrowhead lemon flavored sparkling water, which has 0 calories.  It gives you a deliciously refreshing carbonated cranberry drink with only half the calories and sugar you would get in drinking a glass of plain cranberry juice.

The Arrowhead sparkling water is also very refreshing to drink by itself. It comes in a variety of flavors from lively lemon, zesty lime, and lemon lime to black cherry, pomegranate lemonade and 7 or 8 additional flavors.

• AND.. Speaking of Drinks

What do you like to cool off with on a hot day?  A nice cold beer.. a frozen Margarita?  Beer, wine and liquor calories can add up in a hurry !  The average 6 oz. Margarita has 250 calories.. a bigger problem lies in the fact that most Margaritas are a lot larger than 6 oz.

A great alternative is Mike’s Margaritas.  They are wine Margaritas.. which are lower in calories and they are really very good.  They come in a 4-pack and you can find them at the grocery store in the refrigerated area with the wine and beer.

If you aren’t able to find them at your store.. you can check the product locator at their site to see where you can find them in your area.. Mike’s Margarita.

Any alcoholic drinks are real diet killers.. so keep your alcohol consumption to a minimum.. maybe enjoying a drink with dinner only on week-ends.

NOTE: I recently tried the Smoothie Diet and was very pleased with the smoothies and the results.
Watch for my review of the Smoothie Diet… coming soon!