What you eat has the biggest effect on your health, your weight, and your clarity of mind. If you eat junk, you’ll feel like junk and look like, well, a cream puff.
You can start eating healthier today. It’s not hard. Just swap out unhealthy foods for healthier varieties. Here are 10 easy replacements to get you started:
- Whole wheat bread for white bread
- High fiber, low sugar cereal for sweetened cereal
- Light popcorn for chips
- Raw almonds for pretzels
- Fat free milk for 1%, 2% or whole milk
- Plain nonfat yogurt for sweetened yogurt
- Skinless chicken breast fillets for breaded chicken
- Low sodium canned tuna for lunch meat
- Low sugar protein bar for candy bar
- Water with lemon/lime for soda
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Getting enough protein is essential for a good diet. Our bodies use it to build muscle, bone, blood cells, and even hair.
Protein is also great for weight loss. It helps to stabilize blood sugar and stave off hunger.
Eating good protein sources, such as chicken and turkey breast, and extra lean beef is essential. Most of these meats, however, come in large packs. Who wants to thaw a whole pound of ground turkey breast when you only need enough for one burger?
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Soup is a great dish to have on hand. It’s a quick meal anytime. And you can chock it full of healthy vegetables and lots of flavor for very little calories.
Here’s a recipe for Chicken Vegetable Soup that’s great for your diet. It makes a lot so you can freeze half of it for another week if you want, or freeze it in serving containers for quick lunches.
Chicken Vegetable Soup
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 pepper, chopped
1 Tbs. minced garlic
3 boneless, skinless chicken breast pieces, cubed
Assorted chopped veggies:
Cabbage
Celery
Carrot
Cauliflower
Green beans
Chicken broth, fat free reduced sodium
Assorted spices to your taste:
Salt
Pepper
Oregano
Coriander
Paprika
Parsley
Worcestershire sauce
Add last:
Broccoli
Mushrooms
In a large pot, heat olive oil. Add onion, pepper, garlic, and cubed chicken breast. Saute until veggies soften and meat is white on the outside. Add assorted veggies and enough chicken broth to fully cover the vegetables. Add spices to your taste. Simmer until veggies are tender then add broccoli and mushrooms for the last 5 minutes of cooking.
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Chicken breast is a lean protein choice great for your diet. But if you’re like me, you probably get tired of plain baked chicken day after day.
Fortunately, you can dress chicken up with lots of flavor and few calories. Here are some of my favorite recipes to turn plain chicken into tasty chicken.
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For many people, keeping a food journal all day long is tedious, if not almost impossible. If you work in the health care field, at a factory, etc., you may be unable to keep a journal with you or have the time to keep a running total. Even if you do have the time, you may hate writing everything down and adding up calories.
There’s a simple way around this – and you can still eat healthy foods in your calorie range. So go ahead and ditch the journal!
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I enjoy eating healthy foods and rarely miss any of the “bad” foods I used to eat. It’s probably because I’ve found so many tasty foods to replace those old foods.
People often ask me what I eat, so I hope this list will help you find healthy foods that will become your favorites too.
Soy milk: 8th Continent Light original or vanilla (50/60 calories per cup). It’s great for making a protein shake and keeping the calories down. Blend 1 cup soy milk, 1 cup frozen strawberries, 1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder.
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Are you celebrating the July 4th holiday with friends… and burgers on the grill? Well, you can have a great party and keep it healthy!
There are many options to make your menu tasty while keeping the fat and calories down. Here are some things to keep in mind.
- Meats: look for lean cuts of beef, extra lean hamburgers, skinless chicken or turkey breast, lean turkey burgers, turkey hotdogs, and soy burgers.
- Rolls: whole grain rolls offer more fiber and nutrition. If you have picky guests, you may have to offer whole grain and traditional white buns.
- Sides: instead of calorie-laden pasta salads serve fresh veggies with dip, a fruit tray, baked potatoes or baked fries, corn on the cob, and low sugar baked beans.
- Condiments: switch to low calorie, low sugar mayo, ketchup, and barbeque sauce. Try using dry spice rubs on your meats or marinating them in fat free Italian dressing. Mustard is always a good choice because it has no fat and very few calories. Use low fat cheese and nonfat sour cream.
- Dessert: let your guests choose any mix of fruits they like, put them in the blender with a scoop of nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt, and a little nonfat milk for a delicious milkshake. Or make a sundae assembly line with frozen yogurt, lite chocolate syrup, fat free Reddi Wip, and cherries.
- Drinks: you can add a ton of calories with drinks so try flavored water with lemon and lime wedges, or low cal drinks like Fuze Slenderize and Propel.
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Protein helps you shed pounds, stay fuller longer, and keep cravings away. You should aim to eat protein at every meal and a little for snacks, too.
Eating quality, lean protein is essential. High calorie, high fat protein sources cancel the benefits you get from good proteins.
Here are some of the best sources of lean protein for weight loss.
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