Ten Easy Ways to Cut Your Calories

Here I’ll share with you ten easy ways to cut your calories. They are very practical and easy to apply, hope you find them helpful.

1. Get the facts. Foods that seem healthy can be loaded with calories and fat, so check the nutrition facts. In terms of weight management strategies, calories rule. For example, although nuts are unbelievably healthy for you, most of its calories come from fat. A cup of nuts can be as much as 600 calories.

2. Limit sodas and alcohol. Although it is fat free, alcohol contains about 70 calories per ounce. That goes also for sweet drinks. One glass of sweet tea and one glass of soda a day contain 320 additional calories that don’t do anything for you. You can eat about 4 medium apples and you’ll get the same amount of calories. You can gain 30 pounds in a year because of those extra calories. As a rule of thumb, don’t drink your calories.

3. Switch to smaller plates. Do you have a regular-size dinner plate? What does that mean? Put your food on a smaller salad-size plate. In that way you reduce your portion sizes and save a lot of calories.

4. When you go out to eat, don’t be embarrassed to order child-size portions. We tend to eat what is front of us. If you order a big portion, that’s what you’ll eat. You won’t die if you eat a smaller one.

5. Serve in the kitchen, eat in the dinner room. If you eat in the kitchen you’ll be tempted to pick from the serving bowls in front of you. You can easily pick yourself into an entire meal.

6. Eat slowly. This is unbelievably hard for a lot of folks, including myself. Put your fork down and calm down while you chew your food.

7. Use plates. Snacking from packages is absolutely deadly. Your brain only remembers what it sees. If you decide you’re going to have a cookie, put it on a plate, sit down and enjoy it. Don’t grab the cookie out of the package.

8. Fill up with plant foods. Fruits, vegetables and whole grains take up stomach space. They take time to chew and time to eat. As a plus, they are incredibly healthy for you.

9. For every member in your family over the age of 2, switch to lower-fat dairy products. Reduced fat, low-fat or fat-free dairy products contain significantly fewer calories. That reduced fat in your milk can represent a significant change in weight over time.

10. Dull is good. I don’t mean dull as in boring, but dull as “not shiny”. When you see a salad that is shiny, it usually means that a lot of vegetable oil was added to the vegetables. You can save a lot of calories by avoiding these fats.

7 More Weight Loss Tips

1. Eating small frequent meals on a regular schedule can help you lose weight. However, if you don’t know what “small” means this won’t work for you. A small meal should be between 200 and 300 calories. If your “small” meals are 700 calories each, you are now eating six large meals instead of six small meals. Morning intake is much more filling than late-night eating. If you’re eating at night, are you generally having a ball of cereal or a scrambled egg? Are you having a turkey sandwich? No. We usually go for sweeter snacks later at night with many calories but with few nutrients.
   
   
2. Your grandma was right. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Skipping breakfast can alter the way we use insulin. It can raise cholesterol and can lead to higher energy intake later on in the day. Maybe you say you don’t have much appetite in the morning, but at 3 o’clock you starve and you go for a cookie and coffee. You gotta eat your breakfast.
   
   
3. Physical activity is essential to weight management and it promotes overall good health. Also, as a really nice side benefit, it can discourage overeating by reducing stress. It also produces positive feelings of well-being. This is because of the endorphins that are released during physical activity.
   
   
4. If you’re just trying to maintain weight, 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise everyday is good. If you need to lose weight, you need to aim for 60 minutes per day. Create a program that includes some kind of cardio, like running or cycling. Also include some strength training and stretching.
   
   
5. Cardio that you can sustain for about an hour can help to trim that body fat permanently. However, strength training is also important, as it can help to increase lean body mass. Lean body mass burns more calories at rest than body fat.
   
   
6. You don’t need to do all your exercise at one time. You may go out and take a 30 minute walk in the morning and ride the bike at night. For strength training, concentrate on big muscle groups. Lift heavy enough weights for it to be a challenge.
   
   
7. Be easy on yourself. You’re going to screw up a lot, I assure you. Don’t beat yourself up because of that. I’ve learned that perfectionism is not the best way to go to achieve your goals. You may end beating yourself up for small things. I think that a better way to live and to achieve great things is by following this standard: “It is okay if you’re not perfect, as long as you’re persistent”. Focus on the five days you DID GO to the gym, not on the two days you skipped. Whenever you don’t live up to your expectations, whenever you don’t act as your ideal self would, say to yourself: “It’ okay. You’re growing. What did you learn from this?” This takes practice, as anything.