One of the reasons it’s not always easy to lose weight is that we just don’t want to change our diet. We want what we like, even if what we like isn’t so good for us when it comes to our weight. Okay, well that and the exercise thing.
I’ve got to admit – I’m not one for regular exercise. I’m more into getting exercise when I do normal everyday things – walking when shopping, walking when going to get this or that, exercise when cleaning the house – things like that.
Yes, I’m one of those ladies who live the Lazy Girl Lifestyle. I confess – I like to get things done, but in a way that’s easy and simple, that doesn’t require a lot of effort on my part. Being a member of the Lazy Girl Club (that’s not a real thing, btw) doesn’t mean one is physically lazy as in just sitting on the end all day every day, it means we like tips and hacks to accomplish things fast and easier rather than putting in a lot of effort and time.
So I got a little off track there. 🙂
[bctt tweet=”Simple and Easy Ways Change Your Meals to Help Lose Weight” username=”Bloggingology”]
And then there’s the food thing still. Hey, people love to eat! I mean, who doesn’t.. right? The problem isn’t so much that we love to eat, it’s what we’re eating. If it’s not packing on the pounds, it’s at least preventing us from losing the weight we need to lose to be healthy. And the fact that we’re not getting up and moving, getting enough exercise, doesn’t help.
Okay so you want to lose weight but you want to eat the food you love. I went through this, wanting to lose a few pounds but not wanting to give up the food that’s so yummy.
This is some of what I did and am still doing. It might help you to get in gear. Using these simple and easy meal tips, I was able to lose weight and I am sure you can too. I didn’t want to make a lot of huge changes to my diet so this works for me.
- Cut out the salt. This means adding salt to your food also. Use salt-free alternatives to spice up your food. You can get flavor without loading on the salt. Experiment with various spices and stock up on the ones you like. This will help take away the urge to use salt. Premade foods are loaded with sodium as a preservative. The problem is that salt makes your body hold water and you bloat and swell. Look at the sodium content before buying and see how much is in what you’re eating. Buying and preparing real food can go a long way in terms of eating healthy.
- Cut out the bread, cake, gravy, and pasta. These are loaded with flour, which in turn is loaded with calories. Sure it’s fine to have these every now and then, but they should be the exception and rare, not every day. Substitute fat-free or low carb products to fill the cravings. I like to keep fat-free ranch dressing and fat-free sour cream to use in place of gravy. I also use mustard a lot since it has no calories. Use spaghetti squash instead of pasta. See my post here about cooking spaghetti squash.
- Cut out the sugar loaded drinks. This means just what it says – Colas, sugar laced coffee, lemonade, etc. Again, this is fine to have every once in a while, but not every day and not every other day. Your body needs water. Drink more of it. Once you get used to drinking water, your body will not even want the sugar filled drinks as much! Try using a Fruit Infused Water Infuser Bottle. Drinking fruit or vegetable infused water is definitely one of the best ways to encourage you to drink more water. It adds to the entire experience by making the water taste better. It can also be fun when you put together different flavor combinations, whether it is a simple cucumber water or more complex blueberry, watermelon, and mint water.
- Cut out the frying. Cooking in grease just loads the calories into the food that’s fried. The added flour batter doesn’t help! Yes, fried food is good. But no, it’s not in the least bit healthy for you. You can shave a ton of calories off of chicken by baking or stir frying it or even boiling it to put in rice. When I prepare chicken for salad or to eat with just about anything, this is what I do: I take one chicken breast per person, rinse it, cut it up into small bit size pieces, put it into a small pot with about two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, seasonings (not salt), and stir it up for about 10 minutes until it’s tender. You can always make up extra for another meal.
- Eat less beef and more chicken. I love beef. I really do. But I eat less of it now, simply because beef has about 100 calories more than the same amount of chicken. So I eat more chicken. It’s good. Grilling it up in a pot as I just mentioned above allows me to use the prepared chicken in a variety of ways – in salad, over mashed potatoes, with green beans, with spaghetti squash, etc. I still eat beef, only seldom. When I do eat beef, I buy ground chuck and the leanest roast I can find. The less fat, the better.
- Eat more filler foods. You are probably wondering what filler foods are. 🙂 Filler foods are what I call super low calorie foods that fill you up so that you’re not hungry and allow you to eat a wee bit of something you really want. My list of filler foods include green beans, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, steamed rice, tomatoes, lettuce, baby spinach, cabbage, spaghetti squash, yellow squash, cucumbers, zucchini, etc. You get the idea. Eating filler foods allows you the available calories to eat something you want that’s, well, not so healthy.
- The food steamer is your friend! I totally love my food steamers! Steaming your veggies keeps all those oh so healthy vitamins and minerals in the veggies, plus the taste is oh so much better! Instead of frying or boiling (and even sometimes baking) your veggies, try steaming them. You’ll absolutely love the taste. Steaming keeps all the flavor in the veggies, so when you eat them, you taste all that yummy goodness. The taste is so much blander when you boil the veggies, boiling away the good for you vitamins and minerals along with the taste. Try the steamer – you’ll be glad you did.
- Get some dessert! Yes, I eat dessert. You can too! I buy fat free frozen yogurt. It’s yummy. And it has less calories than ice cream. It’s just as good. No it doesn’t taste exactly the same. But that doesn’t matter. It’s good and it’s healthier. Yum. Try it. You can also try low calorie pudding. I also buy low fat yogurt. This works for me as a dessert (in my mind, I tell myself it’s dessert). And it gives me a little extra calcium. Find something you like and then find it in a lower calorie alternative.
These are just a few basic ways to easily change your meals so that you can lose weight. This works – I’ve done it and am still doing it. Once you make your mind up to eat a bit differently, it helps. You can always have a wee bit of what you really want to eat. The key here is moderation.
It’s not easy to just up and change your diet to lose weight. I’ve been there, so I totally know and get it. But these tips should make it easier for you to start. Make the commitment to yourself. 🙂