10 Diet Tips That Really Work

Photo Courtesy of Sifu Renka on flickr

Here are my ten favorites that can help you shed pound. This is not a diet in and of itself. These are ten things you can use within your weight-loss plan to add to the success of your program!

1. A little bit of salad dressing goes a long way if you toss the dressing into the salad. No matter what kind of salad dressing you use, measure it, drizzle it on the greens in a

   bowl big enough to toss the ingredients well. This allows less dressing to give you more flavor than when you pile the dressing on top of the greens.

2. Salad dressing: I don’t know about you but if I have to eat that horrible bottled, low-cal salad dressing, I’d rather skip the salad! I’ve never liked vinegar and oil dressings until I discovered rice vinegar. Rice vinegar has a less tangy zing to it than regular vinegar and goes well with green salads or even salads to which you may add apple, pear or grapes.

   

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   Depending on the size of the salad, drizzle either a teaspoon or tablespoon of pure virgin olive oil over the greens, then toss well as I described above. Then, drizzle twice the amount of rice vinegar over the greens and toss again. Taste and add more vinegar to please your own palate. Add pepper or other spices, if you like. I like this mixture plain, but you may want to spice it up a bit.

3. Since salads and vegetables are a big part of any diet program (as well as any healthy lifestyle,) it helps to add different items to your salads to keep

   them interesting and to keep salads from becoming a big bore. Try adding one of these to your salad for interest and flavor:

   • A. Goat cheese: Once your home made rice vinegar and olive oil dressing is tossed well into the salad, crumble some goat cheese on top. Goat cheese is naturally low in calories and goes really well with my dressing. Don’t be grossed out about the thought of goat cheese if you’ve never tried it. It is a mild, soft cheese that you might just like if you give it a chance. For a Mediterranean touch, use crumbled low-cal feta.
   • Keep quickly blanched frozen peas and corn in the refrigerator. (Boil them for a minute or two, then immediately drain and rinse with cold water.) On days when either sounds good to you, use them on your salad or with your protein serving as a vegetable side dish. Keep the serving small, as these vegetables are higher on the glycemic index than others. (They contain more sugars than other vegetables.)
   • Pepperocini and pickles are low in calorie and a slice or two of a pickle or a couple of the tender little peppers help add interest to a salad if you like them.
   • Canned kidney or black beans: Rinse and use on salads in moderation.

4. I love fruit but some fruits are high in calories. Most berries are not high in calories. I keep strawberries, blueberries and any other in the refrigerator; freeze them before they spoil if you don’t use them. If you are used to pouring sugar on your berries, stop doing that! Use sugar substitute if necessary. Honey is healthy but also high in calories so save it for the maintenance portion of your plan, after you’ve lost the weight you want to lose.

   

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5. Processed American yogurts are full of sugar, thus carbs, and very little active cultures. Most of them are pure junk and you aren’t improving your healthy lifestyle or your weight-loss program by eating that stuff. If you have a Trader Joes or Whole Foods store, try Greek-style yogurt. My favorite is Fage, (pronounced Fah-ye) which is found sometimes in chain grocery stores and Costco, as well. It has a pungent flavor so sweeten with a sugar substitute and add a handful of berries. I like the plain low fat flavor; you may prefer the fat free variety.

   Top with a tablespoon of Kashi brand 7-whole grain nuggets for a crunchy-good treat. I love this for breakfast! The nuggets are not as hard to chew as Grapenuts, but provide whole grain nutrition and a nice flavor, in my opinion.

6. Snacks are a problem when trying to shed pounds. I found a few that I really like and worked well for me. I enjoy carrot sticks and celery sticks so I cut them into spears and keep them in water in a plastic container for snack time. Sounds dull but you can also keep fresh salsa available and dip the veggies in the salsa for a peppy snack. I also keep hardboiled eggs in the refrigerator for a quick snack at only about 100 calories.

7. My other favorite snack is peanuts; not the ones in a jar, the ones roasted in the shell! If you eat a handful of peanuts from the jar, you munch them so quickly that the calories add up quickly. When you shell them as you go along, you will eat far fewer! It works and they taste so good. My doctor said she would prefer that I eat dry-roasted almonds but I don’t like them. If you do, then just be sure to watch the serving size because they are healthy but not particularly a low cal food.

8. Weight Watchers recommends a really good, home made vegetable soup. I put my own spin on it. It’s hot, tasty and wonderful on a cold day. You can’t screw up this soup; so once you make it, feel free to add your own favorite vegetables.

   Here’s what you’ll need:

   • One small can of tomato paste
   • ½ small head of cabbage, chopped
   • As many mushrooms as you would like to use.
   • Frozen peas
   • Frozen corn
   • Salt
   • Pepper

   Spices that you prefer: I like a seasoning mixture that I find at the grocery store called “Herbs of Province,” but you can add whatever spices you like.

   Any or all of the veggies below:

   Zucchini, string beans, diced carrots, chopped celery, broccoli, chopped asparagus.

   I make a huge pot, but boil water according to how much soup you would like to make. Add the tomato paste after mixing with a bit of water to prevent it from lumping. Add chopped cabbage. Add salt to taste. Add mushrooms, carrots, celery, broccoli, string beans and any other firm vegetables. Simmer, adding seasons, pepper and more salt to taste. If it tastes watery you need to add more tomato paste, but unless you added much too much water, the broth should taste good at this point.

   After these vegetables are cooked, then add the peas, corn, and/or chopped zucchini to prevent them from getting mushy.

   I keep cooked barley in the refrigerator to add to the soup as I pour it in the bowl on those days when I want a bit more substance to the soup. You could also use some of the kidney or black beans as you wish, before you microwave each serving.

   My doctor says to count one cup of this soup as 100 calories per one serving. Barley and beans are extra calories and add a few more calories if you add LOTS of corn.

9. Keep a bag of frozen, skinless, boneless chicken breasts in the freezer. You can sauté a chicken breast with vegetables and chicken broth to serve almost any time. Also, a frozen chicken breast seasoned and baked, tastes wonderful on a salad. (Bake either a frozen or fresh chicken breast in a covered cooking dish with ¼ inch of water on the bottom at 350 degrees for about ½ hour or until the center is not pink. The water in the bottom of the dish produces a juicy cooked chicken breast; my butcher’s tip!)

   

   Photo courtesy of MyLastBite on flickr

10. 10. Try tofu noodles called shiritaki. Before you gag, give these a try; they taste so much like regular noodles that you won’t know the difference between them. They are so good and they take on the flavor of whatever you are cooking. Get this; there are only 40 calories in the entire 8 oz package! Put them in soup when you are craving pasta. Serve sautéed chicken breast and vegetables over the noodles. Be creative and use them in any way that you would use pasta noodles at a fraction of the calories.

I hope you find these tips useful. They are all healthy tips to use while on a weight loss program and also to incorporate into your everyday life long after the pounds have fallen off! They work for me; I hope they work for you.