Weight Loss Wednesday: Getting Rid of Empty Calories

My Progress:
New weight:136 down 1 lb from last week!
Goal weight:117
Total lost: 7lbs

This weeks topic: Getting Rid of Empty Calories

What are empty calories? They are calories from food that have low nutritional value (vitamins and minerals) and usually very high in calories, fat, sugar, and other not so good things. Some good examples are burgers, fries, soda, white bread, chips, processed foods like hamburger helper, ice cream (my favorite but I’m learning to limit it greatly), butter, juice that’s not 100% fruit, and the list could go on and on and on.

Make substitutions for your favorite foods:

Drinks:
I know this will be a shock but change to water instead of soda or other sugary drinks! You can add lemon or frozen fruit to sweeten it up a little. Making a smoothie without added sugar can be a great snack, but also has many vitamins and minerals. You could drink diet instead of regular pop, but we are on a whole foods mission and this definitely doesn’t fit into that category. There are so many chemicals in a can of pop.

Hamburger: make a turkey burger on a whole wheat bun instead. Maybe add some caramelized onions and mushrooms and melted cheese yummm!

French Fries: Baked sweet potato fries. Sweet potatoes are much healthier that white potatoes.

Potato Chips: air popped popcorn with a little added olive oil and salt. I heard you can use nutritional yeast as cheese. I eat frozen berries like potato chips. I could sit in front of the tv and eat them all day and I don’t feel guilty.

Ice Cream: low fat yogurt with frozen or fresh berries.

Cookies or Candy: granola bars, but be careful some have a ton of added sugars!! Dried fruit is very sweet like candy, but can be high in calories if you consume to much.

The biggest tip I could suggest that has worked for me is if I want to eat less of something I don’t buy it! I can’t eat something if its not at my house. Well I guess I could go buy it at that moment, but I’m way to lazy to do that.

Also, try not to eat in front of the tv or the computer. You could just eat and eat and not realize you just ate an entire bag or chips. Try eat sitting down without any distractions. I am still working on this one for sure.

Remember everything in moderation! Having junk food once in awhile is okay. You do not want to deprive yourself from foods you love or else your diet will fail. Not that this is a diet its a lifestyle change, but you get the idea.

4 Comments

  1. Great ideas…I’m trying to get 40 pounds off before our daughters wedding in Aug. I hope I can. It’s very hard.

    I will be checking back often for more tips…Thank you for sharing.
    Blessings,
    Connie

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