If you’re trying to monitor every bite of food that you eat when on a diet, then you know it can be no simple task. However, you might be surprised at how easily it is to consume more calories without even realizing it. Therefore, I have some useful tips of how to reduce calories when dieting without much effort.
Though you may not notice it, the key is becoming aware of how those devious calories can end up in our mouths despite following our diet. For example, most of us are guilty of tasting the food that we cook. Yet, we just brush off that teaspoon or tablespoon and never give it that much thought. This is a wrong assumption because each bite or lick before being satisfied with the taste of the recipe can go from an innocent 20 or 30 calories such as for a chili to 90. The calories go up depending on how many calories those bites have. Doing this sampling, every day can add up to about 12 to 15 pounds on average and work against our efforts to lose that weight that we are struggling to lose.
You may believe that nibbling between meals with something sweet or salty such as a few potato chips or a cookie is not so bad because of that tiny portion. Say you just ate six chips, but that is 59 calories that will only make you crave more. An average homemade chocolate chip cookie can be 78 calories, but those large ones that you may have picked from the bakery can have about 221 calories.
Keeping a food journal can be a lifesaver for how to reduce calories. You may feel why bother because your diet is easy to follow or you have it adhered to your refrigerator door. The problem is that you may discover that you bypassed some parts of that plan for one reason or another. For instance, you may think that you’re always cooking vegetables for every meal remembering different ways that you prepared carrots, potatoes or broccoli during a month. In reality, you may have missed doing that as often as you had thought and filled up with whatever else was on the allowed menu. Yet, a food journal could keep you on track to get more nutrition and fewer calories.
If you’re in the habit of just serving vegetables with a serving spoon, you are doing yourself disservice. Measure the portion because you’ll be able to eat more without excess calories and feel satisfied. Sometimes, the eye can shortchange our portions over what an allowed portion really is when we measure it out.
A food journal made sound hardly worth the trouble, but it can be a useful tool when trying to figure your realistic calorie intake.
