50 Ways to Fight Fat
July 12, 2009 by Beth
Courtesy of www.womenshealthmag.com
Have you hit a plateau? Are the pounds slower to come off these days? Are your muscles sore? Do you feel like blowing off your workout and diving into stuffed crust pizza with pepperoni? All that’s normal. Try these 50 smart ways to turbocharge your weight-loss efforts. When it comes to cooking and eating, tiny tweaks can add up to more pounds lost and another notch on your belt.
STIR FRY RIGHT
Let your vegetables stir-fry in their own moisture instead of an oil bath. Add a few drops of oil to start, and then use water rather than more oil as you’re stir-frying.
WARM UP YOUR OIL
Heat your skillet before adding oil, and less fat will be absorbed by the food. Warm oil cooks more efficiently; cold oil tends to soak into meats and vegetables.
SLICE YOUR STEAK, EAT LESS
Slicing thinly will make your portions seem bigger and more satisfying. In a recent study at Japan’s National Food Research Institute, participants who compared equal amounts of sliced and whole vegetables rated the sliced piles up to 27 percent larger. When you believe you’re eating a larger portion of food, you may trick yourself into feeling more satisfied with fewer calories.
EMBARGO THE OIL
When grilling chicken, try this oil-free marinade: Combine 3 cups of apple juice and two cloves of pressed garlic with 1 cup of reduced-sodium soy sauce.
STUFF YOUR BURGERS
Scoop a hole in the middle of your burger before grilling, and fill it with olives, mushrooms, or any vegetable you like. This makes the recommended serving of beef (3 ounces) look and feel like a massive hunk of burger, when it’s much leaner than that.
CATCH UP ON YOUR LYCOPENE
Squirt some organic ketchup on that bun. Researchers at the Agricultural Research Service in California found that organic ketchups have about twice as much cancer-fighting lycopene as the regular varieties. A simple visual clue you’ve got the correct ketchup? Organic ones are a slightly darker shade of red than regular ketchups.
CURRY FAVOR WITH YOGURT
Replace the high-fat coconut milk in your curries with low-fat plain yogurt. The yogurt adds that creamy texture without the extra fat from the coconut.
BUILD A BETTER PIZZA
Can’t resist pepperoni? Go for it, but help offset the damage by ordering two or more vegetable toppings for every meat topping. Since the carcinogens in processed meats such as pepperoni and sausage increase your cancer risk with every serving, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research, load on a variety of vegetables–green peppers, onions–that can help protect against cancer.
BULK UP YOUR MEATBALLS
Grate carrots, squash, or zucchini into any meatball mixture. They add bulk, moisture, and vitamins but don’t alter that meaty flavor you’re after.
SWAP RED MEAT FOR RED LENTILS
To make a low-fat, antioxidant-packed lasagna, use half the usual amount of ground meat and make up the difference with red lentils. They’re still protein packed, but lentils are fat-free and high in fiber, making them more filling, too. And since red lentils have a neutral taste, they’ll simply soak up the flavors in your sauce. You won’t even notice them. Promise.
TRADE CRACKERS FOR OATS
In any meat recipe that calls for crackers or bread crumbs, use an equal amount of rolled oats instead. This ramps up your soluble fiber intake, which can help lower your cholesterol. Use the quick-cooking variety of oatmeal, because it retains moisture well and doesn’t alter the meaty taste.
GO FRY A COD
To soften some of the damage inflicted by Britain’s national treasure, try this healthier DIY version of fish-and-chips—courtesy of Mark and Pete Petrou of Petrou Brothers in Cambridgeshire, England, 2006’s National Fish-and-Chip Shop of the Year:
1. Buy fillets or loins of white fish such as haddock or cod, and cut into strips.
2. Make a light tempura-like batter by mixing iced sparkling water with self-rising fl our.
3. Dust the fish strips with self-rising fl our and roll in the tempura batter.
4. Shallow fry the strips in hot canola oil, which is loaded with good fats: Fill one-third of your pan with oil and heat it to about 350 degrees F. (Use a thermometer!) Fry the fish until crispy.
5. For the chips: Cut potatoes into your preferred size and toss them in 1 to 2 tablespoons of canola oil with salt, herbs, garlic—anything you want, really. Then bake them at 450degreesF for about 30 minutes.
EAT THE CRUMBS
If you’re baking something with a topping of grated cheese, cut fat by halving the cheese and replacing it with whole-wheat bread crumbs. This mimics the crispy texture of baked cheese and adds fiber.
DOUBLE THE ORDER
Always order your pizza with double tomato sauce and low-fat cheese. Reducing the mozzarella by just one-third will save you 20 grams of fat. That’s as much as in a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. And if you double the sauce on your pizza, you get double the lycopene. Having a sandwich? Order double tomato slices. Another chance for a healthy dose of lycopene.
KNOW YOUR DELI MEATS
Sandwiches are the architecture of the common lunch-eater, but you need to start with a solid foundation.
- The hierarchy of health, in descending order:
- Turkey and chicken
- Roast beef
- Ham
- Weird processed things like salami and olive loaf
- The hierarchy of health, in descending order:
- Turkey and chicken
- Roast beef
- Ham
- Weird processed things like salami and olive loaf
For example, instead of an Italian submarine sandwich with cheese and mixed cold cuts like salami and bologna, choose a roast beef hero, and you can trim your fat intake by up to 30 percent.
DON’T RUIN A TUNA
Mayonnaise will turn your tuna sandwich into a fatty disaster. Instead of mixing in a lot of mayo, add pepper, hot sauce, and some fresh lemon juice to your tuna. It tastes great.
GET GRATER TASTE FROM LESS CHEESE
Buy yourself a good grater. Use it to grate a piece of Parmesan or other hard cheese on your sandwich, and you’ll save a lot of calories of fat compared with standard sliced fare, as long as you add a sprinkling for flavor rather than an avalanche of grated cheese.
MAKE IT MEATLESS
Next time you’re hankering for a veal Parmesan sandwich, try this vegetarian hot Italian sub. Brown some cubed eggplant pieces under a broiler with a little olive oil. Then mix with tomato sauce and capers. Place in a kaiser roll. Top with grated Parmesan. Fat savings: 18 grams.
SQUASH THE FAT
Replace half of the Cheddar in quesadillas, mac ‘n’ cheese, or grilled cheese sandwiches with pureed butternut squash. This significantly lowers the fat and calorie counts, won’t compromise the taste, and gives you a slew of added vitamins and heart-healthy potassium.
PACK A PITA
Add extra vegetables to your next sandwich by packing them in a whole-wheat pita pocket rather than between conventional slices of bread. Pitas simply hold more.
WRAP MEATS IN GREENS
To cut carbs, ditch the sandwich bread and do as the Koreans do: Wrap spicy cooked beef or chicken with leafy greens. Try Chinese cabbage, bok choy, or romaine lettuce. Replacing two slices of bread with one large lettuce leaf saves you about 30 grams of carbohydrate.
BE SLICK WITH YOUR OIL
“Avoid splashing ‘light’ olive oils over your salads,” says Elena Paravantes, registered dietitian for the Hellenic Dietetic Association in Greece—light varieties have fewer cancer-fighting antioxidants than the extra-virgin kind, plus they have a less intense flavor. Not sure if your oil’s up to snuff? “Good-quality extra-virgin olive oil should have a fruity, peppery, slightly bitter taste and leave a faint burning sensation on the throat,” she says.
TURN YOUR SANDWICHES GREEN
Replace mayo with a spread of ripe avocado to moisten a dry sandwich. Avocados are packed with monounsaturated (good) fat to help lower your cholesterol. Plus, researchers at Ohio State University found that phytochemicals in avocados may help prevent mouth cancer.
REVISE YOUR REUBEN
Simulate a cheese Reuben by replacing fatty corned beef with turkey ham and topping it with low-fat mozzarella, mustard, spicy shredded cabbage, and pickles. Slap all that on traditional rye bread and broil until the cheese melts. Fat savings: 10 grams.
SLIM YOUR CHICKEN SALAD
Use thick, Greek-style plain yogurt to cut down on the amount of mayo you need to make chicken, tuna, or egg salad sandwiches.
ADD CHEESE TO BREAKFAST
Grate hard, flavorful cheese, such as Parmesan, on hot cereals and oatmeal for added protein and flavor. “The key is to add protein to all meals, as it fills you up faster and may help you burn more calories,” says Milton Stokes, RD, of the American Dietetic Association.
ADD CHEESE TO BREAKFAST
Grate hard, flavorful cheese, such as Parmesan, on hot cereals and oatmeal for added protein and flavor. “The key is to add protein to all meals, as it fills you up faster and may help you burn more calories,” says Milton Stokes, RD, of the American Dietetic Association.
GIVE YOUR PANCAKES A NUTRITIONAL BOOST
Next time you make pancakes, replace 1?4 cup of flour with 1?4 cup of cornmeal. It’ll give your pancakes great texture, and the cornmeal will add extra fiber and magnesium to an otherwise rather nutritionally vacant breakfast.
LEAVE NO CHEERIO BEHIND
To get all the vitamins out of your cereal, drink the milk left in the bowl. You’ve admirably resisted the Frosted Flakes in favor of a less sugary breakfast cereal that’s fortified with vitamins, but that doesn’t mean you’re actually getting all the nutrients listed on the side of the box. Up to 40 percent of the vitamins in your cereal dissolve into that orphaned puddle of milk. Drink up.
FREEZE YOUR BANANAS
That way they will always be on hand for use in a smoothie. And because they are naturally sweet, you won’t need any sugar.
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