Making Small Changes in Your Diet
Some ways to save calories by decreasing your sugar intake, or your fat intake, or by controlling the size of your portions. If you’re ready to tackle a few more, here are three more small changes you can think about working on this month.
Small Change #1: Eat More Slowly
Eating more slowly allows you more time to really enjoy your food – and your digestive tract will probably thank you, too. Taking at least 15 minutes to finish a plate of food – which, to them, is an eternity. Longer, slower meals often help them to control their intake.
Why it Works: When you eat more slowly, you’re eating more “mindfully”. When you eat mindfully, your meals may be more satisfying, which means you might be able to eat less and enjoy it more. Also, when you eat quickly, it’s often a sign that you’ve allowed yourself to become overly hungry – and hungry people tend to dig into the highest calorie foods on their plates first. If you take your time and focus on what you’re doing, you can start with the lowest calorie foods in your meal (salad, a broth-based soup, or the veggies) and fill up on those first. Another thing that slower eating allows you to do is to consume more water between bites – which may also help to fill you up.
Small Change #2: Aim for Two (or two more!) Fish Meals Per Week
It’s often recommended that you aim for a couple of fish meals per week, in order to get the health benefits from the omega-3 fatty acids that fish and seafood contains. But, many people don’t eat fish nearly that often. Eating more fish, including seafood not only helps to improve the quality of your diet, it might also help you save some calories, since fish are typically lower in calories than other protein sources.
Why it Works: As long as it’s not cooked with a lot of fat, most fish and seafood have fewer calories per serving than meats or poultry – trading a serving of steak for some grilled seafood could save you a couple hundred calories. One study1, has even suggested that fish – when compared with other animal sources of protein – may have more “staying power”. So, eating fish instead of beef or chicken might not only save you calories at thatmeal – it might also help you to eat less at your next meal, too.
Small Change #3: Switch from Refined Grains to Whole Grains
Whole grains offer you more nutritionally than refined grains like white bread, white rice and traditional pasta. That’s because whole grains naturally contain fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that are mostly stripped away when the grains are processed. But switching from refined grains to whole grains could also help you control calories too, since they are more filling.
Why it Works: First, whole grain foods may be more filling than refined grains, since they generally have a higher fiber content. Higher fiber foods also take longer to digest than refined carbohydrates, which gives them more staying power. And, many whole grain foods tend to have fewer calories per serving than their refined counterparts.
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