Cut the calories - a little bit at a time!

Trying to lose weight?
Don't want to give up your favourite foods? Willing to make little changes? Don't want to feel deprived?

There are a number of ways you can cut calories/fat etc from your diet without stopping eating your favourite foods.

Here are some of the small changes I made:

When drinking fruit juice, I have a 200ml serving instead of 250 ml - that spares me an extra 24 kcal each time and to be honest I don't notice.
If you have milk, try downgrading to a different fat level. I went from full fat to semi-skimmed, and then semi-skimmed to skimmed. Sounds horrible, but eventually you can tolerate it and in fact enjoy it. In fact I now go about half and half with water and skimmed milk in most things such as on cereal, in porridge and if I want to make a milky hot chocolate, in that too.
Changing from butter to a margarine may not only reduce your calories, but in addition will lower the bad saturated fats you are ingesting in most cases and raise the good fats like the polys. This eventually can help with your cholesterol. In addition, if you can, avoid having it where possible and reduce the amount you have too. A slightly mounded teaspoon is approximately 10g and this in the lower fat spreads such as Flora Light and Bertolli Light is about 35kcal too. So if you're having a sandwich, try and avoid it, or just butter one piece sparingly if you really can't avoid it.

If you look around the supermarket or your grocery store, you'll often find lower fat versions of the products you're looking for. Whilst you're new to making diet changes, it's worth spending a little extra time looking at the nutritional information on the packs and comparing products. It will help you choose better and decide if you REALLY need that food.

I find that some of the Tesco value products are nutritionally the best and really they just have ugly packaging. They can be much cheaper too saving you money! However be careful that reduced calories doesn't mean increased salt and other bad stuff like fat. In addition, changing everything sometimes doesn't work. For example, I tried to make custard with half skimmed milk, half water and granulated sweetener. Whereas the sweetener wasn't too bad a replacement for the sugar (it was a sucralose derived one) the water and milk was a tad overkill and whereas the consistency was fine, the taste was just a little too watery! Lesson learned-never again!

Other changes to make - if you're having some baked goods, try cutting them in half and breaking the treat up over the day or having half one day and half the next - half the calories - half the fat - same taste!
Try opting for a smaller loaf - I've changed to Hovis - Nimble Wholemeal bread... at 48kcal a slice it's half the calories of a normal slice, and to be honest, once you get used to smaller portions you don't notice the size... In fact, I think that full size loaves look ginormous now!

Other little changes - drinks.
Try switching from regular calorie soda/pop to the diet version or even better water. This will help with your fluid uptake too and metabolism of fat. It should also prevent any bowel or bladder/kidney problems. If you hate the "taste" of water, maybe invest in a water filter to help eliminate any extra metals etc that may be in the water tainting it. Alternatively, add a small amount (not regular amount) of squash to just give it a hint of flavour, or even have a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice in it. Switch from 2 sugars in your tea/coffee to 1 and from 1 to half or even sweetener. If you can avoid the sugar and sweetener all the better. Black tea on it's own can be very good too. Even better, switch black tea for green which has LOADS of health benefits and a brilliant effect of your metabolism. It comes in so many flavours too to take away the "acquired" taste.

However; if you're having any kind of sleep issues I recommend avoiding all caffeinated drinks altogether, or at the very least all after about 1500 (3pm). Remember - chocolate contains caffeine so this would include cocoa/hot chocolate! Other things to note on this matter is having a carbohydrate snack such as Horlicks and a biscuit or something similar about an hour before bed will help release the hormone Melatonin in to your body which helps promote sleep. A hungry animal won't sleep as he will want to hunt for food - a satisfied animal will sleep! The same applies to us humans!

Breaking up healthy snacks throughout the day between meals MAY help control your appetite and help with portion control. Making sure you eat your dinner properly and focus on it as opposed to something like the TV will mean you eat at a pace where your body and head know it is getting full as it can take about half an hour; if you rush you can end up over eating and feeling pretty bloated later. Exercising portion control by measuring out your food is great as you won't over serve and in fact, most of the time is plenty! If you feel peckish- try and exchange sugar rich and fat rich food for something like a crunchy apple or even better, some crunchy carrots. These will satisfy your "need" to eat through the physical chewing and biting yet be low in calories - vegetables are better than fruit generally as they tend to contain less fructose and sugars so will irritate your stomach less and also you will get less calories from them. Root vegetables are fantastic as they are low GI too which means they release energy slowly so you don't hit as great a sugar high and then crash quickly. The same goes for wholemeal over whiteflour products.
REMEMBER, ALL FOODS HAVE A PART TO PLAY IN YOUR DIET SO DON'T TOTALLY BANISH ONE TYPE NECESSARILY!
Even I like to have some white toast with butter when I go home to visit my family.

Anyway - thats just my quick version of some quick calorie savers for you to try!