Foods to Keep Around When You Need to Lose Weight

When most people try to lose weight they join a program or chose a diet that asks them to deprive themselves of foods that taste good to them. Depriving yourself of food you desire, rarely works for more than a few weeks (if that long). Soon the weight comes back and you are stuck feeling bad about your problem again. You can take a healthy look at the foods you have in your refrigerator and pantry and keep many of your favorites and lose weight. Here are some tidbits for what foods to keep in your home when your goal is to lose weight and be healthier.

A big culprit for most dieters is the area of food choices for snacks. Let's face it, we all love to snack in-between meals. Snacking and keeping the snacks healthy for your body and weight loss can be a challenge. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that you do not deprive yourself of salty snacks, just limit the availability of them to 1 bag of a salty snack in your home per week. The important thing to remember is when you are reaching for that bag of salty snack food; do not eat straight out of the bag! Look at the label on the bag for how much is considered to be a serving size (1 serving size) and measure that amount into a bowl. That is all that you should eat for one snack time. Air popper popcorn is a much healthier choice than microwave popcorn.

A healthier choice instead of dried fruit would be nuts - just stay away from the salted ones, if you can. Other healthy snack choices are: sugar-free applesauce, beef jerky or turkey jerky, baked tortilla chips and sticking to the non-fat or low-fat versions are better choices than the regular varieties. Do not deprive yourself of candy, just buy the miniature kind, and limit yourself to one of these miniature pieces a day.

Making healthier choices when cruising in your refrigerator:

When choosing ground meat, make sure that the packages are 5 - 8% lean. When buying chicken wings, thighs, breasts and legs always make the boneless and skinless choices. If you must have spreadable types of cheeses make sure you reach for the low-fat spreadable ones and putting them on wheat crackers makes your choice even healthier.

Use baby carrots instead of regular size and try to avoid dipping them in creamy sauces. Use condiments like relish and mustard instead of mayonnaise. If you love sour cream, cream cheese or mayonnaise try to get used to the low-fat varieties. Make your margarine choices for the light or low in both saturated and trans fats ones and go for tubs instead of sticks. Stay away from butter if you can.

Now for the dangers lurking in your freezer:

Breaded frozen foods are a no-no when trying to lose weight. Keep your freezer stocked with frozen but plain, not breaded fish. Load up on frozen vegetables, they are good snacks and to have at mealtimes. Ice cream - there is a culprit for many a dieter. Who can resist those yummy flavors! Try your best to pass by all those ice cream temptations and only look at the low-fat varieties for your freezer at home. If you walk past the regular ice cream section and keep your eyes focused a head of your cart you can pass them by! If you experiment with brands, you can find a low-fat ice cream that you will like.

Misc.:

Ignore canned fruits and vegetables - fresh or frozen is best when you are trying to lose weight.

Only young kids and rapidly growing teens need juice. Most juices are full of sugar. Fresh fruit is a better choice for adults who need to lose weight.

Chose beverages that have less than 5 calories per serving. Water is your friend and keeping a pitcher of cold water on hand for when you are thirsty will help you to reach for that pitcher instead of the bottle of cold beer. If you must drink beer, only put one bottle in the refrigerator to get cold at a time instead of the entire pack.

When looking at bread labels, only buy the bread that states it has at least 3 grams of fiber per serving size.

Think brown when it comes to rice and pasta. Sweet potatoes are better choices than white potatoes. When it comes to cereal, the sugary kid cereals are not for adults, stop pretending that you have a kid in your household and learn to put fruit pieces on adult cereal - you know you can resist the temptation, right? Good cereal choices should have 100 calories for every 3/4-cup to 1 cup of cereal.