To lose weight and / or keep the line, the best known solution is obviously to make lighter and more dietetic meals. Problem: when you are a little gourmet and you like to have fun at the table, the notions of “low calorie diet” and “drastic diets” are not really our friends. Especially since it is well known: when you deprive yourself and you are frustrated, 1 time out of 2, it ends up in big disproportionate cracks… But if the diets or the menus are too exclusive, it’s ” very little for us”, how to take care of our figure?
Well if we simply learned to reduce our daily calorie intake? That way, instead of imposing diets that are too strict and untenable, we could lose weight by simply changing some of our habits (food, but not only!).
Here are 10 tips for reducing calories on a daily basis.
1. Fight food cravings
The nerve of war, when you want to lose weight, is not so much the calories ingested during the meal, but rather those that you consume between meals. Because casually, a small chocolate here, a small packet of crisps there, a piece of cake nibbled in front of the TV, at the end of the day, it starts to weigh heavily on the scales.
And there’s no secret: the best way to keep snacking out of our way is to eat well at mealtimes. Namely: make meals rich enough in complex sugars so that you feel quite savvy, and not feel the urge to have a Mars at 11 a.m. and a Kinder Bueno at 4:30 p.m.
To do this, you can get help from starchy foods, especially whole foods (rice, pasta, bread, etc.). As the energy they contain diffuses slowly into the blood, with them, you can forget the crashes, the hypoglycemic attacks and the sugar cravings that go with it.
2. Use smart utensils
Smart utensils are kitchen utensils thanks to which, on a daily basis, we will use less fat in our preparations. For example :
The wok, which allows you to sauté vegetables, meat and fish with a minimum of fat.
Non-stick pans, which allow you to fry food without having to add butter or oil.
The steam cooker, which in addition to making us cook lightly, preserves all the nutrients and vitamins of the food.
The kitchen scale and the measuring cup: with them, we stop the measurements “by eye” or “with a ladle”. And when you don’t have the compass in your eye, it’s crazy how much calories you save!
The kitchen brush. That way, when you have to brush meat or poultry with oil, you avoid drowning it in fat, by adding just enough!
3. Take time to eat
We know, we keep repeating it, but as long as women in the world continue to gobble their meals in Speedy Gonzales mode and spend less than 20 minutes at the table, we will continue!
Because as a reminder: when you eat too quickly, not only do you take a ticket for painful and difficult digestion, but in addition, you eat too much!
Indeed, it takes 20 minutes for our brain to receive the message of satiety transmitted by our stomach. So if we always finish our meal in less than 20 minutes, there is a very good chance that we are ingesting quantities of food that are far too large in relation to our calorie and energy needs.
To avoid overeating at each meal, the solution is very simple: sit down, avoid screens, take the time to savor each food, and put down your fork between each bite. Gradually, we will see that in fact, we rarely finish our plate, and we will take smaller portions.
4. Make the right protein choice
When you want to lose weight or take care of your line, proteins are our allies, because they fill us up and provide a lasting feeling of satiety (which means that you don’t want to snack, which is already not bad to cut calories over the course of a day!).
But hey, to limit fat intake, you have to choose lean proteins. To do this, we will bet on:
Lean meats, such as poultry (without skin), or lean parts of meats such as escalope, shank, walnut, rump steak, tenderloin or aiguillette.
The egg, but without abusing it (no more than 6 per week) to limit cholesterol.
Seafood and fish, but in simple recipes (no overly greasy sauces which weigh down the calorie content of the dish).
5. Do not forget fruits and vegetables
To combat line-destroying cravings, foods high in complex sugars are often thought of. But don’t forget the fruits and vegetables!
Indeed, the latter are, in addition to being rich in minerals, vitamins, trace elements and antioxidants, excellent sources of fiber. And this, whether raw, cooked, fresh, frozen or canned.
And as a reminder, the fibers contained in fruits and vegetables have a fast and lasting satiating effect. And when you feel satiated and sated after a meal, even if it was light, you don’t want to snack in the hours to come… and you save your line many calories!
6. Favor homemade
The homemade, to keep the line, that’s all true. Yes: even if frozen pizzas, ready-made sauces, bricks of soup and dishes to be reheated in the microwave can save us time, they above all save us a lot of calories.
Indeed, commercial industrial preparations are often very (too) rich in sugars, salt, fats, additives, preservatives, colorings… And that is not good for our health or for our line.
So one of the first rules to follow to find the line is to find the way to the stove, and get back to homemade! It’s the only way to really control what we put on our plate, and to eat lighter.
7. Bet on simple products
When we buy certain products at the supermarket, we are often tempted by names such as “reduced in sugar”, “light”, “-25% fat”. But you should know that most of the time, these slogans are purely marketing, and 100% misleading. For example, a product may well be labeled “low in sugar” if it was made with less sugar… but to compensate more fat was added.
To avoid being fooled, it is better to opt for the least processed products, and not to be too fooled by marketing names, which are too good to be true!
8. Combine pleasure and reason
It’s clear: when we spend our time depriving ourselves and forbidding ourselves all the dishes and dishes that make us want, we get frustrated. But it’s when you’re frustrated that you have the best chance of cracking up, and giving in to the sirens of compulsive and excessive snacking (we’ve refrained all week from eating a square of chocolate, so the weekend , we devour a plate).
So we’re going to play it reasonable: if this afternoon, we indulge ourselves with a chocolate fondant for dessert, tonight it will be a salad as a starter, a fillet of fish and its steamed vegetables for a dish, and yogurt and fruit for dessert.
Compromises don’t just work in couple life, to keep the line and reconcile pleasure and silhouette, that’s the basis!
9. Take the “doggy bag” reflex at the restaurant
In France, the doggy bag is not really part of the mentality, even if it is gradually starting to make its way! And that’s great: because when you go to a restaurant, you often end up with XXL plates and portions. And since we’re well brought up and don’t want to be thought of as rude on duty, we generally force ourselves to finish our plate… by filling up on the calories that we’re going to store directly in the form of fats, yay!
To avoid that, when ordering, we will ask the waiter to pack, before we had time to touch it, half of our meal in a doggy bag. That way, we can enjoy our meal with a light heart, and we will already have a meal ready for the next day!
10. Embrace smart snacking
Even when you have eaten a good breakfast or made a meal rich in fiber and starches, you can find yourself with a sudden urge to snack in the morning or afternoon. It is a psychological hunger: it is not our body, but our mind that is crying out for food.
The problem is that even if we know it, we still crave a piece of chocolate cake now that you think about it. Fortunately, to fool our brain and deceive this false hunger, there is a very simple trick: sip a flavored tea, with fruit for example. Not only is water a recognized appetite suppressant, but the sweet taste of tea will be perfect to satiate our sugar-crazed taste buds.
On the other hand, if it is a real physiological hunger, ok to eat a few almonds, a fruit or a compote!
