So the two things that I really really enjoy are salt and sugar. These are obviously not the best thing to eat all the time, and is the cause of my recent 65lb weight gain this past year. But last time I lost weight, I had a really good diet, especially for the snacky foods. I eat between 1200-1500 calories a day (I'm not super strict on myself as long as I run at least a 500-calorie deficit), and eating this way I'm very full and satisfied, even just a couple days out from throwing out the Oreos and potato chips and stopping eating two hamburgers+fries for dinner. Here are some of the things I recommend (and stuff that's already helped lose me about 8 pounds since I started back).
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Rice cakes! No longer the bland boring plain rice cakes of yesteryear. Quaker now has flavored rice cakes that range from 40-60 calories apiece. Some of my personal favorites include the tomato basil (great to top with other stuff!), chocolate chip (only 60 calories apiece!), butter popcorn, white cheddar, caramel, and the "everything" (like the bagel topping). These really hit the spot for that salty/sweet crunchy craving and even if I "pig out" and eat 3-4 of them (and they're pretty filling and big so I usually have one or two), I'm still not too bad along on total calories.
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Bleu Cheese/stinky cheeses. look, I love cheese. But stuff like cheddar is not super nutritional and pretty dense in calories, and usually just makes me want more of it after having a reasonable amount. In fact, blocks of cheddar cheese are what started my latest spiral. I've found several brands of bleu cheese that come in cubes, and about 10 cubes comes out to less than 100 calories. And its very satiating and flavorful. I've found that really stinky cheeses hit that spot of craving a ton of flavor and stimulation, while not wanting to eat nearly as much of it. I eat limburger and hooligan too, I really REALLY like stinky cheese.
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PB2. If you love peanut butter (like I do) this stuff is a LIFESAVER. About 1/4 of the calories for the same amount. I re-constitute mine with skim milk instead of water, it seems to give it a better texture and taste. Sometimes if I have it I use a sweetened milk like almond or coconut (if I don't need to worry about an extra ~50 calories or so, I usually don't sweat it or count calories down to that granular a detail). I love to eat this with apple slices. Also great to mix into shakes and whatnot.
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Alternative to Halo Top style ice cream: I can't do the sugar alcohols, they give me the shits like no one's business. What you can do instead (and pack a lot of protein), is get greek yogurt and jello pudding mix (regular with more calories, sugar free for less but the aspartame taste, flavor is up to you (including chocolate, strawberry, cookies and cream, etc)). Mix these together until smooth and freeze for a low-calorie and protein-packed sweet frozen treat. I've seen people use this as a cheesecake filling as well but have yet to try it.
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Cauliflower. Cauliflower is my new tofu/chicken. Toss with some olive oil and seasoning salt and roast for a delicious veggie side. Cook it like buffalo wings in the air fryer. Rice it to make crusts. Treat it like pasta (along with its teammates spaghetti squash and zuchinni noodles).
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Portabello. I'm from Texas and certainly can appreciate a good steak, but sometimes a grilled portabello with bleu cheese melted on top and some bacon crumbles is just what I needed. Mushrooms are another great meat-alternative and like cauliflower, can be cooked in so many different ways.
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If you go for actual grains like bread and pasta, go for whole grain options. it's more filling/dense and nutritious from a vitamins/minerals standpoint. Rye bread, whole-grain pasta, brown rice and quinoa, etc. No longer "empty carbs." I think it tastes way better too. White carbs = less flavor.
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Sweet potatoes. Need I say more? I eat these like a regular baked potato sometimes. I could seriously sub sweet potatoes for any other kind of potato and be happy as a clam.
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Mass-grilling chicken. About once a month the local stores put their chicken breasts on sale. Like <$1 per pound. We buy it up, as much as we can feasibly fit in our freezer. Fire up the big BBQ pit grill, and grill it all up then freeze it. Perfect to dethaw and eat with some veggies and rice, or shred/slice to add to other recipes (like spaghetti-squash pasta or salads).
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Bacon and eggs. Seriously this is one of my favorite meals. I eat bacon and eggs at least a few days of the week. The eggs are cooked in different forms: scrambled, hard-boiled, etc. Bacon isn't exactly super-nutritious, but a couple thick slices are usually <100 calories and just really smack in terms of something salty and fatty. Hard boiled egg slices on tomato basil rice cakes with some salsa on top is one of my favorite quick meals. Tons of flavor!
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Stock up on salad supplies and shake it up. This goes well with the chicken and bleu cheese suggestion from earlier, too. I love a nice spinach salad with some chicken breast, bleu cheese crumbles, strawberries, and a strawberry vinagrette. And portioning dressing is much easier to not over-shoot if you make your salad in a to-go/tupperware box. A tablespoon of dressing will nicely coat the entire thing if you shake it up. No drenched salad puddles or wasted dressing.
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Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt is my secret ingredient and also one of my favorite meals for breakfast. I use it in place of sour cream in baking with sometimes even better results. (My family has a "salmon loaf" recipe that's a can of salmon, a cup of greek yogurt, some crushed corn flakes, and an egg, baked in the oven. Switching from sour cream to greek yogurt almost cut the calories in half). For breakfast, I blend up fresh fruit into it, with maybe a little bit of granola on top. Very very filling; I can go on a cup and a half of greek yogurt for HOURS before I get hungry.
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Dark chocolate. Sometimes I just really want some chocolate (thanks, uterus). I prefer dark chocolate over milk/sweet, the darker the better. Sea salt mega-dark chocolate is mind-blowing for a treat.
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Seasonings: Everything Bagel seasoning goes on just about everything. I also really like sesame seeds on salads and whatnot, and celery salt. I have a huge seasoning cabinet for cooking, and experimenting with those can really liven up an otherwise ho-hum dish.
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The Crockpot. The crockpot is love. The crockpot is life. One of my favorite meals is black eyed peas, beans, or lentils, a ham bone, pinto bean seasoning, a can of diced tomatoes, a bay leaf, and season with onion/garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste.
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Broths instead of water! Following up on the crockpot tip, I use broths instead of water for soups/stews/crockpot recipes. It adds a negligible amount of calories and a TON more flavor. This is an especially good tip for cooking rice. Also, rinse your rice, beans, and lentils please. That stuff gets really dirty and gross.
Some sneaky things I avoid:
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Popcorn. Gauging the calories of a bag of popcorn is difficult; I feel like they intentionally obfuscate the ACTUAL calories/servings in a bag of popcorn (1 serving = 1tsp unpopped at 110 calories, popped is 220 calories, approximately 2.5 servings per bag...). And I can eat a whole bag if I get going, which is actually upwards of 500+ calories. And a handful or two lightly salted isn't really sating to me. I prefer the rice cakes for a similar "hole" in my cravings.
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Tortillas and wraps. I think a lot of restaurants have convinced us this is the "healthy" alternative to bread. I've experimented with having the same filling ingredients with or without these, and it doesn't change how long I feel full, and adds 150-250 calories per tortilla/wrap (and sometimes I'm having enough filler-food for 2-3 of them like on taco night). In my mental math, the payoff isn't really worth it, because its just a vessel for the good ingredients anyways. So I usually just forego the tortilla/wrap entirely and enjoy the fajita meat or whatever I was gonna put in it. If I still want something carby, I'll go for a small serving of blue corn chips instead, or put it on some brown rice/quinoa and make a Chipotle-style bowl out of it.
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Jams. Not all jams are created equal. I skip the cheap stuff (smuckers, welch's etc) and get something really good that still has the fruit in it, and use more sparingly because the flavors are a lot more intense. More expensive, but I don't have to pile 2 tablespoons on the same piece of dark bread or stinky cheese to get the flavor I'm looking for, so it evens out.
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Lunch meats. Now, I eat a decent amount of lunch meat because I'm busy and sometimes rolling up a couple slices of turkey is an out-the-door lunch. But watch the flavoring and sodium. Honey-flavored stuff tends to add a surprising amount of calories (plus the sugar, and makes it all sticky, I actually hate honey-flavored meats). Turkey and chicken are obviously going to be lower in calories than stuff like ham or beef.
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Nuts. Nuts are nutritious, sure, but very very sneaky with calories and fat. A deceptive snack "serving" of nuts (in what a fat person like me would consider a serving) can be a full meal worth of calories. Trail mix is not intended for a normal person's snack. It's high calorie for people like hikers and mountain bikers. Snack very sparingly.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/okn5is/food_tips_from_the_last_time_i_lost_25_pounds/
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