Food Issues

One of the biggest "obstacles" I encountered when I decided to really buckle down & get my weight under control was dinner. I was (and AM) able to eat quite well during the day. I am home alone with the girls & with Katy being so little & Lizzie eating almost anything put in front of her I can make myself something healthy, low-fat & low calorie for breakfast, lunch & snack. Then dinner time rolls around & I am cooking for the whole family. At first I thought I only had two choices; eat something different from the family every night (basically cooking two dinners) or eat healthy all day only to "fall down" at dinner time. After a certain amount of time, maybe only a couple weeks, I realized I had a third option: I could make a healthy, low-fat, low calorie for the WHOLE family!
To this end I started looking online for recipes & articles with "food swap" ideas. I know the food my husband & son will eat. I know what my daughter will eat. I know what I SHOULD eat. Now the question was how to make only ONE meal? I found articles with titles like "Lose 15 (or 10 or 20 it was pretty interchangeable) making these small changes" and I was immediately intrigued. I would click on the article full of hope & ready to make "these small changes" to my & my family's diet. And then I saw the tips; "Eat at home more often", "Swap whole grain bread for white bread", "Skip the Starbucks each morning". UMMMM, can you say "DUH?!?" More often than not I was seeing "tips" that seemed more like common sense & things I was already doing ("cut down on mixed alcoholic drinks", gotcha been there done that like FOREVER ago!) When that seemed like dead end I turned to MY cookbooks at home. (By the way, I LOVE recipezaar.com but I had SOOOO much trouble when I searched "low-fat" recipes. Now I find a recipe I like and make the appropriate adjustments myself.) I found a few recipes that I felt fit all my criteria but not enough to keep picky eaters happy & satisfy my desire for variety. I've heard of (and even DONE) some diets where you eat pretty much the same thing day in & day out. I've come to realize that type of dieting just isn't for me. I CRAVE the variety of REAL food! But I digress. Now that I have had time & the desire to really change things for myself (and by extension my family) I have a few tips that may make this easier for those not ready, willing or able to do the things I found restrictive when I began.

1. Skim milk. I LOVE skim milk. And it saves TONS of calories each day. I remember when Jay was a  baby and WIC, the pediatrician & all the parenting magazines said from 12-24 months he NEEDED whole milk. I was too poor to buy my own milk so I either skipped it entirely (not good) or drank whole milk (why have I been overweight so long? oh yeah!) Now "they" say that babies do just as good (if not BETTER) having as little as 1% milk from 12-24 months. I found that switching from whole to 2% & then down to 1% and finally to skim was a process that took a couple months but now every one in our house doesn't know the difference and it substitutes into any recipe perfectly!
2. Brown rice. I LOVE me some steamed rice! I love rice pilaf & spanish rice DEFINITELY has its place in my heart. When I crave chinese food it usually has something to do with the rice that comes with it & that I just can't duplicate at home. HOWEVER, I made the change from white to brown almost a year ago & I haven't looked back! Even Jay, my notorious picky eater, loves it & never asks why we changed. It does take longer to cook in our rice cooker than white rice but if that is a concern I know that most grocery stores sell "Boil in the Bag" or instant brown rice. Also a good substitute for white rice is either jasmine or basmati rice. Both are white in color but healthier in all their stats and OH SO YUMMY!
3. Whole grain or whole wheat bread. For a couple years, whenever I would go grocery shopping I would buy half & half, some white bread (for the kids) and some wheat. When the white bread would run out (and it always did faster than the wheat) if I couldn't get to the store I would make the kids sandwiches on the wheat. I always expected comments or an argument but I NEVER got one. Not even when they got the crust piece! After a few months (or more) of this I decided that the whole family was making the change. I now ONLY buy whole wheat or whole grain bread & the only "complaint" I've gotten was from Mark & when I explained my reasoning even he seemed okay with the change! Another quick note: I eat bread VERY sparingly. I go days, maybe even weeks without eating it. P.S. This goes for pasta as well.
   
4. Lean ground beef. I was APPALLED the first time I went to buy lean ground beef and saw that it was over $2 a pound. I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. I gradually worked my way up to it when I saw the calorie & fat difference in numbers. I found that I could justify that extra $$ expense if it added up to a healthier and more fit me (and family too, i did it for them too!). Now I buy 2.25 pounds of 93% lean ground beef every two weeks and it LASTS. I found that if I keep my freezer stocked with various types of meat (fish included!) I'm more likely to make healthy choices without feeling like I make the same meal every...single...night!
5. Cream soups. This may seem counterproductive but I am a HUGE believer in gravies & sauces to get my kids to eat. I have found that if I buy & use the 98% fat free version that most grocery stores offer (Fry's & Wal-Mart both do here in AZ) I save not just on calories but on fat as well. I only make something like this once a week but it makes things easier on me in so many ways. Along the same lines as this & the skim milk I also buy fat-free sour cream & low-fat cottage cheese. On these I'd say experiment with the different brands available. I have found that Wal-Mart's fat-free cottage cheese is NOT worth it. But Fry's Kroger brand fat-free cottage cheese is actually pretty good.
6. Sweeteners. Until recently (about 2 weeks ago in fact!) I hadn't purchased white sugar in MONTHS. I finally broke down because Mark would like it on hand for baking. I, on the other hand, have been using Splenda as a substitute for sugar in most, if not all my cooking in that time. When it is only a tablespoon or two I find that I am not losing any taste & I am cutting down on calories which is my goal. I also look for times that I can use honey as a sweetener. Since it is so sweet you usually don't need as much honey as you would sugar, in my experience.

I don't know if you'll "Lose 15 pounds making these small changes" but I DO know that I have been feeling so much better & it has made reaching my mini-goals easier to achieve. I'm sure I have more "tricks" that I've employed to save me the hassles I first encountered but those are the ones that come to mind right now. When I have more I'll post them but this should give you a great start if you have been looking for an easy, quick guide!