Last week, many of you liked the sugar cutting tips, so this week, I thought I'd offer some fat cutting tips. If you're like me, next to sugar, the next yummy hot mess you love to eat is the fat. Oh how I love French fries, and loads of cheese! The Inner Resistance Monster
really loves Fried Mozzerella sticks dipped in Honey Mustard. If you are trying to cut
back on your fat intake, here are some tips that have helped me.
- Not all fat is created badly. Mono-unsaturated fats (MUFAs) are made by Mother Nature and come from things like nuts and avocados and are thumbs up. Then there are the Trans-fats which are made by the lab coats and come in mostly processed and fast foods and these are a thumbs down. Look at your food labels, and consciously choose this week to start cutting out the trans-fats. Going cold turkey may be too tough for some of you, so just start with 25%-33%, then cut more the next week, and so on.The MUFA's are better fats but still are fat heavy so remember moderation.
- The next time you order a burrito, if you just cut out the cheese and sour cream you could cut out 230 calories and 19g of fat from that burrito if you're getting it from Chipotle. Guacamole will add another 140 calories, but you're getting mostly the MUFAs, so if you're going to have fat it's better from the guac than the cheese and sour cream.
- At Asian restaurants, for appetizers there are usually fresh or steamed versions of rolls so order those versus it's fried version. For example, if you want wonton, get the soup versus the fried ones. At Thai places, get the fresh rolls over the fried spring rolls, and use the peanut sauce sparingly because it too is loaded with fat from the peanuts.
- Do you know how much fat you are consuming in a week? For 3 days, food journal your fat intake. Don't judge just jot the grams. You may find that the percentage of fat you are taking in is much higher than you think. When you look at your food list, you can see where you over do it and can start cutting back.
- Think your fruit smoothie is healthy and fat friendly? It may not if that smoothie is made with ice cream or sherbert. In this case, you actually have a milk shake. Make sure you drink smoothies made with low or non fat yogurt.
Here's what I did last week:
- This is not a tiny change, but I started weaning from dairy, meat, and gluten as I am doing this "Great Food Reboot Experiment" for 7 days to see how some of the foods I eat on a regular basis are affecting some health issues I've been having lately.
- I tried this raw mock salmon pate made from almonds, and my goodness it tasted like the real thing.
