Eating Healthy with Non Dieters

When I started dieting, I quickly ran into a problem with food. Even though I was trying to lose weight, my family wasn't. I didn't really want to have to fix two separate meals-one for me and one for the family-every time we sat down to eat as a family. With a little thinking, I came up with these tips to deal with the issue.

Tip 1-Simple substitution
An easy way to make your family's favorite recipes diet-friendly is to substitute healthier ingredients. Replace whole milk with skim milk or water. Use whole grains in place of white rice or pasta. Switch to using olive oil when sauteing foods. Replace ground beef with ground turkey or tofu crumbles.

Tip 2-Switch your meal around
Serve a salad or veggies as your entree. Then take what would normally be your entree and half the portion, serving it as a side. By reducing portion size, you're cutting calories. Plus, by serving veggies as the main part of the meal, you're adding in fiber, which will help fill you up.

Tip 3-Add in some health
Stir in some veggies. Because they are full of fiber, they'll help you fill up faster so you eat less. Roasted pepper and spinach are good additions to pasta. Puree veggies to use as a base for soup instead of water.

Tip 4-Look for new recipes
If your family isn't thrilled by the changes in their favorite recipes, look for some new recipes. Since the healthy recipe is new to them, they won't have a basis for comparison. There are numerous diet-friendly recipes available online and in cookbooks. Check the recipe tag on the sidebar of this blog for some of my favorites.