INTRODUCTION
The key to dieting is to eat low-calorie food. However, this sometimes isn’t always possible, but it is possible to do your best to bring the calorie count in a meal down a little. Today we are going to go over a few of our little tricks and tips to help you reduce the calories of a meal down a little while maintaining the same taste and texture.
These are tips that we all use daily, some seem so simple and some people don’t even consider but can end up saving you so many calories! Using these tips you can save hundreds of calories.
GET MORE VEG INTO YOUR MEALS
This is one everyone should be trying to do anyway. Eat more Veg! Veg is high in fibre and nutrients, However, the fibre content means it will keep you fuller for longer. This is very important when in a deficit and on lower calories.
Personally, I don’t track my veg, I would rather eat more calories in veg than other food. You will struggle to overeat on vegetables. However, if you are being proper strict with your diet, then I would recommend tracking, or just making a mental note of how many calories are in a serving of your chosen veg. Saying that, at the end of the day, it is worth using up 60 kcal on broccoli which will stop you eating that chocolate bar at 250kcals.
Another top tip is frozen veg. I find that for veggies like spinach or broccoli I can’t seem to use it fast enough before it goes off, so buying frozen chopped spinach or frozen broccoli will not only save you time preparing but also money in the long run. Plus it takes no time at all to cook so will save you time in the kitchen.
SWAP OUT MEATS FOR LOWER CALORIE OPTIONS
Eating meat is an easy way to intake protein. High protein content per serving. However, some meats can be higher in calories (Mostly Fats). Swapping out your meats in meals can help you reduce your calories down in that meal. For example, let us look at a spaghetti Bolognese.
Even if you use 5% mince beef, you can still save hundreds of calorie by swapping. Let us say you use 250g of 5% Mince beef, this equates to 420kcals, with 77.5g of protein and 11.8g of fat. Now, this isn’t too bad, but if you were to swap out the minced beef for Turkey mince. How many calories would you save?
Using 250g of turkey mince (Same Weight) would mean you have lowered the calories to 340kcals, and the protein would be 77.5g and the fat down to 3g. This is a huge saving. Especially as you don’t lose any of the protein content. You can also use chicken breast to make burgers instead of beef. We aren’t saying you can’t use beef but use it wisely. As it can be a calorie hog.
ZERO CALORIE DRINKS
This one should be known by everyone! Swap your Soda’s or Pop to a zero-calorie alternative. This will help you save a load of calories over time. Most shops, here in the UK anyway, will serve a Zero-calorie flavoured sparkling water. Which will help you get your water intake in but also keep you full and stop those sweet cravings.
Most pops and soda’s now a day have a calorie-free option, if not they will do a lower calorie option. I would say start by these permanently and try to forget about the “full fat” versions. Swapping your drinks out will help you reduce your calories for more food! You want to avoid drinking too many calories!
A side note to this point is if you are ever out for a few drinks with your friends, make sure you ask for a diet mixer. This will bring your calorie consumption down massively on a night out without really having to think about it that much.
1 CAL FRY LIGHT/LOWER CALORIE COOKING SPRAY
This is another one that should be a staple in anyone’s cupboard! Lower calorie or 1 calorie cooking spray! You can pick it up cheap from most supermarkets and it lasts ages! Spray 1-5 sprays onto your pan and cook as normal.
Using Fry light can reduce your calories while cooking significantly, cooking with oil is a guaranteed way to bring the calories up in your meal significantly. Swapping to a fry light or similar will bring the calories down, without changing your meal at all.
You can use it anywhere you would normally use oil. You can even pick up 1 cal butter spray and use that if you are making a sandwich or burger helping to bring the calories down even more. There are so many flavours and variations that it is worth picking up a few. I always seem to choose the Sunflower oil option, but I have seen butter and olive oil on the shelves as well.
Side note, if you are looking to increase your calories and gain weight doing this might not be the best option. You would be better off using normal oil as it is an easy way to add calories to a meal without adding volume.
REMOVE CHEESE OR SWAP TO A LOWER CALORIE OPTION
We all love a burger or a pizza, however, these meals tend to come at a very high-calorie price. One ingredient that can add to these calories is cheese. Restaurants don’t care what your daily calorie limit is, so they add as much cheese as required. The same applies to people at home, Cheese is very high in fat and calories so using it on your meals can increase your calories loads.
If possible, removing the cheese all together will lower the calories of a meal significantly, and in turn reduce your calories. If this is not an option you can purchase lower calorie or protein cheese and use that as an alternative. I have recently cooked a few meals with a protein cheese and I couldn’t taste any difference to normal cheese. It was about half the calories of normal cheese, with most of the calories coming from protein and not fat.
The only downside of a protein cheese is the purchase price, they tend to be a lot higher in cost than regular cheese (I would assume this is due to the manufacturing process and the niche market), quite significantly higher actually. I know shops like Muscle foods sell a version so they might be worth checking out.
ZERO CALORIE SAUCES
I have recently made this change! Swapped all my sauces to a lower calorie or calorie-free alternative. I recently purchased a selection of Skinny Food Co’s website. All their sauces are less than 2 calories per serving, most of them are calorie-free. You can check out our review of the sauce we tried over here. See what we thought!
I am a big fan of BBQ sauce’s, the issue is they tend to have a lot of sugar, which leads to adding a lot of calories to your meal. If I am being honest, I don’t weigh my sauces out, so I can assume that I add more than a serving. This can lead to a 20-50 calorie increase on every meal. Sauces can be a hidden calorie counter.
Swapping to calorie-free sauces made no difference to taste or texture. The sauce I have picked up are very nice! However, they have led to a decrease in calorie in various meals (French toast being the main one, using a sugar and calorie-free maple syrup is a lifesaver). We highly recommend checking out skinny food sauces or going to your local supermarket to see if they have any option on the shelf.
CONCLUSION
So there you have it, a few tips and tricks to help you reduce your calories in your meals. At the end of the day if you are going out for a nice meal with family or friends I wouldn’t worry too much about one meal. This article was more for those consistent meals throughout the week and how to help lower the calories which in turn would allow you to eat more every day.
If you have any tips and tricks that you use to help reduce your calories, be sure to let us know over on our contact page or our Instagram, we would love to hear from everyone. If you are wondering how many calorie you can eat a day or want to know how to get started, simply download our free workout application and use the free calorie calculator to calculate your daily calories.
Written by Kieran Blacker
Kieran is the CEO and Founder of Sets & Reps. He decided to make an application that helped people get a gym workout when not at the gym. He designed, Coded and built the application himself.