The Diet Secrets

Having a hard time keeping up your diet due to the unappetizing food choices?  Indulging occasionally isn’t so bad, especially if it helps prop you up for your healthier eating fare.  Do you know that many food types, which we usually avoid when we go on diets, may not be so bad after all?

Eggs. Eggs are great food items for breakfast.  The high amounts of protein can literally leave you feeling full for a good part of the day.  In fact, you can probably incorporate it into your regular diet without any problems.

Pizza. For healthier pizza, go with thin crust, since it’s less oily.  If you can find restaurants offering whole wheat crusts then all the better.  Choose flavors that are heavy on the meat and vegetables, while light on the cheese.

Bacon. While most bacon are greasy, oil-filled and fat, certain variants may not actually be that way.  Canadian bacon, for instance, is sourced from the loin, which happens to be the leanest part of a pig.

Hamburgers. If the patty is made out of lean beef (check the label to be sure), it’s a perfectly good source of protein.  Make sure you prepare it at home, though.  Avoid the fast food and diner varieties - there’s no way you can know what really goes in that meat.

My family loves holding a barbecue in the backyard during weekends, weather permitting.  Unfortunately, that means plenty of red meat and fat - not the best food choices around someone trying to restrict their calories and lose weight.

What’s a girl on a diet to do?  Find healthier barbecues to feast on, of course!

While the rest of the family waits for their fatty burgers, steaks and hotdogs to cook, I wait for my healthier barbecues to get well done.  Believe me, I get the complete set of nutrients my body requires with low calories to boot.  Want to know what I cook?

1. Vegetarian kebabs

Tofu, onions,  tomatoes, peppers and pineapple slices all skewered on a stick, cooked over fire.  Make sure to use a low-calorie marinade or you’ll be messing up your diet all the same!

2. Fish

What tastes better than grilled beef, chicken and pork?  Grilled fish!  Find fresh fish and have a healthy, tasty, meaty barbecue.

3. Corn

Not many people seem to know this but sweet corn cooked over a grill is incredibly delicious.  It literally tastes like no other preparation of corn is able to achieve - even without fattening butter!

4. A little lean meat

Lean meat is fine but when I begin banqueting on it during backyard barbecues, I just find it hard to stop.  Instead, I just take a small slice of meat and limit my consumption to that, followed by my healthier fire-cooked options.

Do you know that the natural color of your food says a lot about its nutritional content?  Each color of food represents a specific role in our bodies.

Colors represent the presence of a family of chemicals (called phytonutrients), each of which benefits different parts of our well-being.  Red-colored food, for instance, such as pepper, are filled with phytonutrients that contain lycopene, a known cancer inhibitor.  Yellow and green vegetables, on the other hand, work their magic on the eyes while red-purple colored food tends to have nutrients intended to improve brain function.

All these, of course, without having to mention the innate weight loss benefits you will glean from a fruit and vegetable rich diet.  That’s not saying, of course, that you’ll need to transform into a vegetarian to lose weight.  Instead, opt for balance.

Do you know that the typical meal of most people are colored brown and beige with a lot of modified starches?  Also known as junk food, the corn chips and French fries might satiate some hunger very conveniently but they pack on the calories and leave you craving for more.  According to surveys, one-third of all Americans get almost half of their daily calories from junk food - a surprising finding giving the country’s seeming obsession with being thin.  The rest of those calories are likely filled with protein and fat, which leaves you wondering where the hell all the colorful vegetables are.

Vary your diet’s colors and opt for fresher, naturally-colorful food, whether you’re trying to lose weight or not.  It’s your ticket to health for the short and long term.