Sweet Tooth vs Waistline: No Contest

 

 

If you've decided to engage in that hellish battle that is weight loss, congratulations! However, as hard as we may try to choose a better diet, sometimes our little sweet tooth can be a very large obstacle to keeping our calories down each day. Here are 3 swaps that you can start making in order to feel more full and satisfied while cutting back on the calories you consume.

(Red Seedless) Grapes

 

These sweet little orbs offer a good source of vitamins C and K and are only 104 calories per cup. If we compare eating grapes to eating some other small, round treat such as milk chocolate M&M's candies, the difference can be startling. A single 1.69-ounce package of M&M's costs you about 236 calories, whereas 1.69 ounces of grapes would only cost you about 31 calories. As an added bonus, grapes carry only about 5% of the sugar as the same amount of M&M's (7 grams for grapes, versus 132 grams for the candy). This is an especially sweet trade-off for people currently managing, or at risk for developing, diabetes. Keep in mind that our bodies can often process basic, natural sugars (such as those found in raw fruit) much more easily than the complex, human-altered sugars that are often found in processed foods such as chocolate.

Carrots

Next to celery sticks, carrot sticks and baby carrots are probably very close to being what a lot of people think of when the word 'diet' is said. Carrots are so versatile that they can cover the savory and the sweet ends of the spectrum. For the sweet, just grab some! Baby carrots have a wonderful, lightly sugary flavor. Raw carrots (meaning you can still see a green top or at least still see where it used to be) can be boiled in order to really make the sugar in the carrot a prominent flavor for those of us who like sweet things.

For the savory, grab some vinaigrette dressing. If you're careful with the amount, even light Ranch dressing would suffice. When comparing a snack like carrots to something like honey barbecue potato chips, you can easily see how much more bang for your caloric buck you get for this substitution. A snack-sized bag of Lay's Honey Barbecue potato chips has 160 calories per ounce, while an ounce of carrots only has 10 calories. For the same calorie count, you could have eaten 16 ounces (an entire pound) of carrots (talk about feeling full)! Not to mention that carrots also provide a good dose of vitamin A and have about 50% of the sugar and only 20% of the sodium found in the potato chips.

 

 Freshly Brewed Sweet Tea or Lemonade

It's pretty well documented that one of the major sources of our calories (and sugar) throughout any given day is in the sugary drinks that we consume. As a rule of thumb, however, when you are part of the process of making a meal or drink, you have more control over what goes into it, and can therefore eliminate much of the things that do your diet harm.

For instance, sweet tea can be made palatable with a tablespoon or so of lemon juice and maybe a teaspoon or two of white sugar. Each teaspoon of sugar only has 15 calories and weighs in at about 5 grams. So, for an 8-ounce glass of tea, your calorie count could be as low as 18 calories, since lemon juice (if you just squeeze a wedge to get it) only has 1 calorie, tea can add up to 2 calories per 8 ounces, and water (of course) doesn't have any caloric value.

Compare this to Arizona brand's lemon tea. 8 ounces of it will cost you 90 calories and 24 grams of sugar! Yikes! And to add insult to injury, this tea isn't commonly offered in standard 8-ounce servings, but come in either huge 23.5-ounce cans or 20-ounce bottles, meaning that drinking one of these containers of their tea actually gives you between 2.5 and 3 times as much sugar and calories as just brewing a cup or two for yourself.

The same goes for lemonade. With a tablespoon or two of lemon juice and maybe 3 teaspoons (15 grams) of sugar in an 8-ounce glass of water, you've got a cool, delicious, refreshing drink. However, if you were to purchase a can of Minute Maid lemonade--IF the can only held 8 ounces of lemonade--you'd have to sacrifice 100 calories and 27 grams of sugar. But, since people are usually more likely to drink those other four ounces because they came with the container, you'll probably consume the full 150 calories and 40 grams of sugar. But if you stick to the cup of lemonade you make yourself, you could drink up and only consume about 15 grams of sugar for a total of 45 calories. Now that's a sweet deal.

Though making these sorts of swaps are pretty much certain to help increase the amount of weight you lose on a weekly basis, remember that exercise is the yin to calorie management's yang. So, to increase the chances of you reaching your weight loss goals, be sure to incorporate plenty of movement into your daily routine. Check out www.NutritionData.Self.Com for more info on the nutritional values of various fruits and vegetables, along with info about various processed snack foods. If you can't find a product on the Nutrition Data site, just go to the manufacturer's site: www.DrinkArizona.com, www.MinuteMaid.com, www.FritoLay.com, www.MMs.com



Any other favorite swaps you want recognized? Leave them in the comments section!