The 5 food tweaks to slash hundreds of calories from your diet and boost weight loss
LOSING weight doesn’t have to involve complicated diets or extreme approaches.
According to top dietitian Susie Burrell, the key to blitzing your body fat is actually as simple as making a few easy tweaks to your meals.
The Sydney-based expert says by making simple swaps to your regular choices, it can save you eating hundreds or possibly thousands of calories each week.
Here, Susie, founder of popular website , reveals her smart food switches you can make this month to boost your weight loss…
1. Sauces, oils and spreads
Whether it is mayo, olive oil, tomato sauce or jam on your morning toast, we’re all guilty of adding sauces, oils and spreads to food to boost the flavour.
However, you can literally be adding in hundreds of extra calories a day when you pour or spread freely.
Speaking on , Susie said: “Be mindful that when it comes to high fat additions, like mayonnaise and olive oil, you can really overdo the calories.”
When it comes to sauces and spreads, Susie urges slimmer to stick to a 20 cent piece portion size.
2. Cheeses
Cheese falls into the chocolate and cake category – it’s extremely easy to keep slicing and eating.
Susie recommends keeping your cheese portions much more tightly controlled by grating or investing in a cheese shaver which will cut your cheese portions significantly.
She says doing so you’ll save between 50 to 80 calories per serve of cheese.
3. Meat portion
Despite the vegan diet becoming more and more popular, many of us Brits still love to gorge on large amounts of meat – and it’s customary to eat everything on our plates.
Susie recommends weighing the amount protein you are eating and not going over the required amount.
For women, the perfect size to aim for is a small hand or palm-sized portion, while for men the ideal size is roughly the size of a small hand.
4. Slices of bread
Bread slices these days tend to be so large they barely fit in the toaster.
Simply reverting to an old school sandwich loaf will slash your calorie and carbohydrate significantly.
As bread tends to be a daily staple, these calories you are not having will really add up on the scales.
5. Coffee
Your morning coffee may have the power to get you out of bed in the morning – but it could also be making it more difficult for you to lose weight.
NHS tips for weight loss success
The NHS has shared their three key tips for weight loss success:
- Make realistic changes to your diet and physical activity that can become a part of your regular routine
- The best way to lose weight is to make long-term changes to diet and physical activity that result in a steady rate of weight loss
- Aim to lose weight at around 0.5kg to 1kg a week (1lb to 2lb), until you achieve a healthy body mass index (BMI)
Lots of us eat and drink more than we realise and do little physical activity. The result is often weight gain.
To lose weight, we need to change our current habits. This means eating less – even when eating a healthy, balanced diet – and getting more active.
Fad diets and exercise regimes that result in rapid weight loss are unlikely to work for long, because these kinds of lifestyle changes can’t be maintained.
Once you stop the regime, you’re likely to return to old habits and regain weight.
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In fact, Susie says every increase in cup size adds around 50 calories and more if you have sugar.
Simply swapping from a regular or large to a small coffee will save you plenty of calories.
You’ll save even more if you ditch the add-ons, including sugar and chocolate, too.
Despite this, a recent study found a cup of coffee can help the body burn calories faster.
Scientists say it stimulates “brown fat”, which burns calories to generate body heat.
Professor Michael Symonds, from the University of Nottingham, said theirs is the first study to show how coffee can affect brown fat in humans.
He said the breakthrough could help tackle the obesity crisis.