Ideas for low fat diet

[Steely]

I know what a FUN topic - LOL. Not.

Anyway, I have joined a gym, and am devoting myself to low fat diet. My triglycerides are high, as well as cholesterol, and I am overweight -so it is time to do something!

What recipes or ideas do you have for cooking things on a low fat diet???

[HaoZi]

Don't kill all the fats - look for MUFAs, like cold pressed olive oil. Whole grain foods and low-fat dairy. Portion control and label reading are your friends. Join fitday.com, it's free. Check out sites like
http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition
http://www.3fatchicks.com/change-one...mple-menu-plan
recipe.eatbetteramerica.com
www.eatingwell.com
www.mayoclinic.com/health/healthy-recipes/RecipeIndex
www.foodnetwork.com/healthy-eating/index.html
http://www.eatingwell.com/

[keista]

The only really good tip I have is for ground beef. When you brown ground beef to put in stuff like pasta sauce, instead of just draining the fat, wash it. I drain it, then dump it in a colander and rinse with hot water. You can "put back" any lost flavor by adding a beef bullion cube. I do this for my pasta sauces, and a beef, mushroom, barley soup I make.

[DDD]

I have a web site stored where you can enter everything you eat and it breaks down the contents by fat, calories, carbs, sodium etc. Using it on a daily basis you can actually see what areas or recipes need improvement. Sadly, I only used it for about a week and then let it slide. Otoh I think it is a wonderful free way to analyze your dietary intake. Let me know if you want it and I'll search and post. DDD

[InsaneCdn]

Ditto on the "no fat" warning... there are fat-soluble vitamins and minerals that are essential to health. Yes, moderate overall fat intake, drop all animal fat (including butter) and all hydrogenated or trans fats (includes MOST margerines). Becel is a healthy substitute for butter - ON BREAD - but not for cooking.

Any recipe calling for melted butter - you can use olive oil, or canola oil.

Many baking recipes, you can substitute half the fat with apple sauce - muffins, for example. The pectin in applesause has some of the same effect.

Increase use of herbs and spices in cooking - onion, garlic, ginger, peppers (green, red, jalapeno, etc.), sage, thyme, etc.

While you're at it - really watch your salt. Don't go "no salt" either - and do NOT use half-salt (bad taste) - just use less salt. We often cut the salt in half, and it still tastes good.

Not everyone agrees, and not sure what diet specifically you're going on, but we found that several diets are based on the protein-carb-fat combo logic... and for us, its been a major energy boost. The basic theory is - eat all three at every meal or snack, moderate on protein, very moderate on fat, and skew the carbs away from grains, to veggies especially, plus some fruits. (i.e. less bread, pasta, potatoes... more cauliflower and cabbage and carrots and salads...)

Don't take milk to SKIM - too lean - 1% is reasonable. At this level, a glass of milk has a good balance of protein, carb and fat!

Really have to nibble? try roasted soy nuts.

And you probably already know this, but... do not work out for two hours after eating, and do not eat for one hour after working out.

Good luck!!!

[ctmom05]

There's a couple of resources I like for recipe ideas. One is Taste of Home; they have a section devoted to low fat recipes: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/H...ow-Fat-Recipes, as well as Healthy recipes: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Healthy-Eating The recipes include nutritional information.

Another one is SparkPeople, a very comprehensive site, with a sub site for recipes: http://www.sparkrecipes.com/ They also have a tool that I use often, the recipe calculator: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp - which is used to figure out the nutritional content(including fat %) of a dish, as long as you can list each ingredient and the number of servings.

Adding a little protein to my diet has helped a lot! I don't go nutz about it, but I often have a homemade breakfast shake with greek yougurt or cottage cheese in it, plus some fruit or other flavoring, plus a serving of dry milk powder(8 gr of protein in that).

My friend swears by her Herbal Life shakes, made with their protein powder. I don't deny that it's a good product, but it costs a lot. Sometimes I use Carnation instant breakfast in my shake, which has a decent complement of nutrition. It does have sugar, so I use plain yougurt and non fat cottage cheese in my shakes.

I also make myself walk some; not a lot - because that wouldn't work for me, but regularly; 1/2 mile to work.

Good luck, let us know how you're doing, ok?

[Steely]

OK - I am going to get a system. I have done the South Beach diet and it worked OK, but I am not sure about the fat intake in it. I guess I will take the links you gave me and create a diet of my own

This gym that I joined has me inspired. They give you 4 personal training sessions free, and in them they create the "ideal" routine you need to lose weight. BUT! The really cool thing is that you are then assigned a thumb drive, and the thumb drive goes into each machine and tracks your workout. You then plug the thumb drive into a computer at the end of your workout and it tells you if you met your goals, how many calories you burned, etc. It sounds like an expensive gym, but it is not. It is just brand new, and I think this is the wave of the future. Which is cool!!!!

[Dammit Janet]

I know one thing...if they sent that Jillian whats her name from Worlds Biggest Loser, I would lose about 120 pounds in about 5 minutes flat because that annoying, condescending, witch would go flying off my porch so fast her head would spin!

[susiestar]

A few pitfalls to avoid, if you don't mind the advice.

Skip the fat free dressings and things. Even many of the lowfat dressings can be a pitfall and other low fat versions of high fat products. It would be better to use a smaller amount of a full fat version because if you go fat free your body won't recognize satiety nearly as soon. Most people end up eating a lot more calories when they put fat free dressing, spreads, etc.... on their foods. It is safer to go with a good fat in smaller amounts b/c you do need certain types of fats and because they will trigger being full far earlier. With fat free items esp, you end up being hungrier again sooner.

Don't fall for "light" "lite" etc.... It can refer to ANYTHING including just being a lighter color or not having as much in the bag.

Get one of those pump bottles that you can use to spray any oil and change to healthy oils. If you are not allergic and like nuts, try using walnut, macadamia, almond and other oils when you cook. WIth the bottle (pampered chef sells a version - you pour the oil in to a certain level then pump the top up and down several times and then you can spray the oil like you could Pam or Baker's Joy) You can spray a pan very lightly but the oil will still pump up the flavor in your food and it will make it affordable to use a more expensive oil and avoid the various chemicals in Pam or whatever.

Check out the various tofutti products. We LOVE their cream cheese though it costs more - it IS better than cream cheese. Their ice cream bars may or may not be low fat (I can't remember) but they are quite small and taste really decadent and indulgent. I think they were more healthy than reg ice cream sandwiches but it may have been the small size and use of real fruit, etc.....

If you are making grilled cheese sandwiches, they are a LOt more diet friendly if you make them either by toasting the bread in the toaster and then microwaving it so the cheese melts or if you use a spray oil on teh pan lightly or one of those sandwich cooker thingies (looks like a waffle iron but is for making sandwiches) and don't put any butter or oil on the bread.

Make sandwiches with tortillas or even that very thin sliced bread from pepperidge farms instead of regular bread. Also try Flat Out Flat wraps. I haven't looked at the reg version in a few years, but the light versions have 9 grams of fiber in each wrap. They are quite big and you can add a lot more veggies and things than you can with a reg tortilla. If you won't eat the whole pack in a week or so, put a couple of layers of wax paper between each wrap and put them in the freezer. Then you cna just pull out one when you need it. If you don't use at least 2 layers it wlll stick to the paper and be hard to separate w/o thawing it all.

Check out the fat content in your mixes. It is more affordable and lower fat to make your own version of many mixes. Add spices to EVERYTHING - you won't miss the fat nearly as much as you would think. Even on a sandwich, adding some Mrs. Dash or a sprinkle of some spices you like can make it a lot more satisfying.

Be careful with dried fruits. Many, like banana chips, are actually fried. They also pack a lot of calories. they can be high in nutrients, but read the label and follow serving sizes. If you like them, or dried veggies, consider using a dehydrator and making your own. It is pretty easy and you can make sure it is what you want and not what you don't.

For a really DECADENT treat, one you will NOT know if low fat by the taste, mash up a banana and freeze it with an ice cream freezer or in a cup stirring every 15 min or so. No other ingredients needed to make a rich, creamy frozen treat.

If you are a chocolate lover, don't cut it out of your diet. You will feel deprived. Go for small servings of chocolate you really like rather than a candy bar. I found dove dark promises to be a big re-inforcer for me. having one after a low fat meal could make me feel I had indulged but didn't have a big impact on my daily intake. Fnd recipes where you can use cocoa to make treats instead of chocolate. The side of the Hershey cocoa can will tell you how much fat and cocoa to substitute for each ounce of unsweetened chocolate. This lets you use good fats and to substitute applesauce or pureed prunes for some of the fat. Prunes are AMAZING as a substitute for fat in baking. It takes experimentation and you still have calories to watch for, but there are great recipes out there. Also, using oil instead of margarine or crisco type shortening will cut the bad fats way down.

Avoid even trying to go fat free completely. Your body NEEDS fat to use certain vitamins. You also need a certain amount of fat for healthy skin, hair, nails and the rest of you. That woman who pushed the fat free diet had some great tips and recipes, but it really messed up her health. those who really followed what she preached ended up with real problems esp with skin. Skin is the largest organ and the first line of defense against infection so keeping it healthy is important.

If you run across books about The Zone Diet, try the recipes. This diet advocates a 40-30-30 ratio of carbs-proteins-fats in your diet. It can make a HUGE difference in how well your body works - you think better, feel better and your body works better. Years ago the people I worked with in a bank all decided to try it as a group project. Not only was it pretty easy to follow (even before they sold the various proteing bars), we ALL felt better, worked better together, had more energy and fewer health problems. I got my mom to follow it b/c she has a liver disease. Her liver problems are NOT supposed to be able to really heal, or so we were told. This specific disease is supposed to leave scarring and keep the liver from regenerating the way it normally would. After a year on the diet she was due to have another biopsy (reg test she has to have) of her liver. She got called in for an imaging study (not sure if cat scan or mri, was a few years ago) b/c the bipsy showed healthy new liver where before she had scar tissue. The ONLY changes she made were to follow this diet and to really work on lowering her stress. There were a LOT of patients who lowered stress but not ones who followed the eating plan. Now her docs have done some studies and this is regularly highly recommened to her doc's patients and to those of other docs with patients with the same problem. i KNOW it sounds too good to be true. It is what I thought when we started and what her doc thought. But there was NO other explanation for the healing of her liver. Her doc wrote a journal article about it and has heard from other docs that their patients have gotten great results from following this.

For me part of the reason I liked the diet was that it did NOT demand you skip small indulgences. It just wanted you to have enough protein with them to let your body process them. Half a snickers bar and 2 oz of lean deli meat CAN be a snack if the rest of the day you push for lower fat.

I don't stick to it as well as I used to, but I try. In the morning my mom CANNOT eat. It makes her sick. She uses protein powder (NOT sugar free as she/we are allergic to artif sweeteners) mixed with coffee or grapefruit juice for her morning protein. W/o it she is a grumpy person, with it she can actually cope before 3 cups of coffee, which is a miracle to those who livedwith her before she did this)

Do NOT cut things you really like totally out of your life. You will feel deprived and this will only lead down the path of over-indulging. Plan a smaller amount of the item and avoid that feeling. If you are going to a wedding and you really LOVE cake, if you tell yourself you can't have any you are FAR more prone to eating much more than a reasonable portion size. Then you will feel guilty and THAT leads to more emotional eating that is counter-productive.

One thing you can do if you like sweets (my biggest problem) is to put them in portion packs when you buy them. Buy a bag of candy? read the label. Decide if their portion size is right for you then figure out what size is right if theirs isn't. Then put teh candy into how ever many baggies or containers to portion it out. One family friend has really struggled with ehr diet so Mom and I bought her favorite treat items and portioned them out. We got mini m&m's (baking aisle if you want a bag of them) and counted them out to make 50 calories. We did a lot of things, and made the portion wrapping look PRETTY. I wouldn't have done it for myself probably, but having them with a PRETTY label, looking all fancy (colored saran wrap or tissue paper around reg saran wrap, wrapped with twisty ends like a tootsie roll, then with pretty paper labels we made with the name of the item, number of calories, etc....) made her feel that the 50 calories of M&M's or werthers or gum drops or whatever were a true indulgence, something special. This let her feel she was "cheating" without feeling any guilt, made it easy to STOP at a portion size, seemed to really help with the "cheating" that was one of her biggest diet problems.

Her dau's saw how it helped and they got the portion info and that year for Mom's day they gave her another container of treats. Christmas the next year we used only red and green M&Ms and clear wrapping and made a wreath out of the portion packs, lol. Adding FUN into a diet doesn't have to include calories and can reduce cheating.

PLAY with your food. For years my mom said I was the only person she knew who doodled with food color. We had hot dog octopi for dinner, or worms (thin long slivers of hot dogs dunked in boiling water until they curled up) or other fun looking food as a regular thing when my kids were growing up. I really love to cook for people and make it look pretty or fun or festive, so a lot of the time I took a bit of extra time and made healthy food, esp homemade food, look special. take the time to do this with your own food and even the most restrictive diet can be satisfying emotionally. Instead of just chopping carrots with a paring knife, get one of those crinkle cutters or a simple garnishing kit and make it look different. Draw faces with a couple of chocolate chips or choc syrup or jelly heated just a bit. get fun shapes of pasta and make spaghetti fun. Start a window garden of herbs then use it to garnish dishes. Check out sites like family fun for ways to inspire you (just be careful with their recipes as they can be AWFUL in terms of nutrition, or were as of the last issue I read maybe a year or so ago - kid friendly homemade mac and cheese with about a week's worth of fat in a single serving!) Be sure to check out their april edition with the april fool's meals. they do get clever with what they make and it can be inspiring. I am NOT saying to make the food look like that always, but let it trigger your imagination.

When you go out to eat, if you are at a salad bar or buffet, pay attention to the colors of the food and how they are arranged. Add a bit of color here or there. If you use fruits/veggies, you add nutrients of course, but you also add eye appeal.

Eating involves ALL of our senses, so pay attention and try to make food LOOK really nice when you can or at least look interesting. It really does help keep you from cheating. One tip is to put sauces, salad dressing, etc... into squeeze bottles like they use at subway to put ranch or mayo on sandwiches. the bottles are cheap, most dollar stores have a pack of them in red and yellow for ketchup and mustard. Use them to draw with your condiments, even with gravy. try putting a few lines of a colorful condiment on the plate and then putting the food on top.

All of this can SOUND strange or fussy or even dumb. Considering one of the biggest problems with diet and esp lifestyle change is feeling deprived, doing things like this can chase away the deprived feeling. That means you have a far better chance of keeping to the changes and becoming much helathier!

Remember FIBER. It will make you feel full faster and it helps keep your digestive tract working well. There are a LOT of high fiber foods, new bars, etc... with fiber, and fiber supplements in all sorts of forms. Splenda now has a line of sweetener packets with either fiber, antioxidanct or vit B. the B can give you an energy boost. Benefiber etc.. are great ways to increase fiber. They also sell fiber tablets in the laxative section. It is a bit of a misnomer, b/c while fiber CAN work as a laxative, it can also help end the other spectrum of that problem. If you have IBS it is esp important to get enough fiber. Mostly it is best to get your fiber from fruits, veggies and whole grains, but it isn't always do-able. If you find you have a real problem with the low fat diet leaving you feeling hungry an hour later, or find you are eating a lot more calories b/c your body is used to more fat and isn't adjusting, consider taking 1-2 fiber tablets 1/2 hr or so before you eat - ALWAYS with a full glass of water or other liquid. It won't be something you probably need forever, but it WILL make your body feel full faster and that will last longer. Walmart sells fiber pills that are made with methylcellulose which is much less likely to cause gas problems. Gas may be another problem, esp as you eat more broccoli, cauliflower and other cruciferous veggies and esp if you eat sweet potatoes (which are an awesome way to give yourself a sweet treat with a TON of nutrition - just use a bit of brown sugar or maple syrup and cinnamon/nutmeg/ginger/pumpkin pie spice to taste). So keep gas meds on hand and in your purse if you eat out. If you can take beano, it is worthwhile too b/c it can stop production of gas rather than just getting it out easier. If you haven't used beano, it can be amazing. But be sure to read the label, of course.

I hope that some of these ideas are helpful. A lot of the info about the fat free foods leading to eating more due to not feeling full etc.... came from a nutrition class and experiments we did for labwork. Of course use any/all ideas in whatever way helps YOU and ignore the rest.

[InsaneCdn]

Susie... I didn't mention Zone specifically - but that's the one we tried too. With 3 of us having various allergies, it got too complex to follow it to the letter - but it definitely makes a difference.