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Simply thinking of the word “diet” conjures up thoughts of pain and misery. It doesn’t have to be this way though. You can effortlessly cut Calories by making a few simple swaps.
Swap specialty coffee for black coffee.
While specialty coffee drinks are quite amazing, they can also contain well over 25% of the Calories needed to maintain body weight for many people. I don’t know about you, but no drink is worth substituting an entire meal over.
Try drinking black coffee. There are so many amazing-tasting varieties. If you don’t enjoy black coffee goodness, swap your specialty drinks for just coffee and cream.
Calorie savings from black coffee: 420 Calories
Calorie savings from coffee and cream: 350 Calories
Swap sodas for diet soda or water.
Sodas are diet dangers because of how many Calories you can consume in such a short time. Sodas also provide no micronutrients or fiber and don’t do a whole lot to fill you up either. This is why they’re called “empty Calories”. If you love soda and need the taste in order to not feel deprived on a diet, swap your soda for diet soda. If not, swap it for water.
One interesting substitute I found is pouring a can of seltzer water over a single serve soda flavored drink mix. In my opinion (and the opinion of every person I’ve forced to try my invention), it tastes just like the real soda and it only has 5 Calories!
Calorie savings: 160 Calories per can
Swap honey mustard for mustard.
When dieting, yellow mustard, and any other vinegar based condiment, will be your best friend. They offer some added flavors to your dish without sacrificing a bunch of Calories in the process.
Calorie Savings: 112 Calories per 2 tbsp
(Based on Sweet Baby Ray’s honey mustard)
Swap sweet tea for unsweetened tea.
There are several different varieties of tea other than the black tea used for sweet tea. A few that I find particularly tasty are lemongrass tea, peppermint tea, and chai tea. Those are just a few. There are fruit flavored teas, spiced teas, and just about any other tea you can think of! If you just absolutely have to have sweet tea, you can get some great tasting 0 Calorie presweetened teas.
Calorie Savings: 97 Calories per 8oz cup
“This is a lot easier than you think it is. So sign up with Treadaway Training today during the holidays and let Ryan hook you up with an awesome plan to keep the weight off and lose weight!”
Swap creamy sauces for tomato based sauces.
Alfredo sauce and other creamy sauces, on average, contain far more Calories than their tomato based counterparts. The average Alfredo sauce contains approximately 320 Calories. The average tomato based sauce contains approximately 35 Calories per 1/4 cup. (If you still prefer Alfredo sauce, Classico makes a pretty good light Alfredo sauce.)
Calorie savings: 285 Calories per 1/4 cup
Swap frozen pizza for flatbread pizza.
Flatbread pizza has been a regularly occurring item on the Treadaway household’s dinner menu since 2016. It’s very fast and simple to make.
Put a flatbread (Flatout brand or Joseph’s brand) in an oven or toaster oven just long enough for it to stiffen up.
Spread 1/4 cup of Prego Pizzeria Style Pizza Sauce onto the flatbread.
Sprinkle 2 oz of fat-free shredded cheese on top of the pizza sauce. (Add any other desired toppings at this point as well.)
Place back into the oven/toaster oven until the cheese melts.
Calorie Savings: 305 Calories per slice
(based on Digiorno thin crust cheese pizza)
Swap noodles for zucchini noodles.
Pasta is one of my personal favorites. The only problem is, like the rest of the items we’re swapping out, it contains a ton of Calories. Don’t worry though. We can fix that with some spiralized zucchini noodles.
Calorie savings: 186 Calories per 140 grams
Takeaway
If you were to implement each of these simple swaps, you’d save a total of 1,565 calories! That would equate to over 3 pounds of fat loss per week! I understand not all of these will be applicable to you, but even if you just did the first item on this list and swapped your coffee. It could lead to one pound of fat loss every 8 days.
Think about the things in your diet that you could do without. You could be just a couple of simple swaps away from making progress towards your dream body!
Thank you so much for reading! If you found this information helpful and want to help the Treadaway Training blog grow, simply share this post with a friend. If you like what I have to say, sign up below to become a Treadaway Training insider and get notified for each blogcast and video. I will be back here Thursday with another fat loss topic. As always, God bless you AND your family and I'll see you Thursday.
