7 Easy Ways to Cut 500 Calories out of Your Diet ...

1. Order Appetizer Portion

One of the easiest ways to cut 500 calories out of your diet is to order the appetizer portion instead of the full-sized entrée. Restaurant portion sizes are often far too large, but we find ourselves eating more than we should simply because it is sitting in front of us. Instead of letting a restaurant meal devour your healthy living goals, order the appetizer portion size whenever dining out. Usually this amount is just enough without leaving you feeling overly full at the end of the meal.

2. Dressing/condiments/sauces on the Side

It can be rather shocking to look at the nutrition facts of some of your dressings, condiments and sauces. Although these little add ons seem quite innocent, many of them are high in calories, sugar and fat. By requesting that your sauces be served on the side, this allows you to add just the right amount without your food being covered and soaked in far too much. Before taking a bite, dip your fork into the sauce and then into the food, (instead of the other way around) to decrease the amount of calories even more.

3. Order Size Small

Another easy way to cut the calories is to order a smaller size, especially when it comes to fast food. Although I would certainly recommend limiting fast food, selecting a smaller size is a sure fire way to cut calories quickly. Things like fries, onion rings, milkshakes, etc. are very high in calories and larger portions certainly add to that! Fill up on the healthy things and limit those unhealthy items to the smaller sizes and choose them as infrequently as possible.

4. Ditch the Soda

I’ve seen people drop double digit pounds by making one small change: ditching the soda. Soda is full of sugar and nothing else, about nine teaspoons of sugar in one can to be precise! Soda is high in empty calories and can cause you to pack on the pounds rather quickly. Reach for things like lemon water, lime water, sparkling water, etc. to cut a substantial amount of calories from your day!

5. Order Grilled Instead of Fried

Like soda, fried foods are nutritionally inadequate. Fried foods are high in fat and calories and do more damage to your health than good, even fried bananas! Order items like grilled chicken instead of fried chicken, baked potatoes instead of French fries, and whole-grain crackers instead of chips in order to really reduce the amount of calories in your food.

6. Ask for Steamed Instead of Pan Fried in Oil

Even though it might be hard to believe, one tablespoon of oil actually contains roughly 120 calories and those calories really add up! When cooking, it’s easy to use a lot more than one tablespoon and quickly you can turn a 50 calorie serving of broccoli into a 550 serving of broccoli without even realizing it. Cook and order your foods steamed instead of cooked in oil in order to greatly reduce the amount of added calories and fat in your food!

7. If You Don’t Love It, Leave It

Why waste your calories on food that you don’t even want or like? Look at the amount of food that you eat as your “foodie bank account.” You have a certain amount that you can spend and you can’t go over. Or if you do decide to splurge a little and go over just slightly, add some more exercise to balance this out. Spending hours on the treadmill just isn’t worth it, so only eat the foods that you enjoy the most!

With a few simple changes you can easily cut ample calories from your day, which can really add up to a quite a few pounds lost if that is your goal! You don’t have to ditch all of your favorite foods for lettuce to cut the calories. Instead, just choose your foods wisely! How do you maintain a healthy diet and healthy weight?