Ways to Cut 100 Calories Daily

Is it that time again? It is now Week 7 of my goal to lose 30 pounds in 90 days and this morning was the weekly weigh in.

This past week has been rather uneventful. I didn’t have any birthday parties to set me back and I exercised five times last week. I have noticed that my weight is not dropping as quickly as it was in the beginning, but I am starting to feel “thinner”. My pants and shirts are definitely looser, so I know I’m losing inches even if my body weight isn’t dropping as noticeably. My weight as of this morning was…

215 lbs

I tell you I was really, really happy with losing 4 pounds over the past week. I did a victory dance in the bathroom and I feel so good today. I have lost 22 pounds in seven weeks and I am now only 8 pounds away from my weight loss goal. Yippee!

There are many ways to easily cut 100 calories daily, such as using smaller dinner plates to help with portion control.

As I was on my way to work on the bus this morning I saw an advertisement for 100 calorie servings of these tasty looking cookies. I think that this new trend of snack foods being packaged into 100 calorie servings is really helpful for those of us who are trying to lose weight and it got me thinking of all the ways that you could easily cut 100 calories daily from your life. Here are the top 10 that I came up with.

10 Ways to Cut 100 Calories Daily:

• Substitute the milk and sugar in your morning coffee – Instead of drinking coffee that contains sugar and whole milk, use non-fat skim milk and artificial sweeteners.
• Drink water instead of sodas and juice – Sodas and juices contain many calories that can quickly add up over a day. Drinking water instead of sodas and juices can easily reduce your daily calorie intake by 100 calories or more.
• Follow serving sizes on nutritional labels – Nutritional labels on packaged foods show the number of calories per serving. There are many products that appear to be low calorie until you realize that you have just eating three times the serving size. Avoid eating extra calories by limiting yourself to just the serving size that is recommended on the package.
• Remove the skin from chicken – Chicken skin alone adds a large number of calories to an otherwise lower calorie meal. Remove the skin before eating chicken or turkey to easily lower the calories of your meal.
• Limit your daily bread – No matter which way you slice it, bread is high in calories and carbohydrates. If you like to eat bread, then limit yourself to one or two slices a day at most daily. Eat whole grain breads instead of white or whole wheat as they contain higher fiber and will keep you feeling full longer.
• Pack a healthy lunch – Many people are forced to rush out and grab some food at their lunch hour and many of these food choices are higher in calories. Easily control your lunch hour calories by packing your own lunch either the night before or in the morning. Healthy lunch ideas include vegetable salads, fruit salads, soups and Lean Cuisines.
• Roast and bake food instead of deep frying – Deep fried foods are extremely high in calories. Avoid eating deep fried foods and prepare your meals by either roasting or baking your food instead of deep frying.
• Use a fat-free salad dressing – Many salad dressing are surprising high in calories. Buy salad dressings that are fat-free or very low calorie for use at home. When you eat at a restaurant, always order the salad dressing on the side and drizzle it sparingly at your table.
• Drink “lite” alcohol substitutes – In many households, a daily drink is not that uncommon, but the calories from even a couple alcohol beverages can really add up. To cut 100 calories or more daily, substitute your regular drinks with lite beers and wine spritzers.
• Buy smaller dinner plates – Most dinner plates these days are very large. A large plate is easily overfilled with food and makes portion control that much more difficult. By using smaller dinner plates, or even using dessert plates for your main meals, is a great way to reduce your portion sizes and your daily calories.

As you can see, there are many ways to cut 100 calories or more daily from your diet. I’m sure there are many more substitutions you can make that I haven’t listed here and I encourage people to list their own ideas here too. By cutting only 100 calories each day, in a year you will have helped yourself lose over 10 pounds of body fat.