Healthy Lifestyle: Reduce the Fat
The first step is to reduce the fat in your diet. To do this, begin by minimizing the consumption of nuts of all kinds, including peanuts, macadamia nuts, peanut butter and pistachios. These nuts are high in fat. It is true that they contain monounsaturated fatty acids in common with olive oil and avocados, but to cut fat calories, you have to cut the fat.
It is true that if you keep total calories constant while substituting olive oil, nuts or avocados for dairy and meat products, your cholesterol levels will fall. Also, monounsaturated fatty acids are neutral in terms of stimulating cancer growth compared to polyunsaturated fats, which effectively enhance tumor growth, as reviewed earlier.
If you are confident you can burn off 140 calories per tablespoon of olive oil, go for it - and carefully read the exercise section below. For some patients who have reduced muscle mass, three tablespoons of olive oil is all that stands between losing a pound a week or staying the same weight.
Limit/Eliminate Salad Dressing
Consider giving up salad dressings made with oil. Switch to wine vinegar, rice vinegar, balsamic vinegar or lemon. You may also mix mustard and rice vinegar to make a Dijon-style dressing. Some vinegars now have various spices or fruits mixed into them to enhance their flavor. The key to using fat-free vinegar is to make the salad out of dark green, leafy lettuce with plenty of taste while adding different ingredients such as red pepper, green pepper, alfalfa sprouts, cucumbers, etc.
By making the salad tasty, you won't rely on the added taste of the salad dressing. For example, experiment with lettuces other than Iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce can be considered "Italian dressing-deficient," because you have to douse it in dressing to liven up the watery taste. It is also not a good source of micronutrients such as folate, which are found in great amounts in darker green lettuces. Remember to exclude beans and croutons from your salad, as they add extra calories. Practice these habits going through a salad bar and you will end up with a much healthier meal.
Hold the Mayo … and More
Consider giving up mayonnaise, margarine and butter. Did you know that ultra fat-free margarine is 100% fat? There are 5 calories per serving and 5 calories from fat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says that if something has less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving (which is 5 calories), it can be called fat-free. This is the only place in mathematics that you can round down from 0.5 to 0. You can substitute fruit jam for margarine in the morning and eat your bread warm so that it is moist. The taste is different, but using margarine, butter and mayonnaise is an acquired taste. Even a strict Pritikin adherent gets about 10% fat calories, so you are in no danger from fat deficiency!
The Key to Lowering Dietary Fat - No Red Meat
The most important thing you can do to lower your dietary fat and calories is to consider giving up red meat. This includes veal, beef, pork and lamb. For most types of red meat, even when you cut away the visible fat, fat lurks between the muscle fibers. A 9- to 14-ounce piece of prime rib served in most steak houses and restaurants can be more than 1,200 calories and 50 grams of fat. This adds up to all the calories and fat needed by an average five-foot-tall woman for the whole day and more than half the calories needed by an average five-foot-ten-inch-tall man. When the USDA talks about a serving of meat, they are referring to a 3-ounce portion - which is rarely served in restaurants.
Consider making red meat a rare part of your diet or consider even giving it up entirely. If you've been told you need to eat red meat for its iron content, be assured that most multivitamins contain all the iron you need. You can give up red meat for good.
Some Seafood Goes
Among the food choices classified as seafood, you should consider giving up salmon, trout and catfish. These are high-fat, farm-fed fish that sit around all day in fish tanks eating fishmeal. They don't swim a lot or catch other fish. They just sit around and get fat. Ocean-caught salmon is lower in fat and can be found in some stores and restaurants for part of the year. Most of the salmon purchased in stores is farm-fed.
No Cheese, Please
Consider minimizing or giving up all cheese and cheese pizza. Cheese is between 60% and 80% fat. Fat-free cheeses are now available in stores, but these so-called fat-free cheeses suffer from the same problem as fat-free margarine and are cheese foods, not real cheese. You can have some real cheese on occasion. Your body will metabolize it. But try to avoid making it a regular part of your diet. In other words, don't be fooled into thinking you are adding protein to your turkey sandwich by adding a cheese slice.
Say Goodbye to Nonfat Yogurt and Ice Cream
Consider minimizing or giving up on desserts of nonfat yogurt and ice cream. Yogurt couldn't sell in this country until it was made to taste like ice cream. The fruit added at the bottom has the equivalent of 16 teaspoons of sugar or about 130 refined sugar calories. Not only does that add up to a lot of refined sugar that the body can turn into fat, but the eating behavior associated with nonfat yogurt is exactly what you find with ice cream. Yogurt and ice cream are comfort foods and relaxing habits. They are just the type of foods that are easy to reach for when you feel stressed. The simple solution is to keep them out of your refrigerator. The so-called nonfat yogurt is the type you should avoid. Plain yogurt on a baked potato as a substitute for sour cream is fine.
All Is Not Lost
If you think these suggestions leave you with nothing to eat, here's the good news: By following the above strategies, you can still have the white meat of chicken or turkey (just breast, not dark meat), any white fish (halibut, swordfish, scrod, cod, sole, ahi tuna, canned tuna in water, etc.) and shrimp, scallops, crab, clams and lobster - as long as they are not deep-fried. You can broil or roast these or put them on a skewer over the barbecue in the summer.
