Tricks to swap treat foods with healthy and delicious meals

After talking about some useful habits to reduce puffiness and get a glowing look encountered in the previous post, today we will see a few tips that are proven to be very helpful if your aim is to lose a few pounds and get healthier meal habits.

One of the most important things to keep in mind on this subject is that if you want to get long-lasting results, you will have to change your habits little by little.

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If you are used to eating a whole pack of chocolate cookies every day at 5 PM, you won’t get any result if you merely decide not to eat any cookies all of a sudden. This admirable intent will last at least a couple of days (if ever). Your body is kind of addicted to eating that pack of biscuits, and you will feel as if you really require your favorite treat food. Therefore, it goes without saying, you will soon slip back to the old habits.

Conversely, if you regularly reduce the number of the cookies you’re eating (replacing them with something healthier, as an apple-carrot squeeze, or a delicious-smelling herbal tea) you will soon get used to a smaller intake of treat foods, with outstanding benefits for both your silhouette and health.

One of the secrets to any successful low-calorie diet is swapping any low-quality/high-calorie food with something that’s healthy and at the same time good-tasting.

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Here are a few suggestions that I particularly love and that proved to be incredibly helpful to me to reduce the daily intake of low-quality treat foods:

• First of all, get used to really taste what you’re eating. Appreciate the smell and taste of your meals. Not only this will reduce your need for unhealthy foods that just leave a bad taste in your mouth, but you will also need a lower amount of treat food to feel fulfilled.

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• When cooking vegetables, meat, or fish, replace oil/butter with wine (white wine for fish and vegetables, red wine for meat): the alcohol and its calories will evaporate while cooking, while the delicious taste will remain in your meal (needless to say, you don’t have to buy an expensive wine to do this!).

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• Also, cooking in the microwave is a quick and simple way to prepare tasty and healthy food in no time at all. I’m definitely not very good at cooking so usually make extensive use of the microwave. Not long ago, I found out that it can be used to prepare delicious and quick meals. Here my favorite recipe: put chopped vegetables into a glass bowl (you may also use frozen vegetables to speed up the preparation), add a small quantity of olive oil, then cook half-covered for about 15-20 minutes (the exact time depending on the weight of the vegetables) stirring 1-2 times during cooking. You may also add some meat (chicken, pork, lamb) if you want an all-inclusive quick meal. This dish is surprisingly soft, tasty, appetizing, and requires no effort at all! The secret lies in the “half-covered” thing, because if you cook the food uncovered, the microwaves will excessively dry it up, and if you totally cover it, it will be dampish and tasteless, whereas the half-covering allow an excellent result in no time.

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• A delicious apple omelette can be an outstanding alternative to ham-cheese scrambled eggs: stir-fry a sliced apple until it’s soft, add a couple of eggs mixed with a small amount of almond milk and some gluten-free breadcrumbs, then cook for a few minutes. This recipe, aside from being healthy, will gratify your need for something that’s sweet tasting.

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• Also, herbal teas sweetened with some honey not only are a pleasant alternative to soft drinks and high-calorie treat foods but can be very helpful for both your beauty and well-being. To name a few, fennel is exceptional against puffiness, whereas rosemary tea helps to reduce your glycemic index (you may find many interesting offers in shops or online).

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Talking by personal experience, I think that focusing on feeling the taste is the most powerful key to gradually swap your old habits into healthier ones.

Sometimes we eat unhealthy food just as a habit.

We don’t even feel their flavor, just eat cookies (or chocolate, or chips) one after another, without any real perception of their real taste.

If you concentrate on the taste of your meals, you will soon become an “attentive eater”, and choosing healthy, high-quality food will soon become the easiest choice.

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(The same goes for other unhealthy habits as drinking huge amounts of soft drinks or alcohol whose taste you don’t even perceive anymore – I call them “mandatory pleasures”, where there’s almost no real pleasure left, just the “mandatory” thing)

This will help you lose some extra pounds and feeling slim, healthy and more energetic as well.

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Last but not least, though, never forget that, if you have the feeling of carrying around a few extra pounds, this can be easily dealt with shrewd management of the clothes you’re wearing.

Enjoy your body type, plumb into the depth of your personal charme, and with the help of a few hints, you will soon feel attractive and charming as you’ve never felt before!

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