1. Reduce Your Portion Size
Most restaurants "beef up" the look of their meals by offering large portions of cheap foods, such as bread and potatoes. The standard steak house meal of a basket of bread, a baked potato, a 16-ounce steak and sauteed vegetables, is enough for two or even three standard meals. If you remind yourself that you don't need to eat an entire meal at one sitting -- just because it's all on one plate -- you can begin to eat more sensibly and cut calories.
When you are out to eat, ask for a to-go container and put half of your meal into it to be enjoyed the following day. You can also ask the waiter to avoid bringing the bread basket and the dessert menu to the table. It's much easier to avoid temptation when it isn't staring you in the face -- or accompanied by colorful, laminated pictures.
2. Undress Your Food
Sauces, spreads and dips may seem like just a small portion of a meal as a whole, but they can pack a wallop in calorie. For instance, one serving of salad greens (about two cups) contains about 15 calories, while two tbsps. of supermarket-brand Italian dressing contain about 110 calories. In this case, almost all of the meal's calories come from just a few spoonfuls of dressing.
The same is true for sandwiches, pasta and even your morning coffee. Cut calories by choosing ketchup and mustard over calorie-heavy mayonnaise and by choosing marinara pasta sauces over creamy Alfredo and vodka-based sauces. A dollop of half-and-half in your morning coffee adds 40 calories, and butter on your toast adds 70 or more. Making conscious decisions about how you flavor your food can make the difference between a sensible meal and a fattening one.
3. Replace High-Calorie Beverages With Leaner Choices
People who enjoy wine or cocktails with dinner never want to hear this fact, but alcohol has a lot of calories -- up to 140 or more calories for a bottle of regular beer. The Mayo Clinic emphasizes that not only does alcohol contain a lot of calories, but the calories have "little or no" nutritional benefit. If you are shooting for a dietary limit of 1,400 calories a day, one beer will consume one-tenth of your allotted calories! When your body is not getting needed nutrients from food, you will continue to feel hungry until your body's needs are satisfied.
Replace high-calorie beer, wine and mixed drinks with iced tea, diet sodas or sparkling water, none of which have any calories. Use Splenda or another calorie-free sweetener in your iced tea instead of sugar, which has 16 calories per teaspoon.
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