1. Vegetables--A Dieter's Best Friend
Weight loss is ultimately about how many calories you consume and how that compares to calories you expend through activity. As a category of food, vegetables top the list of low calorie foods. Other health benefits for vegetables include being low in fat and high in fiber. You can also get all kinds of vitamins, minerals and micronutrients from them. Perhaps best of all, vegetables fill you up without filling you out. No need for a lot of complex calorie counting.
2. Practice Portion Control
It's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the true serving sizes for all the foods you eat so that you can maximize nutrition without maxing on calories. For vegetables, a serving size is usually a half cup. However, even if you double the portion size of many vegetables, you're still doing okay calorie wise. When you eat an entire cup of artichoke hearts, you're only taking in 84 calories. Very few people overeat vegetables; in fact, most people don't get even the recommended daily allowance. The main danger of overeating carrots, however, is that your skin can adopt an orange hue.
3. Count Those Calories
You have several options in very low calorie vegetables that average 15 calories a serving. Enjoy all you want of alfalfa sprouts, cabbage, celery, eggplant, lettuce, mushrooms, radish, raw spinach and squash. Moderate calorie vegetables check in at approximately 25 calories a serving and include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, cucumbers, green beans, okra and tomatoes. Starchy vegetables contain the highest calorie count, but still average less than 100 calories per serving. These vegetables include acorn and butternut squashes, corn, parsnips and peas.
4. Vegetable Preparation Key to Low Calories
Like any type of food, the method for cooking vegetables has a lot to do with the final calorie count. Dipping broccoli in ranch dressing, sautéing mushrooms in butter and buttered squash and okra cause vegetable calories to skyrocket. Watch out for canned vegetables. Although nutrition labels may indicate low calorie vegetables, many canned versions contain too much sodium. Eat vegetables raw by themselves or in salads. Steaming or stir frying vegetables in no calorie vegetable sprays produce delicious vegetables without the added calories. If vegetables are a turn off, sneak vegetables in foods like casseroles and stir fry dishes. Shred carrots or zucchini to add them to meatloaf, muffins or rice dishes. Fill up a green pepper with lean, cooked ground beef and tomato sauce for a delicious meal. Make eating vegetables fun when you cook shish kabobs of vegetables and meat over the grill.
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