Tips For a Healthier Lifestyle

Just a few hopefully helpful tips for those working to drop weight or watching their weight or wanting to eat more healthily. I’ll add as I think of things.

Invest in a good kitchen scale, if you don’t have a scale already. If you’re trying to lose weight, it’s critical that you know how much you are putting in your body at meal and snack times. Before I started on my weight loss journey, I couldn’t have told you the difference between one ounce and six ounces. Trust me, it makes a difference. If you are counting calories and a recipe calls for four ounces of a protein (ie chicken or fish or meat), you need to know that you’re using four ounces and not right or twelve. Eyeballing it isn’t the solution. It doesn’t have to be a sophisticated scale. Mine is a Perfect Portions scale that I use daily. It was about $40 and it provides nutritional info on whatever I am measuring and comes with a booklet.  There are certainly other good scales out there that are cheaper and will do the job.

Pull out those measuring spoons and cups and use them! If you are striving to lose weight and liked to use a lot of butter and or mayo in and on things you eat, one simple step to start cutting back is start using teaspoons instead of tablespoons. You may discover that a teaspoon will go a long way and still give you that taste you want. (As far as butter and mayo, I not only greatly reduced the amount I was used to using, but I switched to healthier versions, such as Smart Balance butter and canola oil-based mayonnaise. That being said, I also use a light mayonnaise from one of the name brand manufacturers in certain recipes.) You don’t have to make radical changes that are hard to adopt straight out of the box. Start simply, a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon.

Just as I am, this page is a work in progress:)