Easy Food Substitutions To Help Keep You Lean

by Jari Love

Are you looking for an easy way to lose weight without compromising taste, or worrying about not feeling full? Here are some quick and easy food substitutions that will satisfy your hunger, benefit your body and will reduce your waistline.

Cauliflower for Rice
Cauliflower rice is surprisingly close to rice in texture and taste. It is light and fluffy, but tender and chewy like rice. Cauliflower rice is easy to make: pulse florets in a food processor, or grate them, until they have broken down into small rice-sized granules. Cauliflower rice can be served raw, but it becomes more rice-like if you cook it in a skillet with 1/2 tbs of olive or coconut oil for 5-8 minutes or until the desired tenderness is reached.

Cauliflower rice will save you 100s of calories. As an added bonus cauliflower is rich in vitamin B-6 which helps lower stress levels and increase your mood. It’s a win-win!

Vegetable Noodles for Pasta
While, vegetable noodles don’t taste exactly like regular pasta noodles, their fat-busting and added nutrition value should have you reaching for your spiral slicer or potato peeler. Turn zucchini, beets, broccoli stems, fennel, or sweet potatoes, or bake a spaghetti squash and scrape out those nature-made noodles. Stir fry them up with some tomato sauce and basil and you have delicious and nutritious pasta without all the calories!

Lettuce for Bread
Looking to cut out calories quickly? Simply replace your sliced bread or bun with lettuce. Create delicious wraps by choosing large leaf varieties like Romaine, or if you are feeling extra brave gently steam some large leaf dragon kale and watch those pounds melt away. Extra bonus Romaine contains high levels of Chromium which helps maintain normal blood sugar levels, helps in fat metabolism and curbs sugar cravings—why wouldn’t you make the switch?

Protein Powder for Flour
Protein powder can’t be substituted 1 for 1 in recipes but you can easily switch up a portion of your flour in items like pancakes or muffins to boost the protein content and reduce the carbs. Use unsweetened plain or vanilla protein powder to keep your recipes tasting delicious while keeping you feeling full longer

Coconut Oil for Vegetable Oil
While I don’t recommend drinking cups of coconut oil at a time, remember that healthy fats are key to nutrient absorption from your food and can actually help you lose weight. Coconut oil is very easy to digest and gets stored in the liver as energy rather than in your cells as fat. Replace vegetable oil with coconut oil, and enjoy benefits such as increased fat burning and reduced appetite. Coconut oil can be used in virtually any recipe – both stove top and baking.

Wholesome Sweeteners for Sugar
Sugar is stored in your body as fat! Refined sugars also stresses our pancreas which over time can lead to health complications like weight gain and diabetes. Don’t think you are doing any better if you are using zero-calorie sweeteners either in fact zero-calorie sweeteners can even promote more fat storage than sugar. Instead, replace your refined sugars with whole-food sweeteners that contain important minerals and enzymes and do not impact blood sugar levels as much as refined sugars, such as: coconut sugar, raw honey, pure maple syrup, or pitted dates. Just remember a little sweetener goes a long way–the less sugar you eat the less fat you will store.

Jari Love – original creator of Get RIPPED! DVD series and group exercise classes. The hot-selling and critically acclaimed Get RIPPED! series enables individuals of any fitness level to burn up to three times more calories than the traditional weight-training program, and has received rave reviews from fitness critics throughout North America since the first title debuted in late 2005.