Until I met my wife, who’s a really great cook, I didn’t know eating delicious healthy food was possible. It’s all about using healthy substitutes. You don’t have to eat low cal bland foods like rice cakes. You can still have tacos and spaghetti!
Here’s how to eat well with healthy substitutes!
As you’ll see in the examples below, it’s not just about low carbs. Avoiding gluten or bready foods is a good start. But this does not mean you have to go around telling everyone you’re gluten free! You don’t need to be a yogi or another insufferable personality. Just follow these suggestions and be incognito about it.
1. Pasta substitute
Who loves pasta? Most of us. But there are shockingly healthy substitutes for your typical pasta. Quinoa pasta (made from quinoa, whatever that is) and spaghetti squash are delicious and won’t leave you pining away for the real thing. Spaghetti squash is pretty much like it sounds. You cut the squash in half, cook it and then scrape out the insides. The “meat” of the squash comes out like spaghetti. See above. As an aside, someone told me lentil pasta is good too but haven’t personally tried it yet.
2. Noshing on hummus
This may sound sacrilegious but avoiding pita when eating hummus can help a lot. Try cucumbers or carrots when eating the best thing to ever come out of the Middle East.
3. Bun-less burger
Kinda lame but as long as you make a really thick, super juicy burger, you won’t miss the bun.
4. Soft corn or whole wheat tortillas for your taco or burrito
Flour tortillas? What are those?
5. Breakfast of Champions
I know commercials say otherwise but substituting pretty much anything for cereal will help your waistline. Consider eggs. Apparently the cholesterol in the egg yolk isn’t as bad as once thought. And what about…
6. Oatmeal
Oatmeal can be kind of bland which is why we always add sugar. But slice up a banana as your sugar substitute and now you have a sweeter more filling version of oatmeal.
7. Coffee
Most coffee concoctions have a ton of sugar already so you can certainly reduce the amount in there. Or just replace both the sugar and the milk with low fat milk and enjoy your Starbucks without the guilt.
8. Potato Chips
I love potato chips but plantain chips are now all the rage. Well, maybe not all the rage, but gaining steam. Various flavored plantain chips will help you forget about your Funyuns.
9. Speaking of Funyuns
Popcorn sprinkled with onion powder is sooo good, and relatively better for you
10. Rice substitutes
White rice gets a bad rap and maybe brown rice is better. But if you’re in need of a rice substitute, cauliflower rice is a reasonable alternative. Perfect for Indian food and curries in place of basmati rice.
Keep in mind these healthy substitutes are delicious but my favorite part is that my wife cooks this for me and there’s nothing easier than eating good, healthy food when someone else is doing the work. I just do the dishes.
Making any of these small adjustments will make a huge difference. But if you don’t feel like it, you can just get liposuction or non-surgical fat reduction! And check pricing for each here and here!
Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Jonathan Kaplan for BuildMyBod.
