Cook Books

What you eat is highly personal. Some of us are not cooks. Many who wish to diet are not in control of what the family serves at meals. You are going to need to make adjustments according to different circumstances.

So this is just for cooks and assistant cooks out there.

One of the most basic books would be something like the Betty Crocker "Light and Easy Cookbook". It's for average home cooking style. If you prefer something different or ethnic, they are not hard to find at any book store - often on the sale table. There are hundreds of new cookbooks every month. There are glossy magazines full of recipes. There are thousands of recipes readily available in low calorie versions on line for free. If you are into cooking you will have no problem finding a variety of choices.

Since I aim for 1200 calories a day, I look for recipes with 300 or less calories per breakfast or lunch. Look for 100 calorie or less snacks (2 a day) and 400 calories including sides a meal. Remember, there are side dishes. With that few calories every single one has to count as good nutrition. At my age and height it is necessary to stick to this amount to lose 2 pounds a week and I still aim for that amount most days just to maintain my weight.

Don't be fooled though. If the portion is small enough anything will have a low enough calorie count. If you don't believe me take a look at those 100 calorie packs of cookies and snacks on the shelf. They make the cookies and crackers really small to fool you. Great if you can eat just 1 a day and don't fill up on something else! But will you? Give me a break! Those starchy and sugary snacks just make me crave more. It does not matter how much they tout the amount of "fiber", they are like a drink to an alcoholic. While it is a temptation to just eat one, I know that I will crave the second one more than I craved the first. So I know I would do better not even eating one. So I don't eat the snack food and eat a bowl of cereal, a few nuts, a half cup of cottage cheese, a half an apple. Without the sugar and salt I do not crave more as much.

Since changing your eating habits can seem difficult, you should know that it is not hard to adapt many of the menus you normally enjoy by simply tweaking the ingredient proportions. Don't add more oil to a sauteed dish. A tablespoon of olive oil in a non-stick pan has all the flavor of 4 tablespoons of oil. Instead of a couple tablespoons of butter use a butter flavored spray and a half tablespoon of real butter (if you must).

Greatly reduce the proportion of starchy food - like rice in proportion to the amount of chicken and vegetables in a stir-fry or pasta in a pasta dish. You can make a ragu spaghetti sauce with a quarter pound of lean ground meat instead of a pound and increase the amount of tomato sauce. Add more chopped veggie ingredients. No one will be the wiser. Maybe they will even like it better because there is more taste in the veggies. I recommend adding a chopped zucchini to spaghetti sauce and more onion. Zucchini??????? Yeah, zucch IS Italian and 1 piece will not change the flavor other than to make it seem richer. OK so add some more red wine too! ;-) The alcohol will cook out you know - leaving just good flavor.

It is also possible to adapt the calories of any meal by your choice of things being served and how much of each you put on your plate. Just remember, the richer the food calorie wise, the less of it you put on your plate. If you have no idea about calorie content you can often find the information on serving size and calories on prepared foods. Don't even try to remember the calorie count - just mentally file food types under low calorie, medium or high. I have learned to make a rough guess now about a serving size that is about 100 calories. By halving that it is easy to guestimate 50 or 200, etc. If you want, find one of those little calorie counter booklets that you can stick in your pocket. After using it for a while you will get the basic idea and can put it away. You need to know to make better judgements about foods if you have been "cheating" for years.

Just remember that to actually lose weight you only have to reduce certain elements in your diet - sugar, over-processed starches, fats and oils - and raise the good ingredients.

Most diet books you may already have on your shelf have menus and recipes. If you will never try them - save your money. The best planned menu dies when you are in a rush to cook. But for special occasions, I recommend cutting out the ones you like and putting them in plastic pages in a looseleaf notebook. Or cut and paste on line recipes into a folder.