Calories matter. You know they do. Whether you want to lose fat or gain muscle, it’ll eventually boil down to your calorie intake at some point. Now, not everyone would want to measure what they eat consistently. Everyone has their own approach.
These 5 tips come in handy for anyone looking to not measure what they eat, yet make sure that they’re in a caloric deficit in order to lose fat.
Let’s see what they are.
- Avoid drinking your calories
All calories are not created equal. Yep, that’s true. 200 Calories from a can of coke is not the same as 200 calories from oats. Oats will leave you satiated for much longer as compared to your can of coke.
Make sure that you ditch those liquid calories and switch to eating real food instead. It'll help you in staying satiated for much longer. This way, it'll be easier to not go over board with your calorie intake.
- Go low fat
Fat is one of the 3 macro nutrients that you get from the food that you eat. It’s also the macro with the highest amount of calories (1g Fat = 9 Kcal).
Cutting just 20-30 grams of fat per day in the form of butter, oil, etc can lead to a significant reduction in your calorie intake.
A serving of full fat Caesar dressing can contain 20 grams of fat. That’s equal to 180 Calories. 200 ml of full fat milk contains 180 Calories while the same amount of non fat version of milk contains 100 Calories.
Whenever possible, choose the low fat version over the full fat version of the foods that you eat.
This way, you can easily drop a couple hundred calories per day just by making this small shift.
- Embrace the chemicals
We’ve all heard things like “Chemicals are dangerous”, “They cause cancer”, “They make you unhealthy”, etc.
The truth?
Everything contains chemicals, and some perfectly ‘natural’ foods contain chemicals too, which in large amounts can be deadly. Apple seeds contains cyanide, spinach contains cadmium. The thing is, we would have to eat ridiculously high amounts of these things in order to get any negative side effects.
Where these so called ‘chemicals’ come in handy is when they can act as sugar substitutes. By ditching the sugar in your coke, coffee, tea & instead opting for zero calorie sweeteners & drinks, you can easily cut a lot of calories.
While some people worry about the negative side effects of these sweeteners, there are a lot of studies that show that they’re perfectly safe when eaten in the context of a balanced diet, and provided you don’t go to ridiculous extremes.
- Avoid eating at restaurants
We’ve all been in that situation where we go out with friends thinking we’ll eat less and ended up eating like it was the last day of our lives.
That’s normal. That’s just you craving for stuff. And it happens to everyone. Not saying that it happens ‘everytime’, but it sure happens 'sometimes'.
And this is why you should avoid going to restaurants as much as possible.
Plus, even if you control and don’t eat a lot, you never know what went inside your dish. You might be thinking it’s made in 10 ml oil but the chef would have used 20 ml. This way, you might think that you're eating less but in reality, you're not.
What you can also do is order dishes that you know are made in a fairly simple way and don’t use a lot of ingredients. For Ex : Having Chicken Tikka instead of everyone’s fav Butter Chicken. It's hard to underestimate the calories in Chicken Tikka as compared to Butter Chicken.
Whatever you choose to do, make sure that it aligns with your goal of cutting calories.
- Have more veggies with every meal
Veggies are great. They’re low in calories, are a great source of fiber and are highly satiating. Swapping some rice/wheat with veggies like cabbage, cucumber, broccoli is a great idea.
You end up having lesser calories, more food volume & feel satiated for long. Plus, they pack a lot of vitamins and minerals and provide for a balanced meal.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt about the fact that if you want to lose weight, you’ll have to drop your calorie intake. And if you’re someone who doesn’t want to count your calories daily, then make sure to follow some general guidelines that’ll help you in dropping those calories with ease without much of an effort.
In the end, what you can sustain for a long period of time is the best strategy for you.
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