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Cutting Calories. Advice to help cut calories in your diet

If you are always on a diet, there are many reasons why you might be finding it hard to lose weight – calories. Even when you think you are eating healthy, you are gobbling up the calories that can keep your weight level or even cause you to gain additional weight. No, this is not a lecture on the latest weight loss fad, but just a crash course in teaching you to actually read the labels on what you are eating to maintain and prevent additional weight gain. 

Depending on your age, gender and what you ‘do’ daily, you will need different levels of calories. For the growing active child, more calories are going to be needed than for the older woman who is a secretary at her desk all day and doesn’t exercise. The man that does manual labor for a living requires more calories to maintain energy all day compared to the man who teaches school all day. As you most likely already know, by reading the back of any box, bag or can, most of us will base our daily intake of food on 2000 calories so you can adjust your own up or down depending on how active you really are. 

So, back to what I was saying about reading labels and understanding what you are eating. If you were to buy a package of white buns or a loaf of white bread you will see two different things. One, the buns will be about 130 calories, and the bread; each slide is a 120 calories. Which do you think is going to help you maintain your diet? The bun, because you most likely are going to want two slices of bread, which is 240 calories, and the bun, has fewer calories. Keep in mind that you will have to read what you are buying because every manufacturer is different and every type of bread/ buns/ etc are different as well because of the ingredients that are added. 

On my quest to read as many labels as I could, while grocery shopping, I also hit the fruit aisle. The canned fruit aisle actually had some very surprising results. While the individual packages of fruit (enough for one serving) would have 70 calories for peaches, pears or even pineapple, a single serving of sweetened applesauce had about 90 calories. 

If I would reach over and purchase a can of mixed fruits, the can says it serve three, but has 30 calories per serving! What is the difference? The sugar and the syrup is the difference. While the smaller servings had more sugar they also had more calories. The larger cans are a mixture of sweet fruits with no sugar added and therefore they were better for me and my diet in the long run. 

With dinners always on the mind of mothers and fathers around the world, it is also important to make sure that everyone eats their vegetables. While one might think that your vegetables are good for you, if you are on a diet, there are a few vegetables – or at least how these vegetables are prepared, that can be harmful for your personal diet. 

Looking over the selection, a can of beets, a can of corn, or a can of carrots, you will find that the differences in what these vegetables are providing to your diet will vary from can to can. What I noticed when in the vegetable aisle was this, while corn is high, about 70 calories a serving – it I add butter I am almost doubling this calorie count, and face it most of us add butter. 

A can of beets, while I thought was high in protein, really isn’t high in protein, but high in calories coming in about 60 calories per serving. Moving on down to the carrots, which by the way I thought would be high because of their sweet taste were actually lower! Cooked carrots in a can were about 35 calories, which is quite a savings in calories for a vegetable. 

What is even more surprising, because I like to munch on plain saltines, is that just five plain saltine crackers has over seventy calories! No wonder I couldn’t lose weight – I was constantly over eating, too many calories for my recommended allowance when I was munching on crackers all the time. Heck, ten crackers would be what I should have for lunch if I went by the calories. 

The point of this article is to really show you that if you are serious about losing weight, you really do need to read the labels of what you are eating. Sometimes what you think is good, really isn’t and you have so many choices out there when shopping that surely you can find something tasty, nutritious and good for you all at the same time.