Need To Slim Down? 6 Mistakes To Avoid When Cooking At Home

Dietary and nutritional content reviewed by Jasmin Gorostiza, DT, DM, DSS, CFPP.️

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Cooking need not be an excuse for gaining weight.

The keys to maintaining healthy diet lie heavily in your ability to cook and eat at home more often than dining out. However, if you find yourself stuck in your weight loss regime and you are still eating at home, you should take a second look at some of your eating habits.

There are several common mistakes you can avoid when “dining in” and help yourself slim down.

6. Avoid Monochromatic Meals

You want your food to have color. Since you eat with your eyes first, why not make it as appetizing as possible? Add shredded red cabbage to your salads, substitute ribbons of zucchini for pasta, and chomp on raw celery and apples for a quick snack. This also includes cutting out plain white breads and rice in favor of heart healthy whole grains like faro and quinoa. The last thing you want to see in a healthy diet is a white and yellow plate of food in front of you at dinner. Related read: It’s time to lose weight

5. Do Not Graze While You are Prepping and Cooking Your Meal

Sure that pile of chopped walnuts you want to add to your entree looks delicious, but they are added fat you do not need. If you cannot help yourself, carefully watch how much you munch, then cut back on the amount you end up putting on your plate. It is all a matter of give and take.

Too much oil — even if it is olive oil — increases the amount of fat in your diet.

4. Avoid Too Much Oil

Too much oil — even if it is olive oil — increases the amount of fat in your diet. The most you should be using, according to Health.com is only one tablespoon. No, it is not much, but it is far better than the alternative of it ending up on your waistline or in your hips. This includes baking and roasting vegetables and meats on racks instead of in pans. A standard rack placed over a roasting pan allows fat in meats to drain away as they sizzle. Instead of eating the results swimming in oil, they are much cleaner and healthier. Related read: Slim down with ready to eat Nutrisystem frozen food

3. Beware of Fatty Flavorings

There is no need to drown broccoli in cheese sauce, and this has been proven in a study by the University of Colorado. Researchers there found that a reduced-fat version of a recipe that incorporated herbs and spices was deemed much tastier than its regular full-fat version. Now is the time to try that ground coriander that has been sitting on your spice rack to your favorite sauteed squash.

2. Say No to Second Servings

If it helps, scoop up a serving for yourself and immediately put the rest away. Leftovers that linger on the stove or counter too long tempt you to graze, and you end up eating more than you should — including a second helping you really should not have anyway! Related read: Slim down and get started with coupons for Nutrisystem

Just because something is “half the fat” does NOT mean you can eat TWICE as much.

1. Avoid the Hype Around Many Healthy Snack Choices

While several are better alternatives than you are currently consuming, the International Journal of Obesity found that people tend to overindulge when a snack is labeled “healthy.” Our perception of how good a food is for us directly impacts our ability to determine (and eat) a diet-appropriate serving. Just because something is “half the fat” does NOT mean you can eat TWICE as much. You would be defeating the purpose of a healthy diet!

We should all use common sense when approaching any changes to our diet. But, as you can see, it is easier to adjust to a healthy diet and slightly change your cooking skills when you follow these proven tips.

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9 thoughts on “Need To Slim Down? 6 Mistakes To Avoid When Cooking At Home

  1. I wish I have the time to cook at home. I come home late. There’s hardly enough time for me to go to my kitchen. I go straight to my room and sleep! This is why Nutrisystem works for me. I don’t have to cook and I can still eat within my daily calorie requirement. I just love the convenience plus it works.

    Reply
  2. Thanks for the tips. I have been trying to cook my meals but to no avail. It’s really not that easy to cook each and every meal. Cooking the meals is hard enough. It’s even harder to tweak it so that it becomes a healthy meal.

    Reply
    1. Cooking was my problem as well. That was the reason why I was having second thoughts about Nutrisystem. I just wasn’t too comfortable with that fact that I needed to cook some meals. Surprisingly though, their videos are very easy to follow. I just rely on them so that I can have a cooked meal that’s healthy and tasty at the same time. I’m not saying I’m a great cook now but the videos are a big help.

      Reply
  3. One huge mistake I’m often guilty of is relying too much on olive oil. I think I use it too much without thinking that it also increases the amount of fat in the dish I’m cooking. I have been definitely using more than one tablespoon of it in my cooking.

    Reply
  4. My cooking gets in the way of my weight loss because I end up grazing most of the time. That’s part of the reason why it’s so hard for me to lose weight. I find it a lot easier to order my meals from a reputable weight loss company such as Nutrisystem. My other choice was actually Medifast but I went for Nutrisystem instead. Medifast looks so rigid at the start that I might not be able to last on it but I’m sure it’s good as well. I just feel a lot comfortable with Nutrisystem.

    Reply
  5. For some natural flavorings, I chop some garlic, chili, and basil leaves. I cook them all together in olive oil (not too much). When cooked, I use it as a condiment to my dishes. I do away with the salt.

    Reply
  6. I’m guilty of grazing. I can’t help it. But I will cut back on the amount of food on the plate. That’s a good advice. Thanks. I never really thought about that but it makes a lot of sense.

    Reply

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