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The covid-19 19.  Where does it come from?  In a word: calories.  

There’s a lot of money to be made publishing diet books that send you on a wild goose chase for the evil macro-nutrient that’s secretly responsible for making us fat, but the truth is it’s the calories (a surplus of them) that cause us to gain weight.  

No, I am not at all saying that losing weight is easy – especially not keeping it off.  (Did you know both my wife and I used be 240lbs?)  I’m also not saying that “eat less and exercise more” is useful advice.  (It’s not useful.)  I just don’t want your journey to made even more difficult by the abundance of nutritional confusion available to us. 

With all that said, here are ✂️ 10 ways to cut ✂️ 100 calories.  Because strategy trumps willpower.  Use some, use them all, use none but be inspired about other ways to reach your goals, or just be entertained by my Pulitzer caliber writing. 

Tablespoons: measure your fats.  High fat foods like oils, butters, nuts, etc. are very calorie dense – they pack a lot of calories in a small space.  Our eyeballs don’t measure that well, and each extra tablespoon of any kind of oil adds 120 calories.  120 calories x 3 meals per day x 7 days per week = 2,520/wk… which is theoretically ¾ of a pound per week.

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Cups: measure your grains and cereals 🥣 and other calorie dense foods.  I like to add some Kashi over my berries and fat-free Greek yogurt for crunch.  I much prefer to not measure because then I can tell myself that my 1.5-2 cups is just 1 cup.  However, that is an extra 1-200 calories per day, which is, theoretically 1/5 to ¼ of a pound per week.  

🍦 Ice & cream vs. ice cream: Desserts are one of life’s great pleasures.  For most people a sustainable lifestyle means figuring out how to make room for dessert.  A single serve Italian ice (which is a whole cup) with a generous 3 tablespoon squirt of whipped cream has 120 calories total.  Plain vanilla ice cream for the same volume – 1 cup – is 500 calories!  380 calories x 7 days per week is theoretically ¾ of a pound per week.

Go Halfsies: Swap the cream in your ☕️ coffee for half and half.  The labels are tricky here because for the heavy cream a serving is 1 tbsp, and for the half and half a serving is 2 tablespoons.  If you do 2 cups per day with 1.5 tbsp per cup this swap will save you 90 calories per day x 7 days per week is theoretically 1/5 of a pound per week.

Hold those 🍔 buns: not your partners buns, nor a strangers buns (unless you’re both into that), but your burger buns.  I love burgers and fries, but for calorie budget purposes I usually need to choose between buns or fries, and, for me, the fries always win!  You may be more of a bun-lady, and that’s cool.  Use your calories in the ways that give you the most pleasure.  A 🍔 bun from 5 Guys (my favorite!) is 260 calories.

Stay tuned for part 2! 😁

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