Tips for adopting a low-fat, high-complex-carbohydrate diet
1. Eat mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains. These foods are naturally low in fat and high in fiber. (Fiber provides bulk, which helps to fill you up without adding calories.)
2. Do not add fat during cooking. Avoid sautéing foods in butter or oil. Bake, broil, steam, or roast foods instead of frying them.
3. Choose lean cuts of meat and poultry. Meat and poultry contain a lot of fat. Top round, eye of round, and round are the leanest cuts of beef; tenderloin, top loin, and lean ham are the leanest pork cuts; and light-meat chicken and turkey are leaner than dark meat. Do not eat poultry skin--it contains a lot of fat. But you can leave it on during roasting or baking to help keep the meat moist and tender; just be sure you do not cook the poultry with other ingredients, such as potatoes, that could absorb the fat released from the skin as it cooks. Limit portion sizes to 3 ounces--about the size of a deck of cards--and round out the meal with plenty of grains and vegetables.
4. Switch to low-fat or fat-free dairy products. Whole milk and cheeses can contain more fat than meat. But do not eliminate dairy products: They are an important source of calcium and protein.
5. Read food labels. The nutrition labels that are required on all packaged foods provide important information about their calorie and fat content, which makes it easy to compare brands.
6. Use fat substitutes judiciously. While fat substitutes definitely reduce the number of calories consumed from fat and saturated fat, their impact on total caloric intake and body weight, as well as general health in the long term, is uncertain. And one fat substitute, olestra--used in some chips and crackers--inhibits the absorption of fat-soluble nutrients. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are added to products to offset this effect.
7. Watch out for hidden fats. It is easy to overlook the fat and calories contributed by toppings such as margarine, cream sauce, mayonnaise, salad dressings, peanut butter, sour cream, and cheese. Limit the amounts of these items, or choose low-fat versions.
8. Consider the calories in beverages. Although regular soda, fruit juices, and alcoholic beverages are fat free, they contain a significant number of calories. And, with the exception of citrus juices, these beverages are not a good source of vitamins and minerals. Choose calorie-free beverages--water or seltzer, and moderate amounts of coffee and tea--most of the time.
9. Control portion sizes. According to recent research, almost all foods and beverages currently sold in the United States are excessive in size and dramatically increased from their original sizes. Hamburgers, french fries, and sodas are two to five times as large as they used to be in the 1970s. In addition, the average American eats about four restaurant meals a week; studies show that most restaurant meals are not only larger in size than home-cooked meals but also higher in calories, saturated fat, and sodium while being lower in fiber and calcium.
To get an accurate picture of the amount of food you normally eat, serve yourself a typical portion, then use a measuring cup, measuring spoon, or food scale to measure or weigh the food. Next, try serving yourself a smaller portion. You can dispense with weighing and measuring food once you become accustomed to estimating smaller portion sizes.
