Tips for Losing Weight During Cold

Winter is meant for comfort foods. Warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Gooey macaroni and cheese topped with crunchy breadcrumbs. Loaded baked potato. A hearty stew or comforting chili.

We love and crave comfort foods because they are often high in sugar, salt or fat. They also bring back happy memories of people or events from our past. Maybe grandma make chocolate chip cookies with you every time you visited, and it make you happy. Eating comfort foods brings back those feelings of joy.

You can have your comfort foods if you healthy them up. If there is a food you love, you don’t necessarily have to avoid that food. Instead, find ways to make it healthier.

That might mean making healthy swaps of the less healthy ingredient with something else. For example, swap liquid vegetable or nut oils for butter or shortening when possible.

Use less fat. Switch applesauce in desserts, or black beans in main dishes, for part of the fat in your recipe.

Add vegetables. Blend vegetables into creambased soups. Add them to tomato sauces or hide them in your cakes (think shredded carrots or zucchini). Add a layer of vegetables to your grilled cheese sandwich or pile veggies atop your pizza slice.

Cut sugar and salt you use in your recipes. Remember that sugar and salt sometimes lurk in condiments and packaged foods, so check labels. A recipe that you didn’t add salt to may contain ketchup, soy sauce or BBQ sauce. These are all high in salt and sugar.

Substitute whole grain flour or nut flour for white flour in baked goods to add more fiber. it to make fried chicken, French fries, or any other fried foods you normally fry in oil. A convection setting on your oven or toaster oven can be used in place of an air fryer.

Use mashed cauliflower in place of part of your mashed potatoes. Replace heavy cream or butter in mashed potatoes with broth or olive oil.

Substitute ground turkey or chicken in lieu of ground beef. If using beef or pork anyway, go for extra lean, at least 90 percent.

Swap out your sour cream for Greek yogurt in salad dressings, sauces and mashed potatoes.

Switch out all or part of your spaghetti or lasagna noodles with vegetables. Spiralized zucchini or thin sliced eggplant are both delicious choices.

You don’t have to deprive yourself of your favorite winter foods. Instead, try using simple, easy ingredient swaps so you can enjoy your favorite comfort foods while still losing weight.