How to Eat What You Want and Still Lose Weight

I often compare my eating plan to a budget: you have a certain number of calories per day, so you need to use them wisely and not overspend. Of course, if you overspend one day you need to compensate for it the next to rebalance your budget and remain within your limit for weight loss or maintenance. One of my favorite calorie-budgeting tricks involves making trades within the same meal.

Here's an example. Last night, my daughter wanted a hamburger for dinner. Since she rarely makes requests and I didn't have the fixin's for burgers--and it was hotter than blazes here so I didn't feel like cooking--we went to our new favorite family burger joint, where they also serve a mind-boggling array of milkshake flavors that are out of this world and combinable! To be honest, the shakes are even better than the burgers there--and a family next to us demonstrated this by ordering nothing but a huge basket of fries and onion rings along with one shake per diner.

On the way, I pondered how I could salvage this meal on my eating plan without going over my calorie budget (considering, too, that since it had been so hot I hadn't moved much that day so my calorie-burning activity had been fairly low). My wonderful husband reminded me that they also serve portobello burgers at this place, along with veggie burgers. Now, I do like veggie burgers, but often they contain more starchy fillers in them than actual veggies, so that night the portobello "burger"--really a portobello sandwich--sounded more appealing to me.

When we got there, after pondering the shake menu first (naturally!), I spied the portobello SALAD option. Perfect! So I ordered the portobello salad chock full of veggies and sunflower seeds, with Caesar dressing on the side. (This is another one of my tricks, by the way. If you're not a fan of fat-free dressings, about which I'm notoriously finicky--order the full-fat dressing on the side and dip the tines of your fork in the dressing before spearing a bite of salad. You'll get all the flavor of the dressing in each bite without overindulging.) And my husband and I split a peanut-butter-banana-oreo shake that was absolutely divine. This morning: very happy with the scale.

I was happy because I'd saved my calories for the item I REALLY wanted and still got tons of veggies and fiber into my meal without going overbudget. Try this the next time you're faced with a diet-busting choice and let me know how it goes.