1. Make small changes, save big calories.

Make slight changes to your food choices. This tool can save you tons of calories and still allow you to eat a decent amount of food. Some examples:

• Instead of 1 cup of creamed corn for 184 calories, eat corn on the cob or 83 calories.
• Instead of 2.5 cups of pasta at 490 calories, mix 1 cup of pasta with 1 1/4 cups of steamed broccoli florets and 1 cup of steamed sliced ​​mushrooms at 265 calories.
• Instead of an appetizer of five fried mozzarella sticks (500 calories), eat 20 small steamed clams (133 calories). Just don’t dip them in butter.
• Instead of 1 cup of granola (500 calories), have 1 cup of oatmeal with half a banana (200 calories).

2. Dodge cafeteria sabotage.
Get this: A 12-ounce serving of mocha coffee at a popular coffee chain packs a whopping 340 calories and 21 grams of fat. That’s because it’s loaded with chocolate, warm milk, and whipped cream. To cut down on cafeteria offerings, ask the server to use nonfat milk, whipping cream, heavy cream, chocolate chips, and syrups.

3. Put the syrup aside.
Instead of pouring maple syrup over your pancakes or waffles, measure out a tablespoon and place it on a small plate. Then dip your pancakes or waffles into the plate.

4. Coat ground beef.
To reduce the fat in ground beef, brown it, then place it in a colander and pour boiling water over it.

5. Cha-cha to the sauce.
At 5 calories per tablespoon, low-fat salsa isn’t just for burritos anymore. Use it on baked potatoes and as a topping for sandwiches or vegetables. You can even mix it with fat-free sour cream for a creamy and flavorful salad dressing.

6. Top salads with a guilt-free crunch.
Why ruin a perfectly good low-calorie salad with oily croutons? Shred up a crumbly flavored rice cake and toss it on your gre

7. Deflate the stuffed sandwich.
When you order a sandwich, regardless of the filling, ask how much they usually serve.

8. Play hard with soda.
Reduce or completely eliminate soft drinks from your diet. Or when considering doing it. There is evidence that our bodies may not register the calories we drink as well as they do the calories we eat. Liquid calories just don’t seem to turn off our appetite. Which means that if we regularly drink large amounts of soda (or other high-calorie beverages), we may not eat less food to compensate.

Consider this study: Researchers asked people to consume 450 calories from jelly beans a day for 4 weeks and 450 calories from soda a day for another 4 weeks. On jelly bean days, these people ate approximately 450 fewer calories and no more calories than usual. But on soda days, they ate about 450 more calories than normal!

• Order a small or kid-sized soda instead of a large or super-sized portion.
• Ask for a lot of ice in your soda if you ask for it in a glass. You get less soda and fewer calories.
• Get an extra cup and share a soda with a friend. If the waiter offers a free refill, ask for water.

9. Dilute fruit juice with water.
If you like fruit juice, be careful. Depending on the serving size, you could gobble down hundreds of calories (especially if you buy those 20-ounce hollies). To reduce extra calories, dilute the juice by half with water or seltzer. Or better yet, forego the juice and have the real thing: fruit.

10. Do not make “eyes” of oil.
Whether you drizzle your salad with olive oil or sauté your vegetables with canola oil, measure it. Always. That quarter cup of oil you drizzle into the pan contains 482 calories. And if you don’t measure it, you will surely add much more.