Are you tearing your hair out wondering why you seem to be gaining weight even though you have been making all the right food choices?
It may be time to consider the issue lies in your cooking habits. Yes, that’s right, the way you cook your foods might just be the thing that is causing your waistline to expand.
Let’s look at the most common cooking mistakes that are fueling your weight gain, instead of helping you lose weight.
1 – Ignoring Your Spice Rack
You want flavor in your food so you turn to sauce after sauce, yet your full spice rack is completely ignored. What are you thinking?
Curry powder, cinnamon, turmeric, cumin, rosemary, and oregano, paprika can all elevate your dishes to the next level without increasing your calorie count. Let’s not forget that many of them come with amazing health benefits of their own.
2 – Over-Oiling
Yes, olive oil does belong in a healthy, balanced, diet. It forms a major part of the famed Mediterranean diet and it has plenty of its own health benefits. Here’s the thing – those calories still count, and most of us are very guilty of failing to factor those calories in.
We all tend to lash that oil in the pan liberally. With around 40 calories in a single teaspoon of olive oil (it’s 120 for cooking oil, so always use olive oil); you can see how things can get out of control quite quickly.
Keep yourself on track by measuring your teaspoon and using a paper towel to smear the whole pan with it. Don’t even think about cooking with butter.
3 – Getting Cheesy
We don’t need to tell you how delicious cheese is – it’s fabulous, but it’s also packed with saturated fat. So, when you make your meal and then add cheese to the top or mix it in, you are inflating your calorie count, increasing the saturated fat in your meal, and well, giving your waistline more to deal with.
You can still enjoy cheese, don’t worry, you just need to eat it wisely. That also goes for other accessory ingredients that we tend to enjoy with our meals, from cheese to sour cream. There are always healthier alternatives.
4 – Colorblindness
Your fruits and vegetables should resemble a rainbow. Many of us are guilty of eating the same vegetables with every meal and then smothering them in a sauce. Start mixing things up and have a few vegetables on the side.
Remember, some vegetables are healthier than others are, and including some in your main meal doesn’t count as a portion. So, start branching out and enhancing your palate.
Potatoes don’t count as a vegetable and corn isn’t the greatest option either – think dark leafy greens and brightly colored vegetables.
5 – The Portion
The cooking section of the evening is complete, now it’s time to sit down and enjoy what you have just created. You have plated your food in the kitchen and presented it beautifully, but as you labored over your ingredients, your appetite has run away with you.
Your plate is heaped with food, barely any white of the plate showing, and you eat it clean. Your portions are too big, so consult WebMD to keep you on the straight and narrow when it comes to portion sizes.
Therefore, you can see that it isn’t enough to just choose the right types of foods to eat. You also have to be mindful of your preparation and cooking methods, as well as how much of each you are eating. Eating healthily isn’t complicated, but it can fail if you don’t educate yourself on doing it properly.
