Change the way you store your food and cookware to give your weight loss regime a boost. It’s not enough to simply buy healthy food, you need to store it and use it the right way to make proper use of all those healthy groceries. Here are seven tips on how to organize your kitchen to lose weight.
Keep Healthy Foods Within Reach
Place healthy foods within reach. Studies show that women who put chocolate farther away in their kitchen or workplace than other foods ate 50 percent less candy than women who stored the candy closer to them.
If you store fruits, veggies, whole grains and other healthy foods in an easy-to-access place, you’ll be more likely to eat them instead of sugary treats. Set out a bowl of fruit on your counter or a pre-made salad eye-level in your fridge. You’ll be more likely to grab these items when you’re hungry because they’re closer to you.
Put ice cream in the back of the freezer, behind healthier foods, and store sugary foods like cookies or cupcakes behind oatmeal or Cheerios on pantry shelves.
Avoid Trendy Cookware and Utensils
Colorful or character-oriented kitchenware will subconsciously entice you to scoop out more food. Playful products, like polka dot place settings or serving dishes with cartoon characters on them will cause many people to eat more comfort foods. Sugary, fried or salty snacks fit right in with playfully-themed kitchenware.
You don’t need to give up cute utensils completely. Buy a water bottle featuring your favorite TV character or finely-crafted salad bowls from a high-end store to encourage healthier habits.
You’ll also want to keep several cutting boards on your counter or against your backsplash to make it easier to cut fruits, veggies, and fish or poultry. When the right kitchenware is within reach, it will be easier for you to prepare healthy meals instead of giving in to convenience and junk food.
Serve from Your Stovetop Instead of the Table
People eat 20 percent more food if they help themselves from serving dishes on the dining table. Put your serving dishes on your stovetop or countertop if you want to eat less. Use serving spoons instead of regular spoons and you’ll help yourself to 15 percent less food, according a Cornell University study. Spoon (or scoop) size is particularly important when you eat foods like ice cream.
Pre-Package Your Own Healthy Lunches and Snacks
Grab air-popped popcorn, nuts and dried apricots from the front of your cabinet and make to-go snack kits. Combine nuts, popcorn, raisins, sesame seeds and other good-for-you ingredients in Ziploc bags for office snacks.
When you prepare your own snack bags at home, you’ll be less likely to buy unhealthy snacks from vending machines or the convenience store when you’re famished.
Prepare work lunches at home by using a Bento box. Store these boxes on your counter where they’re easy to reach. You won’t be tempted to spoon in larger portions if you use a tray to reign in your calories. Keep a list of healthy homemade lunch ideas on Post-Its and place them on your fridge, or use a dry-erase board to list healthy lunch ideas for the week, complete with recipes.
Use Smaller Bowls and Plates
Your Mom may have told you to finish everything on your plate when you were a kid. You should still heed that advice as an adult, but do it using smaller plates. Empty space on a large plate may tempt you to eat more than you should. Smaller plates encourage more reasonable portions.
Move small salad plates, soup bowl and small dishes to lower shelves in our cabinets and large plates to upper shelves. You may still help yourself to a second serving, but smaller plates mean smaller portions overall.
Spice Up Meals
Low-calorie spices make meals taste better and have health benefits as well. Stick up on turmeric, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, rosemary, parsley, and ginger to add taste to otherwise bland dishes. Replace high-calorie sugar and excessive amounts of salts with spices to improve health and lose weight.
If you don’t have a spice rack, buy one, or use a rotating lazy susan in your cabinet to find spices easily. Sprinkle cinnamon in plain yogurt instead of buying pre-mixed yogurt, which may contain sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Use cayenne pepper or turmeric to add flavor to recipes instead of salt.
Turmeric contains the inflammation fighter, curcumin. It can slow down aging and the development of certain diseases. Ginger is a great anti-nausea treatment, and it contains lots of nutrients, including potassium, magnesium, niacin, phosphorus, and iron.
Fill Up Your Crisper
Stock up your crisper with lettuce, tomatoes, carrots. and other fresh vegetables. Many people hardly use their crisper, but it’s there for a reason. Take time out every week to cut vegetables in bite-size pieces for snacks or recipes, and store them in baggies or small containers in the crisper.
Replace Your Non-Stick Pan with a Cast Iron Pan
Food will stick to your pan if too much coating has worn off, and this means you’ll need to use more oil when you cook. Cast iron pans only need a small amount of oil, and food won’t stick to them like it will to other materials. Cast iron pans release a small amount of iron as you cook. Iron helps carry oxygen from your lungs to other parts of your body.
Add Wheatgrass to Your Weight Loss Plan
Wheatgrass, one of nature’s most nutritious foods, contains hundreds of vitamins, minerals and enzymes. You can’t eat wheatgrass the way you can eat other healthy foods, but you can take it as a supplement.
Zeal O2, from Wheatgrass Love, helps curb your appetite naturally to lose weight. This wheatgrass tablet also helps cleanse your body and create an overall sense of well-being.
Wheatgrass has potassium, magnesium, iron, B-complex vitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin A, amino acids and hundreds of nutrients you won’t find in a run-of-the mill multivitamin. Zeal 02 adds a proprietary blend of green tea extract, Siberian ginseng, goldenseal, cayenne pepper, ginger and Citrus Aurantium to 100 percent wheatgrass to increase your natural metabolism and fat-burning ability.
Learn more about wheatgrass and Zeal 02 here.
