Top Dieting Substitutes

I must admit, when I started to lose weight, I was worried that I would miss a lot of my foodie favorites but after a hunt around the internet, I found some tasty substitutes that I thought I would let you know about if you too were a little apprehensive.

• Sweets for Werthers Original Sugar Free (5 for 45 calories), Diablo Coffee, Lemon or Strawberry sweets (10-12 each), or Jelly Belly sugar free beans (35 beans for 80 calories).
• BBQ Sauce for Walden Farms/Green Valley Ranch Honey BBQ – No Calories and has a lovely taste. Smokey and sweet. Works well as a marinade over chicken.
• Chocolate Sauce for either Walden Farms Chocolate Sauce (no calories but quite bitter chocolate) or Choc Shot at 15 calories per tsp.
• Semi Skimmed Cows Milk for Soya Milk (33 calories per 100ml) also helps bring your cholesterol down
• Garlic Bread for Weight Watchers Garlic Butter Petite Pain (179 per roll) still gives you the taste but shouldn’t make your bloody sugar go up as you’re only having a small roll and not half a baguette (or a baguette) Has quite a strong garlic taste.
• Quarter Pounder Beef Burgers for Venison Grill Steaks (200 calories per burger and very, very low in fat) Tastes almost identical to beef maybe a tad stronger
• Minced Beef for Minced Venison. Nearly identical to beef mince. My best friend could not tell the difference when she ate it as a spaghetti bolognese. Didn’t think her little ones would either. Low in calories and fat.
• Meat Samosas for Quorn Samosas which are only 54 calories per samosa. Doesn’t taste much different to a vegetable samosa, perhaps a little smaller but still lovely.
• Hot Chocolate for Highlights chocolate at 40 calories per cup. I find Weight Watchers hot chocolate is far too sweet for me however Highlights has more a chocolate flavour if mixed well.
• Cherries for Strawberries. Calorie wise cherries are high compared to strawberries. 50 calories per 100g with cherries as compared to just 33 per 100g for Strawberries. Don’t forget that includes the stone in the weight so flesh for flesh you get more in strawberries.
• McCoys Crisps for Weight Watchers Crinkle Crisps. Smaller bag but tastes almost the same as McCoys Ready Salted (that’s if you get the cheddar and onion WW) but only 77 calories per bag. Still thick cut and lovely and crunchy.
• White bread for Hovis Seeded Sensations if you can’t leave bread out of your diet. The whole grain helps blood sugar stay stable. OR swap bread out totally for Warburtons Brown Thins for only 100 calories for a thin (2 sides).
• Bacon for Mattessons Turkey Slices (Smoked) – still get the smokey flavour but at only 25 calories per slice you can fill that thin up with 4 slices for a big “sandwich”
• Ordinary Sausages for Weight Watchers sausages. These are around 50% less calories per sausage at 60 calories each and come in either pork or cumberland. Very tasty too!
• Hellmanns Light Mayonnaise for Hellmanns Lighter than Light Mayonnaise. 20ml is only 19 calories compared to 10ml at 40 calories for the light. Tastes much better than any light mayonnaise on the market that I’ve tasted.
• Peanut Butter for PB2. Peanut butter is 188 for 2 tbsp – high in fat and calories. PB2 once made up according to instructions is 45 calories for 2 tbsp and lower in fat. No brainer. Tastes just like smooth peanut butter. Don’t add as much water for a thicker peanut butter.
• Jam – La Nouba Low Sugar Jam. Doesn’t taste like any low sugar jam I’ve tasted before. Sweet and fruity. Works well with the PB2 and a thin for a Peanut Butter and “Jelly” Sandwich.
• Desserts. These are quite a big thing for me as I love having my dinner then a pudding. So instead of the roulades and other things I was eating, I now have Weight Watchers Crunch Desserts (180 calories), Honeycombe Sundaes (123 calories) or Swirl Pots (77 calories). Or Muller Wicked Chocolate Puds. I would have them on their own but if you’re not diabetic, then twin it up with a meringue basket at around 50 calories and you have quite a lush pud for about 150 calories.
• Chips for Birds Eye Mashtags – 5 mashtags are 180 calories compared to 200g of oven baked chips which are 377 calories.

I’ll add more as I go along but these are good for starters!  Just remember, don’t give up.  If you love something and are reluctant to give it up, either eat a tiny portion or find an alternative.