Natural weight loss at home with diet, nutrition, fitness, and training tips from theory to practice

Lost 10 pounds in 7 weeks by swapping foods

Dieting does not have to be a punishment, because you can eat the foods you enjoy eating and still lose weight by swapping foods and making smarter choices. Find out how.

The concept of swapping foods is simple: Take one food and replace it with another food that is healthier.

"Healthier" being defined here as:

1. Containing less calories.
2. Containing less fat.
3. Being more nutritious, that is, containing more vitamins and minerals, and less preservatives.

If you’re trying to lose weight with food swaps, it should mean primarily swapping high-calorie foods for lower-calorie foods, and swapping high-fat foods for foods containing less fat.

Eating and thus also weight loss starts at the supermarket or at a restaurant. By making smart choices when you shop for food or when you choose a meal at a restaurant, you can cut many calories and thus also lose extra pounds of body fat.

A simple example is the calories in a meal at McDonald’s: If you order a meal with a hamburger instead of a Big Mac, you save yourself 290 calories, because a Big Mac contains 540 calories, while a hamburger contains 250 calories. Even if you took 2 hamburgers instead of 1 Big Mac, you’d eat 40 calories less. While 40 calories might not seem much, it will add up in time and produce weight loss if you consistently look for ways to swap foods whenever you eat something. Note: McDonald’s provides a chart you can use to make smarter food choices.

On a more personal level: In the past 7 weeks I’ve been trying to lower my body fat percentage, and have lost 10 pounds up until today. Part of my diet strategy is swapping foods. The other parts of my weight loss strategy are running to get into shape, weight training to maintain muscle and increase my BMR, and changing up my diet not to hit a weight loss plateau.

I’m as addicted to McDonald’s as you probably are. So it might surprise you to hear that in the last 7 weeks, I haven’t given up my bad habit of enjoying a meal at McDonald’s every Saturday afternoon, and have still managed to lose 10 pounds. And I can assure you I did not lose weight by starving myself, because I love to eat! You can do the same by starting to swap foods in your diet today and by being more aware of what you eat and making smarter food choices.