Day #10 in our January Tweak Diet special is one of our favourites. It’s all about creating delicious, ethnically inspired dishes without added calories. If you’re just joining our Tweak Diet now – welcome! – scroll down to see how it works
Restaurants and food manufacturers often add flavour using lots of sugar, fat and salt which inevitably equals added calories. That’s why we’re often told to cook from scratch to keep our calories down and health effects up. But how?
One of the best ways to add flavour without sugar, fat or salt is to be inspired by ethnic spice and herb combinations. Here’s a list of condiments, healthy fats, herbs and spices that all go well together in ethnic dishes. Use hints of them in your healthy cooking to add real taste and pizzazz – you won’t even know it’s a healthy dish…
HEALTHY MARINADE COMBINATIONS FOR MEAT AND VEGETABLES – all these ingredients work together to soak meat in before cooking or use as a sauce
MEDITERRANEAN Lemon, garlic, olive oil, basil, thyme
ORIENTAL Soy sauce, ginger, chilli paste, sesame oil, lime juice
ASIAN Yoghurt, curry powder, garlic, lemon, ground red pepper
JUST JOINED THE HEALTHISTA JANUARY TWEAK DIET? here are some guidelines to get you started
What is the Tweak diet? Designed for anyone who doesn’t want to go on a big starv-y diet during January, we deliver you one new small change to make to your diet or lifestyle on each day in January. You continue each change throughout the month and come February, be on your way to weight loss and new healthy habits you can keep all year. You in?
2. Continue with each of your small changes throughout the month and come end January, you will have built up a heap of new healthy habits and will be well on your way to losing weight and feeling better.
3. If you fall off the wagon just get back on asap If you don’t manage to keep up all your small changes every day, don’t worry. Just get back on the next day or even better, at the next meal.
4. Measure once at the start and once at the end. That’s all Take your waist, hip and bust measurements and weigh yourself at the start and end ONLY of your tweak-a-thin journey. I don’t want you getting bogged down in the numbers and would prefer you focus on how much better you’ll feel (the weight loss will happen, don’t worry)
5. Send us selfies of your tweak-a-thin journey Post them to Healthista on Twitter, Facebook and in the comments below. At the end of January we’ll publish them and you’ll be in with a chance of winning a Healthista exclusive pamper hamper handpicked by yours truly.
6. Do what you can Obviously you don’t have to do every single tweak we suggest. Even just one will make a difference as we’ve handpicked each change to be small but powerful. The more you do though, the better your results.
More posts in Healthista’s January Daily Tweak Diet
Day #1 Record everything you eat
Day #2 Drink two litres of water daily
Day #3 Your at-a-glance portion guide
Day #4: Have a protein breakfast for weight loss
Day #5 Cut back on sugar with these simple tips
Day #6 Burn an extra 500 calories a day (without the gym)
Day #7 Snack on 40 almonds a day
Day #8 Is it real hunger or a craving?
Day #9 Take the stairs – five times
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