What Not To Eat
So now I have a budget of 1500 calories per day, the question becomes what to eat? Perhaps first I'll start with what not to eat and work from there.
First just give up the killer stuff, candy, ice cream, cookies, non-diet soda anything loaded with sugar or fat. You know this food is just loaded with calories but it doesn't really fill you up (so you eat lots). Lucky for me giving up this stuff wasn't a great hardship, though I have been known to pig out on it occasionally, especially chocolate if its around. I used to think that as I drank fruit juice rather than soda I was selecting the healthy option - WRONG, both are loaded with sugar and calories.
Next on the list are what I call "Fat Adders". Whenever you watch fast food commercials its clear they are in competition with each other to add as much fat as possible. For Example, Pizza Hut..."We could only fit 5 types of cheese on top of the pizza so we have invented a way to stuff cheese into the crust to get even more on". The fat adders are stuff that are usually put on food, like cheese, butter, oil, salad dressing, avocado and mayo. You could have a huge bowl of salad (like lettuce, tomato, onion.....) and it would be less than 100 calories. You can easily double that or triple the calories with just a little dressing, cheese or bacon bits. The thing to remember with all these killer foods and fat adders is that they really don't "fill you up" or suppress you appetite, but they do load on the calories. So you really don't want them, they take up a big slice of the daily calorie budget but they don't make you feel less hungry. Often you can get 90% of the taste by using just the minimum amount of dressing for example and you can always select the low calorie option if available. The main this is be careful of fat adders - they are concentrated calories.