Ways to Make Your Comfort Foods Taste Great

Do you think it’s possible to lose weight while still enjoying some of your favorite comfort foods? It’s easier than you might think. Rather than starving yourself to drop those stubborn pounds, alter your favorite meals with some of these simple hacks and drop a few dress sizes in the process.

DIET
Of all the four letter words that we’ve said or heard, this one may be the worst of them all. When you hear it spoken, you equate it to nails running their way across a chalkboard. They may be saying “diet,” but you hear “starvation”. Whether it be a decision made by your personal trainer, your doctor, or yourself, starting a diet usually involves restricting your intake of certain foods and cutting out many others. It makes the process hard to stick to because there’s so much abrupt change in your lifestyle.

Let me tell you a little secret: you can have your cake and eat it, too. Literally. Rather than getting rid of every morsel of tasty food in your house, you can simply swap out a few ingredients here and there to create healthier versions of your favorite dishes. You can have pancakes, pizza, or pie just by adjusting the traditional recipes to fit your health and fitness needs.

Instead of eliminating everything that you love, you can evolve your favorite comfort food so that you can fit it into your lifestyle while still fitting into your jeans.

PANCAKES
Everybody loves the smell of pancakes being made as they roll themselves out of bed. There’s something about that aroma that draws us to the kitchen like nothing else will that early in the morning.

But if you’re on a diet, pancakes are likely a no-no. If they’re made in their traditional form, there’s probably too many carbs to count, without a significant amount of protein. Going from a fasted state after sleeping all night – provided that you’re not a sleep-eater – right into a big stack of carb-heavy pancakes isn’t ideal for your blood sugar or your waistline.

If you get creative, you can swap out some of the flour for processed oatmeal, throw in some protein powder and fruit, and come up with a filling stack of pancakes that provides a healthy dose of protein to start your day. Just by making some simple changes, you can stay slim while enjoying this breakfast staple.

Here’s a recipe that will do the trick:Banana Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes

PIZZA
This is comfort food royalty, but it’s often one of the first items to get eliminated from your diet if you’re trying to trim down. With the countless carbs that come with the crust, the abundance of calories from fat in the cheese and pepperoni, and relatively low amount of protein, pizza can be a dietary devil.

With a few alterations, though, you can still enjoy what you love about pizza in a slightly different form. Enter the Lean Body Zucchini Boat. With this recipe, you’re still going to get the beautiful combo of melted mozzarella topped with pepperoni, but rather than carb-loaded crust, you’ll have a close to calorie free zucchini as the base of your pizza.

This may not seem all that exciting, but when you bake the zucchini in the oven with your favorite pizza toppings on top, you end up with a crispy bottom with plenty of pizza taste right above it. It’s not about getting rid of what you love, it’s about making it work for your health and fitness goals. Use this recipe to incorporate some guilt free pizza love back into your life.

Give it a try – you’ll thank me:*Lean Body Pizza Zucchini Boats

PASTA
There are few things more comforting than a big bowl of hot pasta on a cold winter’s night. Well, that and a glass of your favorite wine, but you get the idea. The steaming marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese combination warms your soul, but when you mix them with pasta, for some reason your clothes start to close in on you. There has to be a better way to enjoy this classic comfort food without having to run off all of the extra calories on the treadmill.

Spaghetti squash to the rescue. Rather than using pasta as your base to the dish, swap it out for spaghetti squash. Once you cook the spaghetti squash, it can be prepared in a way that represents the shape and texture of spaghetti. Think about it, you don’t eat pasta because it tastes good by itself; you eat it because it tastes amazing when you put sauce and cheese on it. Spaghetti squash can play that same role without loading you up with calories and carbs.

CHEESECAKE
Like, I said, you can literally have your cake and eat it, too. Cheesecake, that is. Many of the ingredients of a traditional cheesecake can be swapped out for lower calorie options that won’t alter the taste in a major way. By making these small alterations while also adding protein powder to your mix, you can lower the calorie count while upping the ratio of protein at the same time.

You don’t have to eliminate cheesecake from your life, you just need to prepare it in a different way. What’s incredible is that you won’t have to sacrifice taste in the process.

Here’s a cheesecake recipe you’ve got to try:*Vanilla Chocolate Swirl Protein Cheesecake

CONCLUSION
Your diet does NOT have to be a death sentence to your enjoyment of food. There are plenty of subtle changes and adjustments that you can incorporate into your nutrition plan that will allow you to enjoy tasty things while also keeping that body tight. What’s more is that these recipes and hacks listed above all have an emphasis on incorporating more protein into your world, which will help tremendously with your ability to build lean muscle and burn fat.

These hacks don’t just provide a healthier approach to some of your favorite foods; they also show you how much you can do within your diet if you commit to being creative. The people that created these recipes discovered these combinations through their own experimentation and curiosity. Don’t be afraid to do the same in your own kitchen and create more health hacks along the way!