Do the words “comfort food” and “diet” go together? Yes! With a little planning, the right recipes and reasonable portions, you’ll drop pounds and serve your family’s favorite meals. Read on to discover how the Taste of Home Comfort Food Diet works and how readers like you have succeeded in their goals.
If you’re a woman, shoot for a total calorie consumption of 1,400 calories per day. Men should consume 1,500 calories per day. Check with your doctor before you begin this plan to see if this calorie guideline is appropriate for you. Then consider the Six-Week Meal Plan. There you’ll find detailed menus that total roughly 1,400 calories per day.
Use the following guide to distribute calories through the day:
• 350 calories for breakfast
• 450 calories for lunch
• 500 calories for dinner
• Two 50-calorie or two 100-calorie snacks, depending on the total calories you’re aiming for per day. You can consume more or less calories in a snack or meal than what is suggested here as long as your daily total is 1,400 or 1,500 calories.
Keeping a food diary is a key to success on the Comfort Food Diet. By writing down everything you eat, you can easily identify eating habits you hadn’t noticed previously. You’re also less likely to cheat if you know you’ll have to jot down that sundae you had at lunch or the extra cookie you snuck in after dinner.
Use your food journal to help you plan menus in advance as well. Browse through this cookbook and decide which of the hearty dishes you plan to make. Map out menus and snacks for an entire day in advance, then go back and record what you actually ate.
Always remember to watch portion sizes, and review the Nutrition Facts at the end of each recipe to learn what a serving size is. If you increase the serving size, the amount of calories (and nutrients) will obviously increase as well.
It’s also important to understand that you can mix and match foods however you’d like as long as you stay within the 1,400 or 1,500 daily calorie limit.
For instance, let’s say you prepare Asian Chicken with Pasta for lunch. Note that the recipe makes six servings, but the Nutrition Facts are based on one serving of 1½ cups. As such, you can enjoy one serving and serve the rest to family members or refrigerate the leftovers for a handy lunch or dinner tomorrow.
The guideline for lunch is 450 calories, and one serving of pasta weighs in at 320 calories. This means you can also enjoy ½ cup of 1% chocolate milk (85 calories) and carrots (free food) for a lunch that totals only 405 calories. You can add another food that is about 45 calories, or you can spend those calories later in the day. It’s up to you—as long as your daily caloric intake meets the 1,400 or 1,500 goal.
The lunch example on the previous page noted that ½ cup of 1% chocolate milk was 85 calories. How would you know that? Simply turn to pages 84-85 for the Snacks Calorie List. There you’ll find dozens of ideas for low-calorie bites that don’t require a recipe. These items are great for snacking, and they also make tasty additions to meals as demonstrated by the lunch example. While these items come in at 100 calories or less, you still need to write them down in your food diary.
Similarly, the Free Foods List offers many items you can enjoy without guilt. In fact, these foods are so light, there’s no need to worry about their calorie content as long as you follow any portion restrictions they might offer.
The chapters in Best of Comfort Food Diet Cookbook are broken down into Snacks, Breakfasts, Lunches, Dinners, Side Dishes, Desserts and Slow Cooker Favorites. Most chapters begin with lower-calorie staples and end with higher-calorie specialties.
If you ate a lunch below the 450 calorie guideline, you may want to consider a higher-calorie dinner. If you enjoyed a high-calorie breakfast and morning snack, you may want to stick with a lunch that’s a bit lighter.
Many of the chapters overlap a little, making meal planning easy! For example, some of the higher-calorie lunches would make wonderful low-calorie dinners. You could also look at the calorie breakdown at the beginning of the side dish chapter and choose one of those recipes for a meat-free lunch or substantial snack.
Find a form of exercise that you would enjoy doing every day or on a regular basis. Walking is a great way to start exercising. Walking with family or friends is a great motivator to keep you going.
Swimming, yoga, biking or a dance fitness program are fun ways to exercise. These activities can also be done alone or with family and friends. Choosing an activity that keeps you interested will make you want to exercise. You may have to change activities every few months to maintain that spark.
By Pam Holmes
Lincoln, Nebraska
The Comfort Food Diet helped me lose more than half my body weight and got me moving again!
I remember being eight years old, wearing one of the many beautiful hand-sewn dresses my mother made for me and thinking that if I cinched the belt tighter, I wouldn’t look so fat.
Things changed after I had been married for a few years. The pounds piled on after each of my three sons was born. I was no longer fat; I was morbidly obese. In July 2009, my doctor weighed me at 328 pounds. Before that visit, I had no idea how much I weighed. I didn’t own a scale.
In my career, I had earned my bachelor’s degree in elementary education. But I took a sedentary desk job as an administrative assistant at a university, so I got little exercise and brought a lot of unhealthy snacks to work with me. I snacked all day in front of my computer.
And for 30 years, I ate anything and everything I wanted. I love food, and I never limited myself, even though I was battling high blood pressure for the last 15 years. My doctor had me on five different medications, and it was still borderline high.
At home, I just wanted to sit in my chair and watch TV. My kitchen chair had wheels, and I would roll around in it while I prepared and cleaned up meals. It just hurt my legs too much to stand or walk.
Vacations and other fun activities were limited because I couldn’t walk very far. Physical activity of any sort was completely out of the question.
I started half-heartedly to lose some weight after that eye-opening visit to the doctor in July 2009. Giving up my beloved carbonated full-sugar soft drinks helped me lose 24 pounds. But it was not enough.
Scary news
In December 2009, I went to the doctor complaining that my heart was pounding hard after even the slightest physical exertion. The doctor ordered an EKG and told me the test seemed to show that I had already had a heart attack. Even though subsequent tests with a cardiologist proved that my heart was fine, his words finally got my attention. It was now or never.
So I launched a “get healthy for life” campaign. If I wanted to maintain any serious weight loss, I knew I couldn’t do a short-term “fix” but needed a lifestyle change.
To start, I simply cut back on my overall food intake by eliminating between-meal snacks and eating only one helping of the food I prepared for my family. As the pounds came off, I got more motivated and started cooking and eating healthier foods like fruits, vegetables, lean beef, chicken and fish.
I found many wonderful low-fat and low-calorie recipes in the Comfort Food Diet Cookbook and loved that the nutritional facts were listed for each recipe. It was easy for me to monitor my calorie intake. My husband and son even enjoyed (and still enjoy) the recipes I prepare from the cookbook, too—and they’re both real meat-and-potato guys.
I also started walking. Running was not a possibility for me since my knee and hip joints are bad. But I knew that if I didn’t start moving, I would lose my ability to get around. I was almost 60 years old and afraid I was going to lose my mobility.
The end of my steep, quarter-mile-long driveway became my first walking goal. My husband, Duane, walked with me a few times. I was always huffing and puffing; he was not. That motivated me to walk a little farther down the road every night.
The first time I made it to the end of our road—1.25 miles—I felt like Rocky, and I did a little dance. I still tell people that spot is where I had my “Rocky moment.”
I walk a lot farther now, and I also took up bicycling again. What a joy it is after not being on a bike in 30 years!
Losing weight and maintaining it!
Through my path to weight loss, I set interim goals as I shed pounds. I wanted to get into the 240s before a friend’s wedding and to the 220s before my 40th wedding anniversary. I especially wanted to weigh less than 200 pounds by my 60th birthday. And two months before the big 6-0, I weighed in at 199.6 pounds. I was officially in ONE-derland!
A year and a half after beginning my “get healthy for life” campaign, I reached my ultimate goal of weighing 160 pounds. My total weight loss was 172 pounds, and I am now less than half the size I used to be!
Currently, I weigh 150 pounds. My blood pressure has returned to normal, and my doctor is slowly weaning me off all the medications. I went from a size 5X to an extra-large or large in blouses, and I now wear a size 10 in jeans. Never in my adult life have I been this small.
To maintain my weight, I eat breakfast again after skipping that meal for years. I eat a lot of salads for lunch. I love them with grilled chicken breast and a drizzle of low-fat dressing. Fruit is my favorite snack—I eat grapes like candy! For dinner, I usually eat whatever I prepare for my family, but I give myself a smaller portion. And fruit makes a great dessert!
I still love home-style comfort food, and I find that it’s not too tricky to swap ingredients to make dishes healthier with little or no difference in taste. I still make recipes from the Comfort Food Diet Cookbook. And I still eat out sometimes, but I make healthier choices. I look on the restaurant’s website beforehand so I can pick a wholesome dish to order and avoid less healthy options.
My active life
Now I can do anything! I can literally walk for miles. My house is cleaner, too, because I have more energy to do housework.
My grandchildren and I also have so much fun together now, because I can stay active for longer periods of time. I can’t wait to go to the amusement park with them! (That was a great motivator to lose weight.)
Counted cross-stitch is something I enjoy again, too. It’s a satisfying hobby and not just because of the lovely things I’m making. When my fingers and mind are busy, it keeps me out of the kitchen.
I can’t even name all of the differences this weight loss has made in my life. I can get a regular-sized bath towel around me after a shower. I can cross my legs. I don’t have to ask for a seat belt extender on an airplane, and I can sit in a lawn chair! I have confidence and self-esteem; I feel like a first-class citizen again.
There are no great secrets to weight loss. It’s hard work, and it takes discipline. But you will never regret the day you decided to get healthy, and that turning point will ring in your memory as a great one. By losing half of myself—178 pounds—I regained my whole life.
Pam’s favorite ways to exercise
• WALKING. I started out slow but gained so much strength and speed that I now walk for miles at a time.
• BIKING. It is low-impact, which is good for my knees and hips. I’ll ride my bike while my son runs next to me.
• DVDS. When the roads are covered with ice and snow in the winter, I use walking DVDs to stay active.
• HOUSEWORK. It may not be your favorite thing, but it keeps me moving—and I can see my progress!