7 Top Swaps For Weight Loss
(Photos: Eat This, Not That!)
Batman and the Joker. Harry Potter and Voldemort. Jen and Angelina. All great dramas have a dark side and a light one, a hero and a villain. And when it comes to eating well, there’s no shortage of good guys and bad.
To help you determine which is which—and strip away up to 30 pounds or more a year, without dieting—we at Eat This, Not That! just released our annual report on the Top Swaps for Weight Loss, compliments of the all-new book Eat This, Not That! 1,247 Awesome Slimming Swaps.
The premise is simple: Choose the right grilled chicken salad and seafood pasta, and you could take in just 1,180 calories and have plenty of room for dessert. Choose the wrong ones, and suddenly you’ve consumed a whopping 2,790 calories—that’s 1,000 more calories than the average American woman should eat in an entire day. Making that swap, just once a week, would save you the equivalent of 14 pounds this year alone.
That’s the power of smart swaps. Here are the very best for rapid weight loss, so you can lose your belly and change the way you look, feel and live!
TOP SALAD SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
Chevys Fresh Mex’s Grilled Chicken Fajita Salad
1,220 calories, 90 g fat (23 g saturated), 1,480 mg sodium
EAT THIS INSTEAD
Chili’s Santa Fe Chicken Salad
700 calories, 49 g fat (9 g saturated), 1,700 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 520 calories and 41 grams of fat!
Apologies to Don McLean, but if you try to take this Chevy salad to the levy, you’ll find the levy is anything but dry—it’s actually filled with grease. The dressing alone supplies as many calories as a chicken enchilada with a side of Mexican rice, and has more sugar than two servings of Lucky Charms. And it’s a diabolical act of salad engineering that even allows these greens to support such a heavy load of cheese and tortilla chips. Chili’s version, on the other hand, relies on low-calorie, high-impact ingredients like chili peppers, pico de gallo and cilantro to amp up the flavor, and it applies tortilla strips and avocado judiciously to satisfy your taste buds without damaging your waistline. And keep that waistline toned and tight—in record time—with these essential 14 Ways to Lose Your Belly in 14 Days.
TOP BURGER SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
Five Guys’ Cheeseburger
840 calories, 55 g fat (26.5 saturated), 1,310 mg sodium
EAT THIS INSTEAD
Steak ’n Shake’s Double Steakburger with Cheese
440 calories, 25 g fat (11 g saturated), 590 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 400 calories and 30 grams of fat!
In the battle between two of America’s fastest-growing burger chains, the East Coast titan gets trounced by the scrappy Midwestern patty shack. Five Guys’ cheeseburger packs more calories than a Big Mac and 400 calories more than a bilevel cheeseburger from Steak ’n Shake. From a sheer flavor standpoint, it’s hard to argue that both places aren’t putting out burgers superior to the hamburger heavyweights (after all, they’re cooking fresh ground beef on flattops to order), but Five Guys proves fresh and healthy often have very little to do with each other.
Related: 10 Daily Habits That Blast Belly Fat
TOP PASTA SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
Romano’s Macaroni Grill’s Pasta di Mare
1,310 calories, 57 g fat (16 g saturated), 1,900 mg sodium
EAT THIS INSTEAD
Olive Garden’s Capellini Pomodoro with Grilled Shrimp
480 calories, 10.5 g fat (1 g sat fat), 1,530 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 830 calories and 46.5 grams of fat!
At Romano’s Macaroni Grill, the much-vaunted Mediterranean diet takes a real beating. While in Italian, di mare means “of the sea,” here it means “of the starch”—in fact, this dish contains 11 times more carbohydrates than protein. Olive Garden’s shrimp dish, on the other hand, packs an impressive 41 grams of protein for a solid one-to-two ratio of protein to carbs. The difference is striking: Both dishes feature pasta, shellfish, olive oil, wine, garlic and tomatoes, yet somehow Romano’s comes out with twice the calories and an inexplicable glut of saturated fat. Speaking of frighteningly fatty fish, click here to discover the shocking reason How Tilapia Is Worse Than Bacon!
TOP PIZZA SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
Pizza Hut’s Italian Sausage & Red Onion Pan Pizza (medium, 2 slices)
540 calories, 26 g fat (9 g saturated), 1,120 mg sodium
EAT THIS INSTEAD
Domino’s Artisan Italian Sausage & Pepper Trio (2 slices)
320 calories, 14 g fat (5 g saturated), 660 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 220 calories and 12 grams of fat!
Pizza Hut’s pie represents pizza’s two great pitfalls: oversized crust and fatty meat. That pushes carbs and fat to the forefront and relegates protein to a supporting role—bad strategy if you like to eat pizza regularly (who doesn’t?). Domino’s exceptional Artisan line relies on relatively thin crusts and lean toppings, and with this particular pizza, the trio of flavor-dense peppers prevents the heavier sausage from overrunning the pie. The result is one of the best pizzas in America, decadent enough to satisfy a serious pizza craving, lean enough to eat on a regular basis.
TOP CHICKEN ENTRÉE SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
California Pizza Kitchen’s Chicken Milanese
910 calories, 73 g fat (9 g saturated), 1,500 mg sodium
EAT THIS INSTEAD
Ruby Tuesday’s Chicken Fresco
352 calories, 20 g fat (N/A g saturated), 1,049 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 558 calories and 53 grams of fat!
The difference between these two meals can be only partly explained by the fact that Ruby Tuesday grills its chicken instead of frying it. California Pizza Kitchen’s dish looks like an inverted salad, after all. Where could all that fat come from? The chain doesn’t provide the data we’d need to explain it, but CPK somehow greases up its bird with 73 grams of fat—roughly four times what you’ll find in Ruby Tuesday’s dish. Make this swap twice a week and you’ll save 16+ pounds within a year. And to indulge in your favorite foods, guilt-free, choose one of these Eat This, Not That!-recommended 10 Best Junk Foods for Weight Loss.
TOP SUB SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
Quiznos’ Turkey Bacon Guacamole Sub (regular)
940 calories, 51 g fat (15 g saturated, 0.5 g trans), 2,820 mg sodium
EAT THIS INSTEAD
Subway’s Turkey & Bacon Avocado Sub (6”)
390 calories, 13 g fat (3.5 g saturated), 860 mg sodium
YOU SAVE: 550 calories and 38 grams of fat!
On the nutritional battlefield, Subway’s subs win nearly every time, and this is no exception. Quiznos’s liberal condiment policy allows for two calorie-dense spreads on this sandwich—guacamole and ranch—which combine to sabotage any shot at a light lunch. Subway’s version balances indulgence (bacon, avocado) with refreshing simplicity (no excess condiments, all of the fresh vegetables you want). Plus your heart will thank you. Subway slashed sodium from every sandwich a few years ago, minimizing the salty strain on your cardiovascular system.
TOP SMOOTHIE SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
Smoothie King’s The Hulk Chocolate (20 fl oz)
801 calories, 31 g fat, 90 g sugar
DRINK THIS INSTEAD
Jamba Juice’s Light Strawberries Wild Smoothie (28 fl oz)
280 calories, 0g fat, 54g sugar
YOU SAVE: 521 calories, 31 grams of fat and 36 grams of sugar!
The American Heart Association recommends that an adult male eat no more than 38 grams of added sugars daily. Each of these smoothies breaks through that barrier, but Smoothie King manages to blow through nearly two-and-a-half days’ worth of added sugar. Plus, liquid calories are absorbed more quickly than solid calories because the digestion process is quicker. That’s a sugar rush that will send you flying!
Related: 6 Quick & Easy Ways to Boost Your Metabolism
TOP DESSERT SWAP FOR WEIGHT LOSS
NOT THAT!
Applebee’s Triple Chocolate Meltdown
960 calories, 52 g fat (34 g saturated), 122 g carbohydrates
EAT THIS
Jack in the Box’s Chocolate Overload Cake
300 calories, 7 g fat (1.5 g saturated), 57 g carbohydrates
YOU SAVE: 660 calories and 45 grams of fat!
It’s not often we suggest that people turn to Jack in the Box for nutritional refuge, but—in a minor miracle—the West Coast behemoth has managed to produce one of the lowest-calorie chocolate treats we’ve ever come across. Skip the medium fries and order this instead and you’ll take in fewer carbs and a third fewer calories. The scariest thing about Applebee’s Chocolate Meltdown is that, despite sharing the same general makeup as the Chocolate Overload cake (look at it!), it somehow packs 15 times the saturated fat. This is what a good swap is all about: Eating the healthiest possible versions of the foods you really want to eat (burgers! pizza! chocolate cake!).
FOR 7 MORE TOP SWAPS FOR WEIGHT LOSS, CLICK HERE.
More from Eat This, Not That!
5 “Health” Foods Worse Than a Donut
THE NO-DIET WEIGHT-LOSS SOLUTION Discover the power of 1,247 slimming food swaps and drop 10, 20, 30 pounds or more! Check out the the Eat This, Not That exclusive edition, available here.
