You can lose weight by eating fewer calories and by increasing your physical activity.
Reducing the amount of total fat and saturated fat that you eat is one way to limit your overall calorie intake.
However, eating fat-free or reduced-fat foods isn't always the answer to weight loss. A fat-free food is not necessarily
low in calories; in fact, it could be higher in calories because of added sugars. Calories may also be added when you eat more of
the reduced-fat or fat-free food than you would of the regular item. For example, if you eat twice as many fat-free cookies as you would
regular cookies you actually have increased your overall calorie intake. The following list of foods and their reduced-fat varieties demonstrates
that just because a product is fat-free, it doesn't mean that it is "calorie-free."
Fat-Free or Reduced Fat
Regular
Calories
Calories
Reduced-fat peanut butter,
2 T
187
Regular peanut butter , 2 T
191
Reduced-fat chocolate chip
cookies, 3 cookies (30 g)
118
Regular chocolate chip
cookies, 3 cookies (30 g)
142
Fat-free fig cookies, 2
cookies (30 g)
102
Regular fig cookies, 2
cookies (30 g)
111
Nonfat vanilla frozen
yogurt (<1% fat), 1/2 cup
100
Regular whole milk vanilla
frozen yogurt (3-4% fat), 1/2 cup
104
Light vanilla ice cream (7%
fat), 1/2 cup
111
Regular vanilla ice cream
(11% fat), 1/2 cup
133
Fat-free caramel topping, 2
T
103
Caramel topping, homemade
with butter, 2 T
103
Low-fat granola cereal,
approx. 1/2 cup (55 g)
213
Regular
granola cereal, approx. 1/2 cup (55 g)
257
Low-fat blueberry muffin, 1
small (2 1/2 inch)
131
Regular blueberry muffin, 1
small (2 1/2 inch)
138
Baked tortilla chips, 1 oz.
113
Regular tortilla chips, 1
oz.
143
Low-fat cereal bar, 1 bar
(1.3 oz.)
130
Regular
cereal bar, 1 bar (1.3 oz.)
140
Source: FDA and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Nutrient data taken from Nutrient Data System for Research, Nutrition Coordinating Center, University of Minnesota
Adapted by Editorial Staff,n July 2006
Last update, August 2008
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