Cutting back on carbs is easier than you think!
If you’re asking yourself about how to cut down on carbs, you’ve come to the right place. Cutting out carbohydrates is one of the simplest and most effective ways to lose weight and control blood sugar. By cutting carbs, insulin levels are reduced, appetites are better satiated, and rapid weight loss occurs.
You might be wondering how to cut down on carbs. Carbs are in everything! Even protein-rich foods, like cheese and eggs, have trace amounts of carbs. The answer is that there are a lot of easy, effective, and healthy ways to reduce your carb intake so you can experience the benefits of a diet that is lower in carbs.
Here are 10 simple ways to answer your questions about how to cut down on carbs.
1. Cut Back on Bread
Bread is extremely high in carbohydrates and lacking in much else when it comes to nutrition, which makes it a poor choice for a healthy diet. If you must have bread, choose items lower in carbs like flatbreads, low-carb tortillas, and sandwich thins.
When eating out, go bun-less or only eat the bottom half of the bun or bread. I have even brought in my own low-carb tortillas to a Mexican restaurant to enjoy with fajitas, instead of the corn or flour tortillas offered.
If preparing food at home, there are a lot of recipes out there that provide low-carb bread substitutions such as lettuce leaves or Cloud bread. These 10 low-carb sandwich recipes are a great starting point for ideas!
2. Snack on Low-Carb Options
Sometimes hunger strikes between meals and all too often we go for that bag of chips or candy bar to hold us over. Even some choices considered to be healthy, like trail mix and granola bars, are laden with carbs!
Try having lots of low-carb snack options at the ready for those little hunger emergencies. Good options are nuts, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, deli meat, or jerky. These 15 Low-Carb Snacks On-The-Go are a good place to start for some handy low-carb snack ideas as well!
3. Cut Out Sugar
Adding sugar to sweeten foods and beverages adds an extra 12g of carbs per tablespoon. There are plenty of sweetener alternatives out there to use in place of sugar in your morning coffee or tea, as well as in baked goods.
Stevia, erythritol, xylitol, and monkfruit are all-natural sweeteners that do not raise blood sugar or affect insulin levels, so they make for excellent alternatives to sugar. Check out 7 Effortless Ways to Cut Down on Sugar for more suggestions to cut the sugar out of your diet.
Cutting out sugar is extremely difficult. The seemingly innocuous stuff is actually quite addictive. If you feel like you need a little help in this area, this 7-Day Zero Added Sugar Meal Plan could be the jump-start that you need to get past those sugar cravings.
4. Substitute Wheat Flour with Alternative Flours
Wheat flour is used in just about everything from baked goods to gravy and breading for fried foods. When thinking about how to cut carbs, substituting flours is one of the easiest swaps to make because there are a number of alternatives to wheat flours.
The most successful two of these alternatives are almond flour and coconut flour. They can be used for breading and in the making of baked goods, but the texture is not quite the same because of the lack of gluten.
There are thousands of recipes online for everything from cakes and cookies to breads and biscuits using flour alternatives. Luckily, other people have done all the legwork so all you have to do is run a search for whatever you are wanting to make, and chances are someone has developed a flourless version of it!
5. Don’t Drink Your Carbs
Carbs in sugary beverages, like fruit juices and sodas, really add up! A 12-oz can of soda has 39g of carbs alone. Orange juice is almost as bad, racking in 37g of carbs for the same 12 oz. To effectively reduce the amount of sugar in your diet, giving up these empty carbs and calories is one small, but significant, way you can.
Drink unsweetened tea or water. Carry flavored water enhancers with you as you are out and about to add to water if you like beverages with a lot of flavor, or, check out these 7 Ways to Make Your Water Taste a Whole Lot Better.
