A Merry Life

The Progression of Counting Calories & Thai Food

Posted: 27 Sep 2012 02:25 PM PDT

I’m obsessed with eating Thai food lately. This isn’t bad for our budget since we can get Thai food pretty cheap, but it’s not great for counting calories.

Thai green curry dinner

Here’s my progression of making Thai food (in this case Thai Green Curry) work with counting calories and losing weight:

1) No knowledge or care. In this stage Thai food was consumed with abandon and pure joy! Eaten without regards to calories or portions because IT IS SO GOOD.

2) Measuring portions. In this stage Thai food was still consumed from restaurants but a measuring cup was used to better measure out portions and achieve a better calorie estimate. Still delicious.

3) Using pre-made ingredients at home. I’ve moved into this stage now. Last night I made noodles, veggies and chicken and added a canned Thai green curry sauce. It wasn’t the best I’ve had but adding fresh ground chilli made it better and enjoyable. Also, super easy to calorie count.

4) Made at home AND healthy + delicious. This is the stage I’m moving into next. I will be buying Thai green curry paste and light coconut milk on my next grocery shopping trip. Then I’ll experiment with those ingredients until I learn how to make a dish that tastes great without as many calories as all the previous steps.

I also eat other Thai dishes but this is probably my favorite and the one I thought might be easiest for me to recreate at home.

It’s interesting to type out the progression because I’ve done this with lots of other foods so far and it’s a great way to save both money and calories. I’m thinking with some trial and error I’ll be able to find a happy substitution for eating at home with healthier ingredients like light coconut milk and maybe brown rice. We’ll see after some experimenting and looking up recipes online.

I won’t be saying goodbye to Thai food takeout or meals at restaurants though… they just won’t be as frequent. I’m also quite excited to expand my cooking skills into Asian territory. Exciting!

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