
A calorie is a calorie is a calorie whether it comes from fat or
carbohydrate. Anything eaten in excess can lead to weight gain. You can lose
weight by eating less calories and by increasing your physical activity.
Reducing the amount of fat and saturated fat that you eat is one easy way to
limit your overall calorie intake. However, eating fat-free or reduced-fat
foods isn't always the answer to weight loss. This is especially true when you
eat more of the reduced fat food than you would of the regular item. For
example, if you eat twice as many fat-free cookies you have actually increased
your overall calorie intake. The following list of foods and their reduced fat
varieties will show you that just because a product is fat-free, it doesn't
mean that it is "calorie-free." And, calories do count!
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 |
Lowfat granola cereal, approx. 1/2
cup (55 g) |
213 |
Regular granola cereal, approx.
1/2 cup (55 g) |
257 |
Lowfat 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 |
Lowfat cereal bar, 1 bar (1.3
oz.) |
130 |
Regular cereal bar, 1 bar (1.3
oz.) |
140 |
|
Nutrient data taken from Nutrient Data System for Research,
Version v4.02/30, Nutrition Coordinating Center, University of
Minnesota.

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