Summer Barbecue Diet Tips

As the weather starts getting toward the warmer months it's never is too early to start thinking about barbecue time. A lot of times barbecues can mean over-eating and high calorie foods. Here are some suggestions so barbecue time won't mean weight gain time.

Try barbecuing chickens using herbs and lemons. Also, try roasting some grilled vegetables and offer low calorie dips for them. You can add some garbanzo beans to your hummus to get additional protein from the hummus You can use salsa, hummus, bean dip, soy cheese melted with salsa instead of high calorie other cheeses or use cottage cheese instead of sour cream. You can even grill some fruits like pineapple, plums. nectarines or mango and serve with some low-fat yogurt or ice cream. Try roasting some new types of eggplants or carrots and all types of zucchini.

With the roasted vegetables you can add them to a pasta salad. Also with the prepared roasted or tomato eggplant salad that you can buy in the deli. You just mix the eggplant with some olives and make a simple low-fat pasta salad. Also salsa can be a great low-fat addition to pasta salad.

You can make a great parfait with fruit and angle food cake and low-fat yogurt. If you use pound cake replace the fat with applesauce. You can use tofu in cake recipes or smoothie's recipes. You can replace yogurt or use cottage cheese in many high calorie dip mixes. You can make smoothies with non-fat yogurt or use some flavored tea non-fat yogurt or fruit sherbet.

Use low calorie cookies for toppings like wafers or oatmeal cookies for the ice cream topping. Read the labels and avoid buying cookies that have high fructose corn syrup. You can replace syrups topping by using fruits instead like blueberries or strawberries. All-Fruit sells is a great fruit topping..........

You can mix half of the meat with soy protein,vegetable protein, lentils, zucchini or carrots to your burgers.

You can make some great grain salad or lentil, or three bean salad using a simple vinaigrette. You can replace the chicken with tofu or you can use a mixture of both in the grain salad.

You can cut down on the calories in juice or punch by adding shelter to the punch. Also, don't use wine for drink only but in your marinades for year meats. Wine is great for your heart.

You can make a cold soup use fruits or make an easy gazpacho by blending up salad with tomatoes juice in your blender.

Make some Sun tea using flavored herbal tea bags so you can use less sugar.

You make chicken wings or salmon by marinating them in low sodium soy sauce.

If you are buying hamburger and hot dog buns try buying some whole wheat buns. Guests won't notice the difference. Try using hummus, salsa or low calorie ranch dressing instead of high calorie mayo.

For dips try to buy some baked chips or tortilla chips or make pita chips. Make the pita chips by spraying them with pan and put the pita in the oven until they are crispy. Also try to use cinnamon and sugar to make pita crisps also.

Pickles are great on hamburgers and they are very low in calories.

Don't make the meat the center of the plate or dish. Make sure you add veggies to balance your plate.

You can mustard and vinaigrette for potatoes salad. You can add some apples to chicken salad or string beans to potatoes salad to add some vegetables to the dish. Curry is very good for you. You can make a great chicken salad using curry and yogurt. You can even use this marinade for your chicken on the grill.

I know that is going to be a great summer barbecue season. With these tips you will still enjoy a great meal with the worry about the scale.