Substituting a cup of cauliflower rice for regular brown rice accounts for a 193 calorie difference. Cauliflower has 25 calories per cup vs. 218 for a cup of cooked brown rice. Cutting a glass of orange juice with half sparkling water cuts your calorie consumption in half and you might like the mimosa-esque bubbles better.

Pick ONE eating habit to change before trying a massive overhaul of your diet. If you can’t make one incremental improvement, you are setting yourself up for failure by throwing out everything bad in your pantry and going on a restrictive diet. You’ll never be able to maintain all those changes until you are able to execute one change. It can be as simple as not eating after 8 p.m. If you can’t do that for a week, you’ll never be able to move on to portion control and maintain that change.

Our culture celebrates life events with food and there is no place that has a stronger association between celebration and food than Louisiana. Mardi Gras means King Cake. Birthday candles mean dinner at Commander’s Palace. Change the reward or celebration to an experience instead of a meal. Do King Cake Combat on Fat Tuesday instead of stuffing king cake in your mouth on the parade route. Treat your friends to a TRX small group training to celebrate a birthday instead of going to the local fried seafood restaurant. Burn calories to celebrate events instead of consuming them.

Certain people and situations trigger emotional eating. Sometimes you don’t realize that spending a day with your mother-in-law results in drinking extra glasses of wine or excessive snacking at a family function. It’s automated eating behavior – you sometimes don’t realize what is causing you to stuff more chips in your mouth when a relative criticizes you. Pay attention to what is causing you to grab for that extra plate of food or martini – it might be worth it to spend less time or avoid emotional triggers to stay healthy. And no, you can’t avoid seeing your mother-in-law forever! But you can control how you react to stressors.