"My question is this .... Occasionally, I love to have a small bowl of spaghetti, lasagna, or chicken parmesan (baked chicken, of course!)for
a meal, but for some reason, it's hard to eat without some type of bread. What can I substitute for bread - something along that "texture" - without all the calories?"

I agree with everyone else. Make up the calories at lunch and breakfast. Pour your cereal in a bowl and then put two bites back into the box. At lunch, have a sandwich and feed two bites to the dog. Ditto with snacks. At the end of the day you won't miss the two bites here and there and you will have saved 100 cals for the bread.

And you know what, if you want white flour sour dough - make up the fiber/nutrients elsewhere in the day. There is room for that once in a while too.

Or save pasta/bread for a "special" meal - Saturday night or hump day or what ever your definition of special is. Have pasta with no bread on "ordinary" nights.

Good luck and welcome and hang in there!

Denise

You know when you're thinking of a word, and it's right there on the tip of your tongue, but the harder you try to remember it, the further away it gets?

Yes, like bruschetta!

D

like bruschetta!

Why not make the bread a bigger part of the meal? Chop up some tomato, onion, peppers, a small bit of shredded parmesan, put it under the broiler. . . aparagus, spinach. . .cover the bread in vegetables.

D

Ok- this sounded too radical to me for some time, but now it really works...
I make a great salad to eat with my meals. It fills my plate and is very low calorie. MAybe you could start with 10 percent less bread than last week, adding a salad with veggies and dressing you love (check on calories) and see how you feel about that. Then maybe you'll take another small step in that direction. Now I feel so much better eating the extra veggies- I swear. You can start small, really small and see if you feel better on a bit less bread and a few more veggies.

You could always have a small whole wheat pita bread instead of a traditional bread, and use it to wipe the extra sauce from your plate, Italian-style.

Frittata is kind of bready. But I can't think of anything that's quite like the real thing.

We also have bread but spray it with olive oil and toast it for a minute. yum.

Pam

I use a whole wheat bread, and I dip it in Balsamic Vinegar.

alli

quote:

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Originally posted by Tayhudson:
I now prefer bread dipped in a little olive oil, rather than butter.


Dawn

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Dawn,

I love it this way also, and have found that by brushing the bread instead of dipping it, I still get that wonderful flavor, with less oil which means less fat and calories that I can save for something else.

Eat the bread! Just plan for it. Lori's idea is great. I now prefer bread dipped in a little olive oil, rather than butter.

If you know you're going to have pasta and bread for lunch or dinner, just try to have few starches at the other 2 meals.

I don't really believe EVERY meal has to be balanced, as long as your day or a couple of days are balanced...if you're heavy in the grains/starches one meal or one day, lighten up around it.

Dawn

WHy not a good whole grain bread...small slice of course! And instead of slathering it with butter, brush it with a tiny tiny bit of olive oil mixed with a bit of a really good balamic vinegar