Simple Ways to Work Pizza into Your Diet
Are you trying to watch your weight or modify your diet somehow to make it healthier? If so, you are likely cutting way back on favorite foods, but you don't have to be so restrictive if you get a little creative. There are quite a few food hacks you can use to make foods like pizza a regular part of your diet without causing your goals to wither. In fact, pizza is one of the easiest foods to fit into your healthy lifestyle.
Blot the Pizza
Get those napkins and blot excess grease off your pizza. Labdoor magazine found that, by blotting excess grease off a slice of pizza (in their experiment, they used pepperoni pizza from a well-known delivery service), you could shave about 40.5 calories off each slice (you're reducing the "calories from fat" from 117 to 76.5 per slice). If you were to eat an average amount of pizza per year -- that's 23 pounds per the same Labdoor infographic -- you could eat the same physical amount of pizza but have the caloric intake of someone who had eaten 20.4 fewer slices.
Less Cheese, More Veggies, Thinner Crust
You can also modify what the pizza is like to make it healthier. Get a thinner crust to reduce calories from bread and to keep your carbohydrate intake under control (even if you're not limiting carbs for your diet, there's a daily range you should strive to stay in, in general). Ask for a lighter layer of cheese; really, it will end up just as tasty and stretchy as a regular layer. Also, pile on the veggie and fruit toppings. Pile on pumpkin, bell peppers, olives, extra tomatoes—you name it—for more fiber and vitamins.
Taking Portion Control into Your Own Hands (Literally)
A lot of pizza that you buy is huge. Really huge. As in, "must fold the slice to fit even a small part of it in your mouth" huge. And if you want a couple of slices of different flavors, like plain cheese and a vegetable-lover's combo, for example, you end up with two huge slices.
Instead, go with a friend, order two slices, and then cut each slice in half. You'll both have two decently sized slices of the different flavors you wanted, but you'll be ingesting the calories of one slice.
Pizza is something you can easily change up and customize, and most pizza places will be willing to help you out. Call a local pizza parlor like UNO Pizzeria & Grill to see what options they have on the menu.
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