Easy Food Swaps to Cut Calories Without Restriction – Based on 2000 kcal Food Plan

Despite what diet culture tells us, both from the modern-day equivalents of Almond Moms and Gym Bro Scientists, it is possible to lose fat, and even gain muscle, without restricting foods or specific macros. Even if you decide to decrease your daily calories, you can do so without restriction and achieve your goals.

During the second phase of my current health and fitness journey, I decreased my caloric intake to 2000 kcals per day by cutting over 1000 kcals per day without restriction. You may think this can’t be real, but it is! Keep reading.

The reason why I decreased my intake was because, after many months of body recomposition and a decent increase in muscle mass, I felt it was time to enter a caloric deficit to help me more quickly reach my body composition goals.

The way I did this was straightforward and painless. It was as easy as some simple food swaps. Below were the main foods I changed to help me cut roughly 1000 kcals a day from my diet. There is a good chance that you don’t regularly eat the way I do. The hope is that you will be able to use my swaps as a template to help you figure out your own.

Note: When I use the word diet in this post, I mean it as in what someone eats in a day and not in the way diet culture uses it.

Cooking Oil

Swapping cooking oil for an oil spray is probably a recommendation everyone can use. I never deep-fried food yet still managed to cut a minimum 100 kcals a day simply by swapping a cooking oil for a cooking spray when air frying, stir frying and roasting food.

Be warned: Cooking spray is not zero calorie despite what the label reads. Most people ignore the nutrition label which states it is zero calorie if you spray for about 0.25 seconds. No one uses that little of cooking spray. However, it is still much less than the 80 kcals per two teaspoons of cooking oil. And that two teaspoons tends to be much less than what a lot of people use when cooking. If you don’t like the idea of an aerosol can, then buy a reusable oil spray bottle.

Plant-Based Beverages

My daily workout smoothie includes a cup of plant-based beverage. When I reduced my calories to 2000 kcals per day, one of the changes I made to my smoothies was moving from an oat beverage to an almond beverage. My brand of choice is Earth’s Own. I use both a chocolate version and original version.

The chocolate oat version comes in at 160 kcals while the chocolate almond version is 110 kcals. The original oat version is 120 kcals while the almond original unsweetened version is a mere 35 kcals! This is a potential savings of 125 kcals per day.

I’ve already saved over 200 kcals per day simply by changing how I use oil while cooking and by changing one ingredient in my workout smoothies.

Protein Smoothies

There are a couple more changes I made to my daily smoothies to meet a 2000 kcal target. I swapped two tablespoons of hemp hearts (120 kcals) for two tablespoons of black chia seeds (80 kcals). This change reduces the protein slightly, but it does increase the fibre. The extra fibre is great for blood sugar regulation which is helpful during recovery.

I also removed two tablespoons of ground flaxseed (80 kcals) and one tablespoon of cocoa nibs (50 kcals). These changes along with the change in plant-based beverage and oil equals a 375+ kcals reduction.

Yogurt

High protein Greek yogurt is a staple ingredient in my breakfast, snacks and sometimes desserts. The swap was as simple as going from a 5% milk fat vanilla Greek yogurt at 210 kcals to 2% milk fat at 160 kcals. You don’t want to go to a 0% milk fat anything. Fat not only helps with satiety and flavour, but also hormonal regulation. Plus, study after study show that whole dairy is probably healthier than previously thought because of all the other nutrients that come along with it.

With this swap, we are now at a 425+ kcal reduction.

Hot Breakfast Cereal

I love hot cereal with fruit and Greek yogurt for breakfast. Every day, I use a different frozen fruit combination for variety.

Reducing my daily calories in my breakfast happened in a couple phases. I went from three packages of peaches and cream oatmeal at 330 kcals to one serving of plain quick oats at 150 kcals to Red River Cereal at 140 kcals. Those extra 10 calories really don’t mean anything at the end of the day. But when Red River Cereal came back to Canada, I was compelled to switch to this lifelong favourite!

Americans, I think your closest equivalent to Red River is Bob’s Red Mill 7 Grain. It contains more grains than Red River but is close in calories.

We are now at a reduction of 615+ kcals with these easy daily non-restrictive swaps.

Sugar

The final daily change was the elimination of sugar from my morning coffee. I switched to stevia extract. I can’t use any of the sugar alcohol sweeteners because they really mess with IBS.

If you’ve ever had something Keto and then suffered from extra loose stools, chances are, it’s one of the -tol sweeteners — mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, lactitol, isomalt, maltitol and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates (HSH) — that are as staple in Keto desserts. If you’ve ever developed the same loose stools with a protein powder, check the ingredients. I bet it too uses a -tol sweetener.

Word of caution: Some stevia products are cut with a -tol sweetener, xylitol is the most common culprit, so check the ingredients before you buy.

I also don’t like the taste of artificial sweeteners, so those were out. It took me a couple minutes to get used to the taste of stevia. But now if I run out of stevia and need to use sugar as a backup, I find it way too sweet, even though I use much less sugar than I did prior to this swap.

If I were to revert to my original amount of daily sugar with my morning coffee, that would be 270 kcals. Now, when it’s used as a backup, it’s 135 kcals. I have a lot of coffee in the morning!

Added sugar in drinks is a significant source of calories in a lot of people’s diets.

We are now at an 885+ kcals reduction without restrictions!

Milk

I routinely enjoy a cup of milk with dinner. I switched from homogenised milk (whole in the USA) at 160 kcals to 2% milk fat at 130 kcals. I could have switched to a plant-based beverage, but I love cow’s milk. I would have felt like something was missing, which would have made it restrictive, which is a recipe for failure.

Our running total is now a 915+ kcals per day reduction.

Ice Cream

Finally, we come to a favourite dessert: ice cream. My ice cream of choice is Chapman’s Premium The Only Chocolate ice cream at 260 kcals. I swapped this for Chapman’s Cookies and Cream frozen yogurt at 170 kcals, and friends, I hardly look back. It tastes like ice cream sandwiches!

With that, we are at a 1005+ kcal per day reduction without restriction!

If you were to look at your current diet, I bet added sugars in drinks and cooking oils are two areas in which you can easily make a swap in a way that isn’t restrictive.

Using the above as a template, what are some other ways you can make simple changes to your diet to reduce your caloric intake without changing the way you eat and without feeling like you’re missing out on something?