I can’t tell you how many times friends have lamented that eating healthy is so difficult.

And while I agree it can be disappointing if you’re trying to retrofit a “low-fat” lifestyle into your old way of looking at food, I have found that eating healthy has changed our perspective, helping us to focus on the quality of the food we’re eating.

When you think about it, why would you want to gobble down a handful of store-bought sandwich cookies when you can savor a homemade, rich, flavorful chocolate pudding made from scratch that – don’t tell anyone! – has only a few grams of fat per serving? (Try Food Network chef Ellie Krieger’s Grandma’s Chocolate Pudding for a fabulous example. It was delicious even with fat-free milk!)

The right recipes make all the difference. Trying to make a meatloaf by just subbing ground turkey in a ground-beef-based recipe won’t work as well as a recipe combining a variety of flavors meant to mingle together.

I have found so many recipes in Cooking Light, Eating Well, and other magazines and websites, as well as cookbooks by Ellie Krieger, Cooking Light, America’s Test Kitchen, Weight Watchers, and others.  These often contain many of our old favorites and have introduced us to new types of cuisine.

Take some time to explore the wealth of recipes available. My post Tools That Work shares ideas for organizing your stash once you start clipping.

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