Don't go overboard with dinner. Most people have a bad tendency to skip lunch and then pig out with dinner. Remember to take it easy, and keep your calories in mind.

Chicken Fajita

One of my favorite nights is chicken fajita night (yeah, I don't get out much).

• 4 oz of chicken breast (120 cal)
• One flour or spinach tortilla (100 cal)
• 1/2 oz cheese - preferably mozarella (40 cal)
• diced onions, peppers, tomatos (to taste - a few cals)
• As much lettuce and/or spinach as you can stuff in it (a few cals)
• Salsa (a few cals)

Pasta

You can still have your pasta - just make sure to get whole-grain pasta, or my favorite: spinach pasta. Watch the calories! Even whole-grain pasta has 200 calories per cup (cooked). Try this for a tasty dinner:

• 1/2 cup cooked whole-grain pasta or spinach pasta (100 cal)
• 2 ounces of ground turkey breast (60 cal)
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce & garlic (20 cal)

Serve with a side salad (low fat dressing, of course) and 1 small dinner roll (whole wheat).

Salad

Don't overlook having a big salad for dinner. See my entry in the lunches section for tips on salads.

Baked Salmon

This is probably, hands-down, my favorite dinner. I love salmon. Salmon is loaded with Omega 3 fatty acid which is great. There are only two problems with salmon: one, it has a lot of calories (60 cal per oz, as opposed to 30 cal per oz for chicken or turkey). Second, farmed salmon has been shown to have high concentrations of toxic chemicals like murcury. Try to get fresh ocean salmon if you can. It's more expensive, but worth it. I try to have fish twice a week - salmon once a week.

All you need to make up an awesome grilled salmon is a little lemon juice. Stick that salmon in some tin foil with a little seasoning (I like garlic, maybe a little paprika) and squirt in a healthy amount of lemon juice. Stuff that baby in the oven until done (I suggest 400 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes). You'll know it's done when the meat is flaky, not mushy.

• 6 oz baked salmon (360 cal)
• 1/2 cup brown rice (80 cal)
• side salad

You can serve the salmon over the rice, or just put the rice on the side. Or, if you want to save some calories, just forget the rice and put the salmon right on your salad!

Frozen Dinners

There are a lot of great frozen dinners on the market now that are really inexpensive, and good for you. I personally buy dinners from such brands as Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice, and even Weight Watchers. I don't usually care about the brands - but I do look for the ones that are on sale. Sometimes these meals can run for $4 or $5 each, but if you catch them on sale, you can usually get them 2 for $5 or better.

Look for a frozen dinner that has between 200 and 400 calories. Mix it up - go for some variety. Also, keep an eye on the saturated fat content. Make sure there isn't too much. Look for a ratio of 1/4 for the saturated to total fat content (in other words, if it has 4 grams of fat, no more than 1 gram should be saturated).

Mediterranean Lemon Chicken

1 lemon
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (4-6oz ea.)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

2. Grate the peel from 1/2 the lemon, squeeze out the juice (about 1/4 cup) and add to peel with the oregano, garlic, oil, salt and pepper. Stir until mixed.

3. Coat chicken with the lemon mixture and arrange in the baking dish. Cover dish and bake for 20 minutes. Turn and baste chicken.

4. Reduce heat to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) and bake uncovered, basting every 10 minutes, for about 30 more minutes.

Baked Haddock

8 oz haddock filet - broiled or gilled with lemon, garlic, and pepper
Serve with a baked potato, 1/2 a tbsp of fat-free sour cream
Mixed vegetables (such as brocolli and carrots)
Side caesar salad (few croutons, easy on the cheese, and dressing on the side)

Japaneese Dining

I personally love eating at Japaneese restaurants. Now, you need to watch out for some fatty foods like the fried rice (evil... it's awesome, but it's fatty. Stay away from it). Here's what I eat...

• One roll of sushi (a single 6-pc roll is about 150 calories)
• One piece of sashimi
• Miso soup
• Seaweed salad

Excellent small dinner or lunch meal. Good sources of protein and carbs. Get a fatty fish like salmon for your essential Omega 3.

Sloppy Turkey Joe

One can of "Sloppy Joe" sauce. One pound of ground turkey. Season to taste. Cook it up and slap it on a whole-wheat bun. This should feed four people. Believe it or not, it tastes great... once the turkey is seasoned by the Joe sauce, you can't even tell it's turkey... and it's a lot lighter in calories... no oil dripping out from the bun. You can also toss some lettuce, tomato, or fat-free cheese in.

Chicken Souvlaki

I'll be honest, the best chicken souvlaki is out in the Greek restaurants. I don't even try to make it at home. Here are some tips... (1) Always get the oil on the side, and only add about a tablespoon (remember, it has about 100 calories per Tbsp).  (2) If you have your choice, get the Greek potatos instead of fries (or even get a baked potato if they offer it).  (3) Tell them lite on the feta cheese unless they have fat-free feta available. Even ask for the cheese on the side and add 1 oz only.

Subway

No, I'm not Jared - and no, I'm not getting paid to endorse them, but Subway is my choice if I'm out-and-about and need to stop for fast food. They have a wide variety of excellent subs available. My personal favorite is the grilled chicken breast sub. No mayo! Just a little bit of oil. Load up on all the veggies you want! Oh... and in case it wasn't obvious to you... I'm talking about eating a SIX INCH sub, not the foot-long! Subway always has a little brochure with all of the nutritional info on it. Just make sure you realize that some of the subs don't include cheese in the calorie counts... yet others do. Like the steak & cheese sub includes cheese. Most of the cold subs don't. They're still good though!

Steak Dinner

OK, OK, OK... you've eaten good all week and you want to treat yourself to a steak dinner. That's fine. You can do it once in a while. Here's what you do... for two people, you can get yourself an 8 to 10 oz steak. Get the leanest cut steak you can find (ask the butcher what he's got). Trim off all of the visible fat.

Now, we learned this trick from Alton Brown on Food Network's "Good Eats" show... turn your oven on real hot at 450 degrees with a thick, cast-iron pan in it, heating up. Once it's good and hot, put the steak on it to sear each side for 30 seconds. Now, bring the oven down to 350 and cook the steak for 3 minutes. Flip. Cook the other side for 3 minutes. You're done! That's it. Serve with a little bit of Jim Beam steak sauce (my personal favorite).

You may need to adjust the cook time a little more or less depending on how you like your steak done. Personally, I like my steak medium to medium-rare. When you cook a steak well done, you damage the protein in it. Your body actually likes the meat in it's rare state (of course, make sure you get good beef so you don't have to worry about germs).

Serve with a 6-oz baked potato (or a sweet potato) and some greens (brocolli, green beans, etc). You can even cook up some mushrooms if you want. The mushrooms don't have a lot of calories... but what you fry them up in might! Use a low-calorie oil or a small dab of butter.

So as you can see, you can have an excellent steak dinner without busting your gut with calories. Beef has 60 cal per oz... so a 5 oz cut of steak is 300 calories. Your baked potato is about 200 cal for a 6oz tater. Your greens should be about 50 cal. Your whole dinner even if you splurge with a little butter or sour cream should be under 800 calories... and that's not bad to do once a week at the most!

Remember, if you're on a low-calorie diet, you need to eat lite until you get down to where you want to be. Then you can eat healthy dinners like this more often. Yes, this is suprisingly a healthy dinner - especially if you get grass-fed beef! The potato and greens are great for you. The beef is an excellent source of protein... it's just the added saturated fat that's in beef that you want to cut back on.

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