Celebrity Tricks and Tips for Healthy Eating

What works for Julia Roberts, Sela Ward and Matt Damon?

Lawrence Olivier is said to have eaten an apple and a bit of pungent blue cheese for lunch each day to maintain his weight. Why? The stronger the flavor of food, the more satisfied he felt. Lord Larry knew what he was doing -- highly flavored foods are one of my favorite ways to make a meal exciting and enticing, but not fattening. At my company, Diet Designs, we've taught many Hollywood stars easy tricks and tips for planning meals packed with taste, not calories. But you don't have to be invited to the Oscars to use these simple secrets.

• Let our "recipe doctor" help you
• Get jazzed for jogging, or wild for walking
• When snacks attack!

Pump Up the Flavor!

Call it the Olivier Principle. Satisfy yourself with flavor-rich foods, and you'll eat less and enjoy it more.

• Roasted garlic makes an amazing spread and a fragrant addition to sauces and soups -- it's a big hit with Julia Roberts. Just preheat the oven to 450, place the whole unpeeled head in a baking dish, and roast it for half an hour. You can put it on bread or rolls, in soups, spice up chicken with it, or spread it on sandwiches instead of mayonnaise.
• Use multiple varieties of mustard as an alternative to mayo, butter, and heavy dips for sandwiches, crackers, and hors d'oeuvres. Go crazy with mustards: three-grain, rosemary, Dijon, try them all. Sela Ward adores mustard, and how great does she look?

Make a fabulous fresh marinara sauce with a few cans of (low-sodium!) tomatoes, sliced black olives, and lots of onion, garlic, and herbs. You can use this sauce on pastas or as a base for pizza -- Matt Damon loves it.

Sassy Substitutions

You can enjoy the "decadent" dishes you love if you substitute a few healthier ingredients.

• Sela Ward loves southern food, so we'll make a mock fried chicken. Instead of using flour, lard, and milk, then frying it, use cornmeal with yogurt, and sauté the chicken in a little corn oil. The yogurt moistens the chicken and gives it a delicious flavor.
• You don't have to give up cheese: just go light on the high-fat kinds and stick with tasty, tangy, more nutritious varieties such as feta, goat, and ricotta. Feta (one of Jennifer Aniston's favorites) is a huge flavor booster. Combine feta with spinach in phyllo dough for a yummy spinach pie. Ricotta is a good cheese to use for baking. It tastes delicious spread on a toasted English muffin with a pure fruit strawberry jam and cinnamon.
• You've probably heard of substituting applesauce for fat when baking brownies. Even better, date puree, made of dates and water, whips up a chocolaty treat Donnie Wahlberg devours. Just substitute the puree, one-to-one, for your fat. Then, use cocoa powder, which is already fat free, and mix in a little fructose instead of sugar. Voila, you have a decadent, fat-free brownie.

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