Diet tips for the New Year

AUSTIN (KXAN) - With many looking to fulfill their New Year's resolutions with diet fads that will quickly fade, some simple steps in the grocery store can help you continue to lose the battle of the bulge.

The main tip is to read the ingredient labels, instead of trusting the front advertisements.

"My husband counts calories some, so he does read the labels," said Jill Zamen. "And he's lost several pounds, just reading the labels and counting calories."

"Absolutely I pay attention to the labels. You want to make sure there are no additives or chemicals and try to avoid as much as you can," said Doug Lowrie.

The regular Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter in some grocery stores has a fat content of 16 grams, with 6 grams of carbohydrates. The advertised "reduced fat" Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter has 13 grams of fat, and the 3 grams of fat lost for flavor, is replaced with extra processed sugars adding to 14 grams of carbohydrates, more than double the sugar in the regular version.

It also has more ingredients that the regular version.

"Go for the shorter ingredient list to the degree that there are no ingredient list, that's the best option," said registered dietician Deirdre Earls.

Earls has been a registered dietician for more than 20 years . She also has written a book about the power of non-processed foods, and how it's helped her fight psoriasis.

"Just like diesel fuel. If I put diesel into a car that requires unleaded fuel, you can't expect that engine to do well and the same goes for our body," she said.

She said to go for the items with the least, or no extra ingredients. Items like fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, beans and lentils are ideal.

"Eating these things that don't have an ingredient list, these are very inexpensive compared to buying processed foods," she said.

And in the long run, she said they can be better for your body and help you win the battle of the bulge. Earls claims, with any kind of "diet," that also means "cheating."

"My personal experience and my clinical experience is that for the vast majority of people, following a healthy diet perfectly is not required to get perfect results," she said.

Meaning, processed foods are not always a complete threat to a diet. However, continue to monitor the labels.

For instance, just because yogurt is good for you, be careful eating yogurt with fruit on the bottom. Check the sugar content on the back, because some of that fruit is actually just fructose, or simple sugar. Instead, buy plain yogurt and mix it with fresh fruit.

And on items like bacon, beware of turkey products. Some turkey bacon can have a negligible amounts of fat, but even more additives and sodium than regular pork bacon.

"Bacon obviously isn't an ideal choice in a diet, but bacon is the kind of thing that can obviously get people to eat more salad," Earls said. "So, when you weigh the perspective of trying to get people to eat more vegetables, trying to get people to eat more fruits, sometimes you have to find where they are and find ways to get them to like these things [and] that may mean including things in their diet that are still not ideal."