Our Favorite “Better For You” Food Swaps

Hello Runners!

We don’t pretend to be nutritionists here at IBX Running but we do have some experience trying to improve our diet over the years. We thought it would be fun to create a post about our favorite “better-for-you” substitutes for common foods.

Most importantly, please let us know if you have found great substitutes as well. We would love to try them out and report back on them!!

0 Carb Tortillas

Rating: Just as good as the real thing

If you are a flour tortilla fan, you have to try the La Banderita Carb Counter Zero Net Carb Flour Tortillas. Not only are they zero carbs, but they have ~60% of the calories as the regular ones. I’m not sure how they make them so chewy and delicious, but we have completely swapped out regular tortillas for these “better for you” alternatives.

Low Fat Greek Yogurt + Truffle Seasoning

Rating: Almost Perfect

We are HUGE sauce people. Most things we eat are accompanied by some kind of sauce or dressing. However, most sauces and dressings add a ton of carbs or calories. And the store-bought alternatives are usually pretty poor substitutes. That’s where we discovered mixing truffle parmesan seasoning with Low Fat/Low Sugar Greek Yogurt. It takes 20 seconds to make, and the result is a thick, creamy dipping sauce perfect for potatoes, steak, vegetables, chicken, and more. The only thing holding this dip back from perfection is that it doesn’t offer the same variety as an aisle full of sauces. We are experimenting with adding hot sauce to it for additional variety!

Favorite Day Frozen Dessert

Rating: Decent substitute, but definitely not as good as the real thing

Ice cream is our favorite dessert by far. But when a pint of ice cream can have 1200+ calories in it, we can’t eat it nearly as much as we’d like to. That’s where Target’s frozen dessert brand, Favorite Day comes in. We aren’t pretending that it’s as good as real ice cream, but this frozen dessert satisfies our ice cream fix for about a third of the calories. Pro Tip: Favorite Day’s chocolate-based flavors are better than their vanilla ones.

Let us know your thoughts. We’d love to do a Part Two if you are interested!

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Vegan and Vegetarian Nutrition for Runners