A Clever Way to Make Peanut- or Almond Butter Less Fattening

Smooth or crunchy, nut butters rock

The problem with nut butters (peanut butter, almond butter, or cashew butter) is that—although they are healthy—they are also loaded with fat and calories. While the fat in many nuts and nut butters are "good fats," too much of any good thing is, well, bad.

On average, nut butters contain about 190 calories and pack a whopping 16-18 grams of fat per 2-tablespoon serving

Nut butters are also hard to spread, so we tend to use more than we think. And I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to spoon a little extra in my mouth after I've finishing spreading it. At almost 200 calories a pop, I'm not sure I can "outspin" that.

My friend Cindy Santos (who has lost a lot of weight and is now a fitness instructor—read some of her posts here), shared this little tidbit* with me:

• Mix your nut butter with berries to reduce the amount you use & to make it more spreadable  (tweet this).

I microwave frozen berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries or a mix), and then add about 1 teaspoon of unsweetened almond butter ("give it to me straight up!"). I spread on protein pancakes, or on a plain rice cake (the rice cake idea is a tip from my friend and NPC National Bikini

Competitor Laura Wang, who you will be reading about soon. The rice cake is puffy and helps fill me up).

So now you can "have your nut butters and lose weight, too."

I love tips from fit girlfriends...and I love sharing them with you. Do you have any tips on "thinning out" nut butters?

(*Cindy also just mentioned that she purees peaches or nectarines to mix with her nut butters. More cleverness.)
Onward.
~Helen