4 Women Break Their Bad Eating Habits

Slimming Down Saturated Fats

Name: Jennifer Fleece
Age: 34
Profession: Baby-bedding designer in Athens, Georgia
Height: 5'3" Weight: 125 pounds
What She Gave up: Unhealthy saturated and trans fats

Jen dolloped whipped cream in her morning coffee, snacked on packaged cookies and french fries, ate ice cream every night, and prepared home-cooked meals with saturated fats -- and lots of 'em. "I live in the South, the only culture in the world that can make green beans fattening!" says Jen. "I love to cook, but I wasn't doing myself any favors with the amount of butter, sour cream, and heavy cream I used, because heart disease runs in my family."

"On the one hand I found it easy," she says. "I replaced the whipped cream in my coffee with fat-free whipping cream and actually preferred the taste." Blatner also gave Jen healthier substitutes for her usual high-saturated-fat ingredients so she could still make her favorite recipes, such as evaporated skim milk in pudding, olive oil instead of butter in her lemon linguine, and fat-free sour cream in her beef Stroganoff. "What amazed me most is that I could barely tell the difference!" she says.

Unfortunately, Jen never did find a suitable substitute for either ice cream or cheese and ended up eating two whole boxes of fat-free cookies in one day. "I replaced one evil with another -- lotsa sugar," she admits. "I also missed cheese desperately. I love Brie on crackers, cream cheese on apples. Fat-free cheese is just, well, wrong." After her month was up, Jen continued to use the same healthy fat substitutes but admits that she'd rather eat real cheese and ice cream -- in moderation.

If you want to cut back on unhealthy fats, a food label is your best friend, says Blatner. "You don't want more than 10 percent of your daily calories to come from saturated fats, and none from trans fats," she says. In 2006, all products will have "trans fat" listed on the label, but until then, avoid products that have the words hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredients list.