Best Cookbooks for Low Calorie Dieters

The term "diet" might make many of us shudder... but so might the expanding waistline and general malaise of an unhealthy diet. The truth of the matter is, whether you're trying to lose or maintain weight, or simply adopt a healthier lifestyle, it's important to watch what you eat. Healthy eating means something different for everyone, but a big part of it for most of us is watching our calorie intake.

Luckily, there are an abundance of cookbooks for low calorie dieters that can make this process easy. You're much more likely to slip back into old habits and make unhealthy choices if you view your dieting as a chore. The alternative is to learn new, innovative ways to make your food delicious, but diet-friendly. And of course, to make sure you keep a lot of variety in it.

The Skinnytaste Cookbook is a compilation of the best recipes, nutrition facts, and advice from the popular blog, Skinnytaste. Both the blog and the cookbook have an incredible following of dieters, and for good reason—this cookbook for low calorie dieters provides all of the information you could need at both macro- and micro-diet levels, and has options for special dietary needs: recipes including vegetarian dishes, gluten free dishes, and more. And of course, the true reason for its popularity: the recipes in this cookbook are flavorful and delicious, making your healthy lifestyle not only appealing for weight loss or maintenance reasons, but for taste-based reasons as well.

Many of us probably associate Betty Crocker most strongly with fattening, sugary cake and muffin mixes. And of course, those are delicious! But that's not all Betty Crocker has to offer: the 300 Calorie Cookbook contains 300 recipes at, as you might expect, 300 calories each. This incredible variety of interesting, tasty dishes will help you maintain a healthy, low-calorie diet without getting bored of eating the same old rabbit food every day. It even has recipes for fitting favorite dishes like pizza into your low calorie diet, so you don't have forego anything.

Enjoy a wide range of dishes that your waistline and tastebuds will both love, from Shepherd's Pie to pizza to tacos, with none of the guilt or health concerns.

Even when you're on a diet, you want to make sure to keep a lot of variety in your life—no one thrives on salad alone. So it's a good thing there are so many different cookbooks for low calorie dieters, because you wouldn't want to get bored with your food and find yourself slipping out of your healthy lifestyle.

As one of the best healthy cookbooks of 2018, Cooking that Counts helps you plan every meal to suit your lifestyle, with recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks that you can mix and match, and create your perfect meal plan—all within a daily range of 1200-1500 calories, balanced in 300, 400, and 500-calorie meals and 150-calorie snacks.

Anyone familiar with cooking and living a healthy lifestyle is probably familiar with the popular publication Better Homes and Gardens. And of course, they have compiled many of their best recipes into one incredible cookbook for low calorie dieters. With over 400 recipes, The Ultimate Low Calorie Book is an amazing option for any special diet needs. Not only do they offer an incredible volume of recipes, but they also provide tips and tricks for substituting ingredients to make sure your recipes reflect your individual diet needs, preferences, and values. So it's easy to eat well, every day of the year, without getting bored with your low calorie food.

While The Negative Calorie Diet can't actually remove calories from your day, it is one of the most effective cookbooks for low calorie dieters. The premise is simple: by cooking with certain healthy, whole foods, you can easily keep yourself full and satisfied, while cutting out some major calories. It's weight loss made extremely simple, and is one of the top cookbooks for beginners.

When author Rocco Dispirito says "10 all you can eat foods," he is not telling you that there are only 10 foods you should be eating, or only 10 foods in this cookbook. In fact, there are over 75 different delicious recipes. The point is not to limit the foods you eat, but to use natural, healthy ingredients to eat smart, rather than just eating less.

The 300-calorie meal is a popular goal for many dieters—by keeping your main meals under 300 calories each, you leave plenty of room for healthy snacking, so you can stay full and content throughout the day. Hungry Girl provides 300 different options for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and more. And these recipes aren't just for expert cooks, or those with tons of time to spend in the kitchen: many of these meals are simple, 3-ingredient dishes that will satisfy on the run. There are also easy, toss-it-in-a-pot kinds of dishes, and some more intensive ones for the days when you're feeling adventurous. Whatever your food preferences, Hungry Girl will have plenty of options to keep your diet low calorie and interesting.

When you're trying to lose weight, it can feel like all you think about is food. And that can be exhausting. But with cookbooks for low calorie dieters like Cooking Light's Mix & Match Low Calorie Cookbook, it's actually pretty easy. This cookbook doesn't just offer low calorie recipes (although of course it does that)—it also helps you choose your meal plans for balanced, 1500 calorie days that leave you feeling full and satisfied, without the stress and time of trying to make a healthy meal plan from scratch. It has recipes for all your needs and preferences, including reasonable portions of many of your favorite foods, so you don't have to deprive yourself in order to lose weight.

One of the hardest parts of dieting is foregoing the wonderful comfort foods that are usually so high in calories. But there's no rule that says we shouldn't be able to eat those home-cooked, warm-you-from-the-inside kinds of comfort foods. We just have to find the balance between healthy and hearty.

From Mama's Table to Mine: Everybody's Favorite Comfort Foods at 350 Calories or Less is not your average cookbook. Author Bobby Deen gets the way people think about food, and offers healthy tricks and tips to making all your favorite foods diet-friendly. So you don't have to pine for your favorite foods—you just have to make it with a healthier, more diet-friendly twist.

Another of Rocco Dispirito's cookbooks for low calorie dieters, Now Eat This! also offers tons of healthy tricks for fitting your favorite comfort foods into your low calorie diet. With over 150 recipes, this cookbook isn't asking you to skip any of your favorites: you can have friend chicken, mac and cheese, even brownies... proving that dieting doesn't have to be torture.

Instead of cutting out all the most delicious foods, this cookbook will help you cut out the bad parts of those foods—the simple carbs, the saturated fats, the bad sugars. Instead, you'll use healthy ingredients in proper balance to make delicious, nutritious meals.

If you want to lose weight and stay sane, you've just gotta have a slow cooker. With a slow cooker, you can make incredibly rich, delicious meals with almost no effort or time at all, freeing you up to enjoy your life, and not feel like a slave to your diet.

Slender Slow Cooker Cookbook has many incredible recipes to help you do this, including hearty soups and stews that are kind to your waistline. So for the dieter on the go, or if you're looking for a change of pace, make sure you break out the slow cooker and try out some of these easy, delicious recipes. It really is one of the must have slow cooker cookbooks out there.