I remember my first pizza. I was on holiday in Italy and of course it was pizza and pasta for many meals. But the thing was that the pizza was nothing like you get today in many restaurants. It was not overloaded with cheese; it had lots of fresh vegetables on it. We also had a pizza takeaway where we used to live and again because the owner was Italian it was made as a traditional Italian pizza.



If you are like a lot of people you will love pizza, but here is the problem.

Can you eat just one slice or do you eat the whole pizza?

What toppings do you have on that pizza?

How many calories are you eating?

What food groups are in the pizza that you are about to eat?

How can you make the pizza healthier?

Many people are not disciplined when it comes to pizza and how much they eat of it. They see that a pizza does not look that large, maybe the size of a plate and eat it without much thought to the calories being consumed.

Let's take for our example a supreme 12" pan pizza. This is normally sliced into 8 portions. Are you ready for a reality check here?

One slice is 330 calories which means the whole pizza is 2640 calories. As you see if you are on 1400 calories that means if you eat the whole pizza in one day you are left with -1240 calories for the rest of the day. In other words you have overeaten in just one meal.

But let's continue with the facts here. I am looking at one slice only if you eat more than one slice you need to multiply it by the number of pieces eaten.

Calories 330

Calories from fat 160

Total fat 17g

% Daily Value 26%

Saturated Fat 6g

% Daily Value 30%

Cholesterol 35g

% Daily Value 12%

Sodium 850mg

% Daily Value 35%

Carbohydrates 29g

% Daily Value 10%

Dietary Fibre 2g

% Daily Value 8%

Sugar 3%

Protein 14%

When broken down like this it doesn't look too good, does it?

How do you eat pizza if you love it? You have to learn about the consequences of what you eat. You also need to decide between picking up the telephone and ordering pizza to making your own which will be healthier.

Make your own dough, and then you know exactly what goes into it. Basic dough which will make more than one pizza is a simple recipe. 16 oz strong flour/bread flour, 1 tsp yeast, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt and enough warm water to mix into dough. You can't reduce the sugar and salt as both are needed to cause the yeast to ferment but notice that you are not putting in any fat, milk powder or added extra sugar and salt.

Make your own tomato sauce, with tomato, garlic and onions. No fat or sugar needs to be added. Low calories and can be used as the basis for a tomato soup or pasta sauce.

Then load your pizza with plenty of fresh vegetables.

What about meat? Take one piece of skinless chicken and dice it, cook it with Cajun spices. You can dry fry it if you have a good frying pan. Again no fat is needed to be added.

Finally to the cheese, mix together a low fat mozzarella with Parmesan. You don't need to put on huge amounts of cheese as the cheese is there for one purpose to stop the other ingredients burning when the pizza is in the oven. Try it and see if your family prefer the home made pizza.

But what if you can't resist picking up the phone or eating a pizza in a restaurant? Is it failure because you eat badly? Not it you take responsibility for your actions. You see you need to learn what to do because it is about learning to live a healthy lifestyle.

Consequence Time

To work off the 2640 calories eaten with the pizza means 11 hours of walking. You can eat your calorie laden pizza if you want but are you prepared to walk for 11 hours? Walking burns 240 calories per hour if walked at a leisurely pace.

For many of you maybe you are thinking I don't eat a whole pizza and that is great, but how many calories are you consuming in a day? Remember all the snacks and those sugary drinks. You need approximately 1300 calories to live if you are a woman and 1600 calories for a man. That is if you are staying in bed all day and not doing anything else.

If you keep a diary and find you have overeaten with 250 calories today then you need to do at least 1 hours exercise to balance your food intake with the calories burned.

Yes you can have pizza but are you now prepared to take the consequences of your action?