I can’t say this enough. The big bet is calorie swaps are not going to help you lose weight, but calorie swaps can be the secret to maintenance. If you want to lose weight, cut your calories to 1000-1500 a day, and cut your carbohydrates to no more than 10 grams a feeding. Not much else works. But if you want to maintain, calorie swaps are amazing. Eat only bread or bagels or flour products plain – without butter or margarine or jam or jelly or peanut butter or cream cheese. The topping can have more calories than the bagel. The trick that makes this easier, is to only eat seasoned bagels (poppy, sesame, raisin, etc.) or French baguette is hot out of the microwave. You can get away without a topping on warm bread products. By eliminating the cream cheese on a bagel, you are eating 300 calories instead of 600. Eating only sugar-free Popsicles, sugar-free Fudgesicles and sugar-free Creamsicles instead of ice cream. Or eat only sugar-free ice cream instead of ice cream. Or don’t eat ice cream with more than 200 calories per half cup. Regular ice cream is usually 340 calories per cup. Drink only diet hot chocolate (10-25 calories per cup) in coffee, instead of 200-400 calorie per cup Starbucks creations.