Gravies and sauces that often accompany meat dishes are full of extra salt and butter. Skip the gravy and stick with pepper and a dash of salt to season your meat dishes so you can save those calories and ward off excess pounds.

Italian dishes offer a wide array of garnishes and sauces. Marinara sauce makes a great spread for breads, plus a great topper for pastas, while being virtually fat-free and chock-full of veggies. However, like ketchup, this tomato-based condiment can pack added sugar, so be careful to check labels. On the other end of the spectrum, we have alfredo sauce -- which is far from amore if you're watching your weight. Cream and butter make the base of this sauce, with salty parmesan and other cheeses to add flavor. That makes for a calorie-busting dish that'll cost you up to 1,000 calories and 1,500 mg of sodium at some restaurants.

Pesto makes for a good choice when eating Italian, but it, too, can be high in fat and sodium. This herbaceous sauce is olive oil-based, so while it's high in "good" monounsaturated fat, it's still fat. And again, that cheese adds a few salt grams to a pesto-based dish, so go easy.