Calorie Tips, Healthy Eating, Food Facts

Think Twice About That Bran Muffin

April 27, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 1 Comment

Tip 2 of “The Five” Pounds in 5 Weeks challenge:

Think about skipping the bran muffin at breakfast. Bran muffins are often thought of as “healthy”– probably because they have the word bran in their name. But they’re made with a lot of sugar and fat.

In general, a 4 ounce bran muffin has around 350 calories – but, have you seen the size of muffins? A Dunkin’ Donuts Honey Bran Raisin Muffin has 480 calories with 15 grams of fat and 79 grams of carbs. It does, however, have 5 grams of fiber.

If you really crave one, eat half and then take the steps instead of the elevator. A 150 pound person burns 91 calories for every 10 minutes of stair climbing.

The Easy Way To Lose 5 Pounds In 5 Weeks

April 26, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

“The Five” Challenge

Did you wake up this morning feeling like an extra five pounds of fat attached itself to your body — and you have no idea how it got there? Maybe there’s only four pounds if you challenged yourself to eating a bit differently and moving a bit more during Week #1.

Take “The Five” Challenge and safely lose a pound a week the easy and healthy way – and in a manner that will help you to keep the weight off.

Why Five?

We take in energy through food (calories in) and expend energy through our bodies’ metabolic processes and through activity (calories out).

About 3500 calories equals one pound of body weight so you’d have to eat around 3500 calories less than your body needs to lose one pound. Since we’re all unique, each one of us gains, loses, and processes calories at our own unique rate.

Even with our unique variations, choosing 3500 calories as a weekly target when you’re trying to lose weight is reasonable and doable. Taking in 500 calories a day less than your body needs and/or using up more calories through activity will help you to lose approximately one pound in a week (7 days x 500 calories = 3500 calories or approximately one pound). Do this for 5 weeks and you will have lost around 5 pounds.

Remember – that’s 500 FEWER calories and/or MORE activity than what you normally would eat or do.

“The Five” Challenge In A Nutshell

It’s as simple as this:

decrease your energy intake by 500 calories a day

expend 500 calories a day more than you usually do

use any combination of the two that adds up to 500 – for instance, eat 250 calories less and move around for 250 calories more than you usually do – or you could eat 350 calories less and burn 150 calories through activity.

Do this seven days a week for five weeks and you should be around five pounds lighter. Everyone is different – we all calculate calories and activity differently and everyone loses weight at a different rate. But, if you hop on the challenge you certainly will see some results and you’ll be building great new habits.

The Specifics

Every day I’ll post a calorie saving tip on EatOutEatWell.com that focuses on eating behaviors, food selection, or ways to burn calories through activity. I’ll also tweet and post the tip on Facebook, and Pinterest.
Everyone eats out — whether it’s for a snack or a meal — I want to encourage you to Eat Out and Eat Well. Many of the tips are geared toward helping you when you eat in restaurants, amusement parks, ballparks, barbecues, airports, at parties, on vacations, or at work.
When deciding which tip(s) to use, choose the ones you think will work for you and that will fit into your daily life without much difficulty or stress.
Do one thing for seven days, or for all 35 days (great for habit formation), or try something new everyday. The choice is yours, but take a chance and do something. Those “a little too tight” clothes in your closet will fit much better.
Post what you choose to do on Facebook. Also post if you’re struggling. There’s a community out there to help.

Week #1:

Tip #1: What’s your coffee (or tea) pleasure? How many cups do you drink and are they small, tall, grande, vente or extra large? What else do you put in the cup along with the coffee or tea?

Here’s some facts – use them to decide how to moderate your coffee/tea calories. The calories below are for 1 tablespoon. My guess is that most of us pour at least two to three tablespoons of milk or cream into our coffee, not just one. Add up the calories and multiply them by the number of cups of coffee or tea you have a day. It’s not at all far fetched to be drinking 500 calories of coffee or tea when it’s made with extras.

Brewed coffee, grande (16 oz), black: 5 calories
Brewed tea, (16 oz): 4 calories
Heavy cream, 1tbs: 52 calories
Half-and-half, 1 tbs: 20 calories
Whole milk, 1 tbs: 9 calories
Fat-free milk, 1 tbs: 5 calories
Table sugar, 1tbs: 49 calories
Bailey’s Irish Cream, 1.3 ounces: 121 calories

Remember to post on Facebook and to share the challenge with family, friends, and coworkers.

Is There A Way To Know When I Should Eat?

April 11, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

When should I eat? That’s the age-old question that many of us ask ourselves most days of the week! What would you say: “when I’m hungry” or maybe “when I want to”?

It’s not always an easy question to answer even though it seems like it should be intuitive. It can be, if you learn to listen to your body’s cues. You can also learn to stop, check in with yourself, and use a tool like the hunger scale to help you evaluate how hungry you really are.

Your Need For Fuel

Physical hunger is a basic survival mechanism. It lets your brain know that your body needs nourishment and energy and then prompts you to eat for fuel. We’re born with this ability; think about babies and how they cry when they need food and how they stop eating when they’re full.

But many of us eat so frequently that we never get to the point of letting our bodies knock on the door to tell us that they’re hungry and really need to be fed. We just eat.

Those of us who struggle with our weight might not even know – or remember – what hunger feels like. If you eat just to eat – rather than in response to hunger cues — you can become disconnected from the signals that let you know when you’re actually hungry and when you’re full.

The Hunger Scale

There’s a hunger scale you can use to help identify how hungry you are and when it’s reasonable to eat. The scale goes from 1 to 10 with 1 being ravenous and 10 being so full that you feel sick.

The Scale:

You’re ravenous and too hungry to give a hoot about what you eat
You’re starving and absolutely must eat immediately because you’re irritable, cranky, and have no energy
You’re hungry and the urge to eat is strong
Your hunger pangs are signaling the first signs of hunger; you’re a little hungry
You’re satisfied – not hungry but not full and you’re not aware of food in your stomach
You’re fully satisfied and are aware of food in your stomach
You’re very full, your stomach feels stretched, and you’re past the point of satisfaction but can still find room for more
You’re uncomfortable because your stomach is too full and you really wish you hadn’t had those last few bites
You’re stuffed, very uncomfortable, and your clothes feel very tight – that belt buckle or snap on your jeans doesn’t stand a chance
You’re beyond full and feel sick, miserable, and you don’t want to move

Calorie Savers

Try asking yourself, “What number am I at?”

If you’re above a number 5 you’re not physically hungry and something else is triggering your eating.
If you’re at number 4 you can wait to eat or eat a little bit.
If you’re at a 3 – it could go to 2 — it’s a good time to heat – have you noticed that food tastes pretty good when you’re hungry?
If you’re at number 1 you really need to eat — but pay attention to what you’re doing. When you’re starving you don’t care too much about what or how much you eat – and usually end up shoveling food in as quickly as possible – which can result in overeating (pigging out) and ending up at a 7 and up.
You should generally stop eating if you’re at a 6, sometimes a 7.
Gauge your hunger. If you’re only a little hungry, only eat a little. Preventive eating – or eating because you might be hungry in a little while – can cause you to pack in a lot of calories.

You’ll be able to find 49 more calorie saving tips in my soon to be released book. Sign up in the box on the right to be notified by email when it becomes available and get your free copy of “How To Decode A Restaurant Menu’s Words And Phrases” as a bonus.

Is It Your Head Or Your Stomach That’s Saying “Feed Me”?

April 9, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

“I’ve got to have a donut—the kind with chocolate icing and sprinkles.” “I really, really want some crispy, salty French fries and a strawberry shake.” But, are you really hungry or is it your head that’s yapping at you?

Your head can be very proficient at ringing the mindless eating bell. It’s often the culprit when you find yourself eating even though your body isn’t physically hungry. For instance, it’s not unusual to eat in response to a learned behavior. Does your head tell your body to eat everyday at noontime — whether or not your body actually needs food?

What’s Head Hunger?

Head hunger comes on suddenly. Does this sound familiar: you’re not hungry – and then all of a sudden you absolutely must have a candy bar or a slice of pizza, or a warm and gooey chocolate chip cookie.

Head hunger might appear as a craving, or when you find yourself mindlessly munching, or when you eat in response to triggers – and you’ve not stopped for a second to ask yourself if you’re really hungry (or maybe you have and decided to ignore the answer).

Head hunger can happen at any time — with no physical symptoms — and might be triggered by time cues and sensory triggers, like smell, taste, or texture. Obsessing about food, certain habits (like watching TV, working on the computer, or driving), and emotional or personal triggers can all make you think that you’re hungry when you really aren’t.

What Does A Growling Stomach Mean?

Physical hunger, or stomach hunger, comes on slowly and usually happens two to four hours after you’ve last eaten. With true physical hunger you might have an empty or growling stomach, lightheadedness, hand tremors, fatigue, or a headache. It’s your body’s way of telling you that it needs fuel and it’s time to eat. Depending upon how truly physically hungry you are you can be satisfied with almost anything – unlike the cravings for sugar, salt, fat that frequently ring the head hunger bell.

Calorie Savers

Head hunger will eventually go away if you ignore it. Your body isn’t telling you it needs food for sustenance. It’s your head talking to you, and sometimes it’s doing so in quite a loud voice.

Try to put off shoving some food into your mouth by distracting yourself and not engaging in conversation with your head hunger. It usually goes away if you divert your attention. Often a cup of tea or coffee or a glass of water will do the trick, too.

If your hunger is really screaming at you it might be tough to ignore. Ask yourself when you last ate. If it’s been three to four hours you might actually be physically hungry and not just head hungry. Have something to eat!

This post is a selection from my upcoming book about 50 easy ways to save calories.

Do You Make 2, 20, Or 200 Food Decisions Every Day?

April 4, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 1 Comment

How many times a day do you think about food? How many times a day do you make a food choice? How do your environment and surroundings influence those decisions?

People grossly underestimate how many daily food related decisions they make – not by a little but by an average of more than 221 decisions.

And, most people are either unaware of how their environment influences their decisions — or they’re unwilling to acknowledge it.

Who, What, Where, When, And How Much

In one study The Cornell Food and Brand Lab asked 139 people to estimate how many decisions they make about food and beverages during one day. Then they were specifically asked how many “who, what, where, when, and how much” decisions they made for a typical snack, beverage, and meal – and how many meals, snacks, and beverages they ate during a typical date.

14.4 VS. 226.7 Decisions

The researchers then created an index to help them estimate the number of total decisions made daily. On average, people guessed they made 14.4 food related decisions each day. Amazingly, the researchers estimated that the average person in the study made 226.7 food related decisions each day. Obese people who participated in the study made 100+ more food related decisions than overweight people.

Bowls, Plates, And Packages

Another study of 379 people analyzed the effect of environmental factors like package size, serving bowl size, and plate size on how much they ate. Half of the people were assigned to what was called “exaggerated treatment” – they had larger packages, bowls, and plates than the other half of the people in the study. On average, 73% of the people who received “exaggerated treatment” thought they ate as much as they normally would – except they actually ate 31% more than the people who ate from the regular size packages, plates, and bowls.

When they were told how much more they ate and then were asked why they thought they might have eaten more:

8% admitted they might have eaten more
21% said they didn’t eat more
69% said that if they did eat more it was because they were hungry
Only 4% believed they had eaten more because of the larger sizes that acted as environmental cues.

Of the 200+ food related decisions you make each day, how many of them are heavily influenced by environmental factors like the size of food packaging and the bowls and plates you use for your food?

Can you save yourself some calories by paying attention to your food choices and decisions and by “sizing down” your bowls and plates?