Eat Out Eat Well

Eating on the Job

Why Not A Non-Fat Caffe Latte?

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Valley Of Fatigue

When I was a kid there was a commercial on TV for Welch’s Grape Juice.  The gist of the commercial was that when you hit your 3 or 4PM energy drain – or what they called the “valley of fatigue” — a nice glass of Welch’s grape juice would help you climb right out of the bottom of that valley.

Of course, an 8 oz glass of the purple juice with 170 calories, and 42 grams of carbohydrates (40 of which are sugars), will certainly give you a pop of energy.  However, since it’s all sugar, that immediate blood sugar spike will quickly turn into a dropping blood sugar – leaving you with less energy – and probably crankier – than before.

Here’s A Better Choice

How about a non-fat skim caffe latte instead.  You could be at a mall, in a train station, an airport, sitting at your desk, or walking down the street.  There’s a Starbuck’s or a Dunkin’ Donuts, or a zillion other coffee shops if not right in front of you, then most likely around the next corner or down the road apiece.

Why Is A Non-Fat Skim A Good Idea?

Three reasons — maybe there are more, but here are three good ones:

  • Easy to find – coffee shops are everywhere
  • It’s a finite size – you ask for a certain size, you get it, you drink it and then it’s gone (unlike the rest of the cookies remaining in the box that will continue to tempt you)
  • You get a nice satisfying, long-lasting, and portable hot drink to sip with a good amount of protein and no fat; whether it’s caffeinated or decaffeinated is your choice

Nutritional Stats For a Non-Fat Caffe Latte

Starbucks’ Non-Fat Caffe Latte (espresso and non-fat milk)

  • Tall (12 oz):  100 calories, 10 grams of protein
  • Grande (16 oz):  130 calories, 13 grams protein
  • Venti (20 oz):  170 calories, 16 grams protein

Note:  Try to avoid flavored lattes which add (in sugars) 50 calories to the tall, 70 calories to the grande, and 80 calories to the venti and drops the protein count for each by a gram.

Sometimes It’s Important To Eat Cake

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. . . And Enjoy Every Bit Of It

We celebrated my Mom’s 90th birthday this past weekend.  Actually, she has three birthdays – the one on her birth certificate and driver’s license (yes, she still drives), one on her baptismal certificate, and a third that doesn’t appear on anything other than innumerable birthday cards. No explanation for this.

As you can see above, my Mom’s name is Virginia.  This is notable because she is one of thirteen children – and the other 12 all have names like Mary, Helen, and John.  Why Virginia?  “I’m named after the undertaker’s wife,” she said.  Thanks, Mom.  Any other strange bits of trivia hanging around the family tree?

Mom wanted to celebrate her birthday at her family’s annual reunion – with her six living siblings and lots of other family.  Okay, doesn’t everyone drive 3 and ½ hours for lunch?  Off we went with a couple of surprise “picture” cakes hidden in the trunk of the car.

And a surprise it was.   She was delighted – and it showed.  And it was so worth the searching through boxes of pictures, picking up the cakes, and the drive.

Sometimes Celebrations Outweigh The Calories

We eat cake for lots of reasons.  It just may taste delicious.  Maybe it’s your favorite food.  Or, maybe you avoid it like the plague because of calories, fat, sugar, and white flour.  All legitimate reasons if they’re your reasons.

But, there are times when celebrations are important, really important – weddings, baptisms, engagements, holidays, and birthdays, to name a few.  Even funerals and memorial services are often followed by food — and cake — because food is a way of bringing together friends and family.

What’s So Important About The Cake?

Special celebration cakes are designed, made, ordered, and eaten with love.  Sometimes they taste good, sometimes they don’t.  Sometimes “diets” get in the way of the meaning of the cake. Sometimes the regimentation of an eating plan gets in the way of the reason for a celebration.

Sometimes cakes are just cakes – like the ones that sit in the multi-shelved dessert display at the diner.  Those are not celebration cakes.  But the lopsided one that your child makes for you on Mother’s Day, or the multi-tiered one at your or your child’s wedding, or the one for your Mom’s 90th birthday are very special.

So have a small piece (or a big one if you want) – or eat only a couple of  forkfuls.   Or, if you’re like my cousin, gleefully eat the corner piece (of a rectangular cake) because it has the most icing.

How would you feel if it’s your birthday or wedding and you hand some of your special cake to a friend who says, “No thanks, I’m on a diet”?

Sometimes it’s important to eat cake.

Do You Eat Because You Are Hungry?

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Coney Island Boardwalk, Brooklyn, NY

Are You Really Hungry?

It’s summertime and the living is easy.  Picnics, barbecues, a sandwich at the beach are often the order of the day. And what about the ice cream cone, the beer with the burger, the peach pie, and the toasted almond from the Good Humor truck?  Vacation often means sun, sand, and eating – whenever. Living is easy, unstructured, and calorically dangerous.
Vacations and free and easy summer days spawn classic scenarios for mindless versus mindful eating.  Mindless eating often happens when there is no “structure” and a lack planning – when you give into “head hunger” as opposed to actual physical hunger.  When you’re faced with groaning buffet tables, holiday spreads with food on every flat surface, and endless passed hors d’oeuvres at an outdoor wedding, do you have a clue about how much – or even what — you have popped in your mouth?

Why Do You Mindlessly Eat?

Hunger doesn’t prompt most people to overeat. Instead, overeating situations are usually created by family, friends, plate size, packaging, lighting, candles, smells, distractions, environments, and feelings.  According to the Mindless Eating website, two studies show that the average person makes about 250 food decisions every day – like deciding between white or whole wheat; sandwich or salad; grilled chicken or tuna; half or whole; kitchen table or chair in front of the TV.  That’s about 250 daily opportunities to be mindful or mindless.

What’s Different About Mindful Eating?

Mindful eating means avoiding the shove it in your mouth, non-thinking kind of eating and encourages slower, more fully focused eating based on hunger and your body’s need for food.  Armed with a plan rather than attacking whatever is edible, you choose carefully, eat more slowly, and savor your food  — not gobbling it as part of multi-tasking, grab and go, or a race to the finish line.
Mindful eating doesn’t mean eating with your back straight, elbows off the table, using the correct fork.  It means being mindful:  conscious and aware of your choices and your food. You can eat anywhere and be mindful – mindfulness and a plan for what and how much you eat are not dependent on your kitchen table or a restaurant menu.  You can be mindful at the beach, at a street fair, and at the office, too.

Table Setting For Lunch, Tuscany, Italy

Stomach Versus Head Hunger

Mindless eating is often prompted by head hunger while mindful eating is largely associated with stomach hunger.
Head hunger is the compulsion to eat when your body isn’t physically hungry — often in response to a learned behavior:  i.e., it’s noontime so I have to eat, doesn’t matter how I feel or if I’m hungry. Head hunger comes on suddenly and often takes the form of cravings, eating when you’re not hungry, eating when you think you should be eating, and mindless snacking. It happens at any time, with no physical symptoms, and includes time cues and sensory triggers, like smell, taste, or texture.  Obsessing about food, habits (like watching TV, working on the computer, or driving), emotional or personal triggers, and cravings can make you think that you’re hungry when you’re really not.

Penn Station, NYC

Physical hunger, or stomach hunger, comes on slowly and usually happens two to four hours after you’ve last eaten. With true stomach hunger you may have an empty or grumbling stomach, lightheadedness, hand tremors, fatigue, or a headache.  It’s your body’s way of telling you that it needs fuel and that it’s time to eat.  You’re usually satisfied with almost anything – unlike the frequent cravings for sugar, salt, fat that occur with head hunger.

SocialDieter Tip:

Head hunger will eventually go away if you ignore it.  Your body is not telling you it needs food for sustenance, rather, your head is talking to you, sometimes quite loudly. With head hunger, try to put off grabbing some food by distracting yourself and ignore it until it goes away.  Often a cup of tea or coffee or a glass of water will do the trick as well as some distracting behavior. If your head hunger is screaming at you it may be tough to ignore.  If you need to eat something ask yourself when you last ate.  If it’s approaching three hours you might be physically hungry in which case you can’t ignore it and it won’t lessen with time. When you eat mindfully you are aware of stomach (physical) hunger versus head (emotional) hunger.  You tune into your body’s signals about what, when, and how much to eat, and when to stop eating because you are approaching full and not because your plate its empty.

Is Multi-Tasking Sabotaging Your Weight?

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What Else Do You Do When You Eat?

Where do you have your breakfast?  In the car or train while you’re going to work?  Maybe while you’re walking down the street juggling that cup of joe, a muffin, and your books, papers, and tote.

How about lunch.  Do you eat at your desk?  Standing in front of the kitchen sink?  In front of the computer?

A poll of more than 1500 people (Wansink, Mindless Eating), found that:

  • 91% usually watch TV when eating meals at home alone
  • 62% are frequently too busy to sit down and eat
  • 35% eat lunch at their desk
  • 26% often eat while they drive

Multi-Tasking = Distraction = Mindless Eating

When you multi-task you are distracted.  Distraction is the enemy of weight management.  Any kind of distraction will make you eat, or forget what or how much you are eating, or even why you are eating.  When you’re distracted your focus is certainly not on your food the classic recipe for mindless eating.

SocialDieter Tip:

Everyone is busy.  Everyone eats.  Putting the two together can lead to mindless eating and poor weight management.  How about making some rules for yourself?  I won’t, without guilt, recommend eating without doing other things.  That’s the classic recommendation – but I would be two-faced to utter it because I frequently eat while I work.  However, if you are like me, perhaps set a rule that you are going to serve yourself a certain portion and that’s all you will eat.  Or, maybe you want to turn over a new leaf and solely concentrate on your meal.  The choice is yours.  Just make it a mindful one.

Table For 8? You Might Eat 96% More!

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No kidding.  You tend to eat for a longer amount of time — and eat more — when you’re with people you like compared to when you eat alone.  It could be because you mindlessly nibble while someone else talks, you’re using the good manners you were taught in fifth grade about not letting someone else eat alone, or you’re just having fun and enjoying your food. Most of us tend to stay at the table longer when we’re with others.   Bottom line:  The longer you stay at the table, the more you eat.

Losing Track

Here’s the other thing:  friends and family influence what you eat.  Sometimes, it’s so easy to get involved with the conversation (or argument) that all the monitoring of what goes into your mouth goes out the window.  Look down at your plate.  Did you ever wonder where all the cookies went or how you managed to work your way through the mile high dish of pasta or the four pieces of pizza?  How many tastes did you take of everyone else’s meal and dessert?  Those tastes aren’t like invisible ink.  Those calories count, too.

Who Sets the Pace?

You tend to mimic your table companions.  They eat fast, you eat fast. They eat a lot, you eat a lot. Ever wonder why you look at some families or couples and they’re both either heavy or slender?  As Brian Wansink, PhD says in his book, Mindless Eating, “birds of a feather eat together.”

96% More

Wansink reports on a study that shows how strong the tendency is to increase the amount that you eat when you eat with others.  Compared to eating alone, you eat, on average:

  • 35% more if you eat with one other person
  • 75% more with four at the table
  • 96% more with a group of seven or more.

SocialDieter Tip:

Think about who you are eating with – and why you’re eating with them.  If you want to have a blast and don’t care about how much you eat – eat with a big group and chow down.  But, if you want to be careful about what and how much you eat, think about eating lunch with a salad (dressing on the side, please) friend rather than the large pepperoni pizza group.  Remember, without thinking about it, you tend to adjust your eating pace to that of your companions.  So, sit next to the slow eaters rather than the gobblers if you are trying to control how much goes into your mouth.