Entertaining, Buffets, Parties, Events

3 Easy Barbecue and Picnic Tips To Avoid Overeating

August 30, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

1. If you’re full, stop eating and clear your plate right away. If it hangs around in front of you, you’ll keep picking at it until there’s nothing left. An exception – a study has found that looking at the “carnage” – the leftover bones from barbecued ribs or even the number of empty beer bottles – can serve as an “environmental cue” to stop eating.

2. Do you really need to stand in front of the picnic table, kitchen table, or barbecue? The further away from the food you are the less likely you are to eat it. Don’t sit or stand where you can see the food that’s calling your name. Keep your back to it if you can’t keep distant. There’s just so much control you can exercise before “see it = eat it.” If staying near the food gets to be too much, go for a walk, a swim, or engage someone in an animated conversation. It’s pretty hard to shove food in your mouth when you’re busy talking.

3. Before you grab some tasty ribs, dogs, burgers or pie — ask yourself if you really want it. Are you hungry? Is it worth the calories? Odds are, the tempting display of food in front of you is visually seductive – and may smell great, too — but you’re reaching out to eat what’s in front of you for reasons not dictated by your stomach but by your eyes. Have you decided that you want to splurge on something specific? Try picking it ahead of time and commit to your choice so you don’t find yourself wavering in the face of temptation.

A Dozen Really Common Reasons We Eat When We’re Not Hungry

August 20, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN 1 Comment

Eating when you’re not hungry, or when you’re bored, angry, tired, procrastinating, or celebrating can push your calorie intake way up.

The biggest problem is that we often don’t realize that we’re shoving food into our mouths – either because we’re distracted, we don’t want to know, or we just plain old don’t care.

What Makes Us Do It?

1. “Cheap” calories: the kind you find at all you can eat restaurants, freebie tastes in markets, the basket of broken cookies in the bakery, and “value and super sized meals.”

2. Bread and extras like butter, olive oil, and olives on the table or bar peanuts or pretzels. Way too tempting to pass up – especially if you’re hungry or you’ve walked in with the attitude that you “deserve” it because you’ve had a tough day.

3. Walking into your kitchen or the snack room at work and having your favorite snacks staring you in the face (see it = eat it).

4. Procrastinating or avoiding doing what you have to do by having a snack.

5. Watching TV with a bag of chips or a bowl of candy on your lap.

6. Parties— especially when you drink — causing you to lose count and control of what you’re grabbing to eat.

7. Food and coffee shops on every corner that offer lots of food, lots of variety, and are open all the time.

8. The in(famous) sugar/fat/salt combination in baked goods, fast food, candy, fast food, frozen food, and processed food.

9. Food that your family or roommates insist must be in the house – or that you think they want in the house.

10. Feeling tired, stressed, overwhelmed, bored, angry, or “out-of-sorts” and turning to food as a “pick-me-up” or for comfort.

11. Mindless bites – a piece of candy from the open bowl on a desk, a taste of your partner’s dessert, finishing your child’s food (especially dripping ice cream cones).

12. Being a member of the clean plate club – which also extends to polishing off leftovers and finishing the last bits left in the pan or serving dishes as you clean up.

Seven Ways To Cut Down On Pizza Calories

August 12, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

“Let’s order pizza.” Have you heard those words recently? Have you had “a slice” recently? Take comfort that you fit the stats:

American men, women, and children eat, on average 46 slices of pizza a year.

94% of Americans eat pizza regularly

In the US, 61% prefer regular thin crust, 14% prefer deep-dish, and 11% prefer extra thin crust

62% of Americans prefer meat toppings; 38% prefer vegetables

36% order pizza topped with pepperoni

What’s Good, What’s Not-So-Good?

It’s difficult to estimate the number of calories and fat grams in a slice of pizza because the size and depth of the pies and the amount of cheese, meat, or other toppings vary enormously.

Here’s the good news: pizza can be a healthy food choice filled with complex carbs, B-vitamins, calcium, protein, vitamin A, and vitamin C and calorically okay if you choose wisely and don’t eat more than your fair share.

The not so good news: the amount of fat, calories, and portion size. If your mouth starts to water at the thought of golden brown crust and cheesy goodness — here’s the downer: that luscious slice of pizza that should be about the size of two dollar bills – not the size of a small frying pan or a quarter of a 12” circle.

7 Ways To Build a Better Slice of Pizza

Order thin crust rather than a thick crust or deep dish.
Resist the urge to ask for double cheese — better yet, go light on the cheese or use reduced-fat cheese (if they have it).
Ask for a pizza without cheese but topped with veggies and a little olive oil. You can always sprinkle on a little grated parmesan for flavor; one tablespoon has only 22 calories.
Instead of cheese go for big flavors like onion, garlic, olives but use them somewhat sparingly because of the oil. And don’t forget anchovies – a lot of flavor for minimal calories – but you have to like them!
Choose vegetable toppings instead of meat (think about the fat content in sausage, pepperoni, and meatballs) and you might shave 100 calories from your meal. Pile on veggies like mushrooms, peppers, olives, tomatoes, onion, broccoli, spinach, and asparagus. Some places have salad pizza – great if it’s not loaded with oil.
Order a side salad (careful with the dressing) and cut down on the amount of pizza. Salad takes longer to eat, too.
If you’re willing (and not embarrassed or grossed out), try blotting up the free-floating oil that sits on top of a greasy slice with a napkin. Blotting (it’s easy to do this on the kind of hot slice where the oil runs down your arm when you pick it up) can soak up a teaspoon of oil worth 40 calories and 5 grams of fat.

Domino’s:

Check out the difference in calories for the same size slice (1/8^th of a pie) between the classic hand-tossed pizza, the deep dish, and the crunchy thin crust for the same toppings. Then check out the difference in calories for the toppings.

Domino’s 14 inch large classic hand-tossed pizza

America’s Favorite (Peperoni, mushroom, sausage, 1/8 of pizza): 390 calories

Bacon Cheeseburger (Beef, bacon, cheddar cheese), 1/8 of pizza: 420 calories

Vegi Feast (Green pepper, onion, mushroom, black olive, extra cheese, 1/8 of pizza): 340 calories

Domino’s 14 inch large ultimate deep dish pizza

America’s Favorite (Peperoni, mushroom, sausage), 1/8 of pizza: 400 calories

Bacon Cheeseburger (Beef, bacon, cheddar cheese), 1/8 of pizza: 430 calories

Vegi Feast (Green pepper, onion, mushroom, black olive, extra cheese), 1/8 of pizza: 350 calories

Domino’s 14 inch large crunchy thin crust pizza

America’s Favorite (Peperoni, mushroom, sausage, 1/8 of pizza: 280 calories)

Bacon Cheeseburger (Beef, bacon, cheddar cheese), 1/8 of pizza: 310 calories

Vegi Feast (Green pepper, onion, mushroom, black olive, extra cheese), 1/8 of pizza: 230 calories

Mall Pizza: There’s A Range

A slice of Sbarro’s Low Carb Cheese Pizza has 310 calories and 14 grams of fat.
A slice of Sbarro’s Low Carb Sausage/Pepperoni Pizza has 560 calories and 35 grams of fat.
A slice of Sbarro’s Fresh Tomato Pizza clocks in at 450 calories with 14 grams of fat.
Any of Sbarro’s “Gourmet” pizzas have between 610 and 780 calories a slice and more than 20 grams of fat.
A slice of Costco Food Court Pepperoni Pizza has 620 calories and 30 grams of fat.
“Stuffed” pizzas are even worse—790 calories minimum and over 33 grams of fat per slice.

Is There Less Alcohol And Fewer Calories In a Serving Of Wine Than There Is In Beer Or A Standard Drink?

July 25, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

That’s not a trick question. A standard alcoholic drink (in the US) is a drink that contains the equivalent of 14.0 grams (0.6 ounces) of pure alcohol, or the amount usually found in:

12 ounces of beer
8 ounces of malt liquor
5 ounces of wine (not dessert wine or port)
1.5 ounces or a “shot” of 80-proof distilled spirits or liquor (gin, rum, vodka, or whiskey, etc.)

So, if you’re comparing a standard portion of one form of alcohol to another, there is the approximate equivalent of alcohol in each drink.

But – take note of the portion sizes. If the hand that pours puts 10 ounces of wine into a large wine glass (not unheard of) you are actually getting twice the amount of alcohol that you would get in a 12 ounce bottle of beer of a standard shot glass (1.5 ounces) of 80-proof liquor.

Calories From Alcohol Don’t Make You Feel Full

When you drink your calories your body doesn’t actually feel satisfied. Except for perhaps milk or other protein drinks, fluid intake doesn’t typically trigger production of the hormones that tell your brain that you’ve fed your stomach. Most liquid calories don’t produce “satiety” or the feeling of “being full,” which your brain takes as the cue to stop eating.

This is especially true if you’re slowly sipping your drink — but research has shown that even if the temporary bloat you feel after rapidly downing a beer is no substitute for satiety.

(FYI: even if you don’t feel full, the alcohol you’ve drunk still has 7 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for carbohydrates and protein and 9 calories per gram for fat.)

How Many Calories Are In Your Glass Of Wine?

The standard serving of wine (5 ounces) is probably visually smaller than you think. Wine glasses can generally hold a lot more, and depending on who’s pouring, can be filled with many more than 5 ounces.

Most standard servings of wine have 125-150 calories, but the calories can double depending on the size of the glass and how far it’s filled up. Sweet and dessert wines are more caloric than table wine and champagne, although the serving size is generally smaller.

For comparison, on average, a 12 ounce bottle of beer has around 153 calories and 1.5 ounces (a jigger) of 80 proof liquor has around 97 calories.

As an experiment, try filling up your usual wine glass – using water—to simulate the amount of wine you would usually pour, and then measure that amount in a measuring cup. You might be shocked to find that the serving you’re used to pouring is double the standard serving size.

You may have your preference – most of us do – but whether it’s red, white, dry, sweet, or sparkling, it is really easy to overlook the calories in those long-stemmed glasses.

If you have dessert wine after dinner it’s about double the calories per ounce although the standard serving is less: usually 2 to 3 ounces. So add on about another 100 to 150 calories for each glass of that smooth dessert wine.

Approximate Calories in One Ounce Of Various Wines:

Champagne: 19 calories

Red wine (burgundy, cabernet): 25 calories

Dry white wine (Chablis, reisling, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc): 24 calories

Rose: 20 calories

Sweet white wine (moselle, sauterne, zinfandel): 28 calories

Port (about 20% alcohol): 46 calories

Sweet dessert wine (tokaji, muscat): 47 calories

Sangria: about 22 calories (recipes vary)

For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Calorie Alert: Beware Oil Slicks On Your Food

July 15, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

It looks so good! Your tomatoes and mozzarella arrive with drizzled decorative squiggles of colorful basil oil on top. But are those squiggles only decorative?

Flavorful, Caloric, and Decorative

The squiggles are attractive and probably provide some deliciousness, but they’re also adding what might amount to a fair amount of calories.

It’s so easy to be fooled by fatty sauces and dressings on innocent looking vegetables. Vegetables are great. Veggies smothered with butter, cheese, croutons, and/or bacon are loaded with calories. Restaurants love to use oil and butter for flavor and to make the veggies glistening and mouth watering so they’re often “rinsed” with oil just before they’re sent to your table.

With salad dressings and sauces, the amount of dressing or sauce on a dish is heavily dependent on the hand of the pourer, even when a standard size ladle is used. You can always ask for sauce on the side, vegetables not to be rinsed, and with no butter or oil added.

If your food is cooked in stock or steam instead of in oil, you save 120 calories per tablespoon of oil. Flavored oil drizzled on top of your food – like basil oil – will add another 40 calories a teaspoon. Do you need it or want it?

For more tips get 30 Ways to Have Low-Calorie Fun in the Sun: Your Guide to Guilt-Free Eating at Picnics, Amusement Parks, Barbecues & Parties available on Amazon.