Eat Out Eat Well

Manage Your Weight

What Do You Eat With Your Movie?

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I went to the movies Saturday night.  It was a long, long day and I was tired – so my guard was down.  As I walked into the theater the first thing that hit me was the wafting and delicious smell of freshly popped (and it was freshly popped in this theater) popcorn. I could have had a label plastered across my forehead:  sucker coming around the corner, start filling the popcorn bag!  Elbow in my husband’s ribs:  buy some!

It was the first time I’ve had movie theater popcorn in about two years.  Not that I don’t love it – I do.  I also know a little bit about it.  Thing is, after writing another post about popcorn I even asked the guy behind the concession stand several months ago what they pop their popcorn in.  “Oh, I think it’s some combination of coconut oil and other stuff.”  Fat gram numbers spiraled and multiplied in my head. Yet, the siren call of freshly popped popcorn was too strong to overcome.

I Don’t Care, I’m Going To Have It Anyway

I had set myself up for a “I don’t care, I’m going to have it anyway” caloric splurge.  Why?  I was hungry, tired,  and it was the tail end of a very busy week.  And, two other important factors:  our friends had already bought their popcorn (ever sit next to someone who is eating something you really like and that smells delicious?) and I really love popcorn.

SocialDieter Tip:

I’m not suggesting that you – or I – should never have movie theater popcorn. What I am suggesting is that If you are going to have popcorn it should be figured into your overall caloric balance.  Popcorn today – lots of fruit and veggies the next day – or maybe earlier in the day.  The same thing is true if your weakness is that box of Raisinets – or Goobers – or Milk Duds.

Not the greatest foods in the world, but if you are going to have them as an occasional splurge build the splurge into your day – or weekly – food plan. If you’re going to eat the stuff, at least do it mindfully.  Oh – you could also not eat anything during the movie, it is only about two hours – or, you could bring some healthy snacks like a lower calorie protein bar or trail mix with you (a crunchy apple doesn’t lend itself to quiet eating).  And ditch the soda for plain old water.

FYI: Some Popular Movie Theater Snacks – And Their Calorie Counts

(Note the serving sizes, movie theater boxes of candy are often huge and may be double or triple the size shown below.)

Popcorn, Nachos, Soft Pretzel

  • Buttered popcorn, small, 5 cups:  470 calories, 35g fat
  • Buttered popcorn, large, 20 cups:  1640 calories, 126g fat
  • Cheese nachos, large (4 oz):  1100 calories, 60g fat
  • Soft pretzel, large (5 oz):  480 calories, 5g fat

Soda and Lemonade

  • Coke, small (18 oz:218 calories, 0g fat
  • Coke, large (44 oz):  534 calories, 0g fat
  • Minute Maid Lemonade (18 oz):  248 calories, 0g fat
  • Minute Maid Lemonade (44 oz):  605 calories, 0g fat

Candy

  • Junior Mints, 3 0z box:  360 calories, 7g fat
  • Sno Caps, 3.1 oz box:  300 calories, 15g fat
  • Milk Duds, 3oz box:  370 calories, 12g fat
  • Raisinets, 3.5 oz bag:  400 calories, 16g fat
  • Goobers, 3.5 oz box:  500 calories, 35g fat
  • Twizzlers, 6oz bag:  570 calories, 4g fat
  • M&Ms, 5.3oz bag:  750 calories, 32g fat
  • Peanut M&Ms, 5.3 oz bag:  790 calories, 40g fat
  • Reese’s Pieces, 8oz bag:  1160 calories, 60g fat

How Many Calories Do You Need Each Day?

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Most Americans Don’t Know How Many Calories They Need

Trying to lose weight? Do you have any idea about how many calories you should eat every day? According to a 2010 Food & Health Survey by the International Food Information Council, most Americans don’t have a clue.

The survey found that:

  • 65% of people in the study said concerns about weight were the prime driver of their food choices
  • 70% are concerned about their weight
  • only 17% could estimate how many calories someone of their age, height, weight and activity level should eat
  • for people trying to lose weight, only 19% are counting calories, and not many knew approximately how many calories they burn in a day
  • Nearly half said they’re trying to eat more protein
  • More than half worry about the amount of salt they eat and 60% buy reduced sodium products

What Dictates How Many Calories You Need?

How many calories you need varies with your age, gender, current weight, metabolism (the physical and chemical processes that naturally take place in your body to sustain life, like breathing and digestion), and your activity level. When you eat more calories than your body needs you gain weight; when you eat fewer than you need you lose weight.

What’s The Relationship Between Metabolism and Weight?

Your metabolism is usually measured in calories. Although you can estimate your average calorie requirement based on your weight and activity level, every person’s metabolism is different. To manage your weight it helps to know about how many calories you need every day. You can figure this out by knowing your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)  and the number of calories your activity requires.

  • Resting Metabolic Rate:  if you are not an elite athlete, about 70% of the calories you expend every day you use for essential life processes. This is your resting metabolic rate (RMR) and is basically the number of calories your body requires to keep it alive if you just flaked out on the couch all day.
  • Calorie Requirements For Activity:  These are the calories you burn through movement, activity and exercise. Even non-exercise activity, like fidgeting, counts.  For many of us, this makes up about 30% of our total daily calorie expenditure.

SocialDieter Tip:

Here’s a link to a page where you can plug in some of your information to calculate your:

  • BMI (Body Mass Index) which will give you a general idea if are you considered normal weight, overweight, or obese
  • RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) to estimate how many calories you burn in a day based on your physiologic needs
  • Calorie Requirements for Activity:  There is an activity calculator which shows how many calories different types of activities will burn and will also calculate how many calories you burn in 24 hours

Watermelon: Tastes Good, Looks Good, And Fills You Up

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How much fun is it to sit on some porch steps or on a big rock and spit watermelon seeds. (I know, seedless watermelons not only exist, they are the most popular watermelon in the US.)  Maybe even have a contest.  Okay – so not everyone gets as much of a kick out of it as I do, but it has been fun since I was a kid.

Watermelon was – and still is – a treat.  It certainly finished off lots of camp meals and family picnics.  How great is sweet, juicy watermelon on a hot day?  What about the college special: watermelon infused with vodka – or when money was scarce, grain alcohol?  And, how pretty are those intricate carved watermelon baskets filled with watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew balls?  Labor intensive.  My mother was good at that.

A Melon With History

The first recorded watermelon harvest was in Egypt, nearly 5,000 years ago. Now you can find more than 1,200 varieties which are are grown in 96 countries.  Watermelon, 92% water and 6% sugar, is a cousin of cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash and is the most consumed melon in the US, followed by cantaloupe and honeydew.

Some Watermelon Trivia

  • Because of its water content, watermelon is a volume food. It fills you up and quenches your thirst and is great for weight control.
  • 1 wedge (about 1/16 of a melon, 286 g) has 86 calories, no fat, 22g carbs, 1g fiber, 2g protein.
  • 10 watermelon balls (122g) have 37 calories, 0 fat, 9g carbs, 0g fiber, 1g protein
  • 1 cup of diced watermelon (152g) has 46 calories, 0g fat, 11g carbs, 1g fiber, 1g protein
  • Two cups of watermelon chunks will supply 25% of your daily vitamin A, 30% of your daily vitamin C, B6 (6%) of B6; 8% potassium, 4% phosphorus, and 8% magnesium as well as beta carotene and lycopene (red flesh melons).
  • The inner rind is edible and has a bunch of hidden nutrients.  The outer rind, also edible, is sometimes used as a stir-fried or stewed vegetable or pickled condiment.
  • When you buy a watermelon look for one that is firm, symmetrical, and free from bruises, cuts, or dents. It should be heavy for its size and its underside should have a creamy yellow spot from where it sat on the ground while it ripened in the sun.
  • Whole melons will keep for 7 to 10 days at room temperature but lose flavor and texture if they’re stored too long. They’ll keep for three to four days in the fridge after they’re cut.

SocialDieter Tip:

I love the combination of sweet and salty – with a sweet/sour dressing.  Here’s a recipe for a great watermelon, feta, and greens salad that is low in calories and fat.

Mediterranean Watermelon Salad

Ingredients: (adapted from watermelon.org)

  • 6 cups torn mixed salad greens
  • 3 cups cubed seeded watermelon
  • 1/2 cup sliced red onion
  • 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
  • 1/2 cup watermelon vinaigrette
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • Mint sprigs

Watermelon Vinaigrette:

  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1/4 cup pureed watermelon (puree chunks in a food processor)
  • 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil

Directions:

Make vinaigrette.  Whisk together all ingredients; store in refrigerator; shake well before using. Makes about 1/2 cup.

In large bowl, mix all salad ingredients except vinaigrette, pepper, and mint. Just before serving, toss salad mixture with vinaigrette. Garnish with pepper and mint sprigs.

Makes 6 servings. About 75 calories per serving.

What Triggers Your Overeating?

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“No, no, no, I’m not hungry,” you say to yourself – and, five minutes later you have a lap full of crumbs and a powdered sugar mustache.

Sound familiar?  Why, oh why, does this happen?  What’s with the loss of control over eating?

According to David Kessler, MD (The End of Overeating), 50% of obese people, 30% of overweight people, and 20% of healthy weight people say they have a loss of control over eating.

Eating Triggers:  Starting a course of events

A trigger is something that sets a course of events in motion, like overeating.

Eating triggers generally fall into three separate categories: food, feelings, and the environment.

Trigger Food

  • a specific food that sets off a course of overeating where you lose control and eat an excessive amount
  • usually a combo of sugar and fat – like brownies or gooey cookies – or a combo of fat and salt – have you downed your popcorn in the movies, lately?
  • Don’t confuse your food triggers with your favorite foods (the ones that you really like), your comfort foods (ones that you link to home and happiness), or food cravings (when you want a food you haven’t had in a while)
  • a true food trigger is the actual food, not a feeling or place that triggers the out of control eating – think:  an open bag of chips – bet you can’t eat just one regardless of where you are eating or how you are feeling

Trigger Feeling

  • an emotion, good or bad, that causes you to overeat
  • anxiety and sadness are common triggers
  • food triggers prompt overeating of a specific food;  general out of control overeating — the kind where food is often shoved in the mouth as quickly as possible in large quantities – can be precipitated by an emotional trigger

Trigger Environment

  • a specific situation or place that starts a period of overeating
  • common examples might be walking into a movie theater (popcorn), going to a buffet restaurant (one or two helpings of everything), attending a sporting event (how many hot dogs?) or visiting a relative (cookies, pie, and cake?)

Eating Triggers Are All Around You

Bottom Line – eating triggers are commonplace. When you bump up against some of yours, recognize them for what they are and have a strategies to deal with them. 

Often the triggers are linked – this happens often, sometimes by design.  Think about the sugar/fat and salt/fat triggers and fast food restaurants, desserts in fancy restaurants, your local bakery, the gas station convenience store.  What do they have in common?  Lots of food with sugar/fat and salt/fat combinations.   They stare you in the face wherever you turn and at whatever hour.  Stir in some feelings and emotions, a not infrequent occurrence, and you have the perfect set-up for overeating.

Ways To Outsmart Food Triggers

  • Figure out which food makes you lose control.  Is it potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, or mac and cheese?  We all have our particular triggers.
  • What kinds of feelings make you run for the fridge?  Is it when you are sad, anxious, really happy, or just procrastinating?  Once you can identify the feeling, try to substitute a behavior other than eating – maybe a walk or a project.  Make a deal with yourself:  if I do X then I can eat Y.  But you have to do X first!
  • Be savvy and know when you are in the emotional danger zone where you are on the brink of rapidly spiraling out of eating control.Educate yourself about which kinds of foods are hidden saboteurs – or maybe not so hidden.  Beware the sugar/fat, salt/fat, or sugar/fat/salt combos.
  • Educate yourself about which kinds of foods are hidden saboteurs – or maybe not so hidden.  Beware the sugar/fat, salt/fat, or sugar/fat/salt combos.
  • Know your environmental triggers.  If the gas station convenience store screams candy bar then pump your gas at a gas station with no store.  If you have a history of overeating at X restaurant then go to Y instead.  If you know that you always overeat at Aunt Mary’s (could be all three triggers:  food, feelings, and environment are operational at her house) then have a strategy or plan in place to handle the situation.  Or maybe invite her to your house.
  • Keep the darn trigger foods out of your house.  Or, if they have to be there for other family members, or maybe for a party, make them difficult to get to.  Put them in the basement or the garage.  Make them inconvenient or really difficult to get to.  Not only is out of sight out of mind operational, we also tend to be lazy.  The more effort you have to exert to get to the food, the less likely you are to eat it.
  • This is a tough one:  sometimes you have to avoid thinking, talking and reading about food. Brain imaging research suggests that the addictive response of the brain to food could by calmed by not thinking about food. Obviously, you can’t be abstinent from food – you need to eat – but long conversations about it, might be more than your brain can bear before you succumb to the bakery or vending machine.  Don’t linger in the grocery store and skip the gourmet shop that opened three blocks away.
  • And, the time tested – wait at least 15 minutes then allow yourself to have the food – often works. Better yet, wait 15 minutes, try to create a diversion to get out of your trigger feeling, and change your environment – get out of the kitchen or away from the bakery aisle.

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.