Eat Out Eat Well

Restaurants, Diners, Fast Food

What Will You Eat On Super Bowl Sunday?

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It’s amazing how food has become associated with football — from tailgating to Super Bowl parties.  If you want to, there are plenty of choices for eating deliciously well if you are more mindful than mindless about your choices.

Your best bets are to stick with grilled meat, veggies, baked chips rather than fried, plain bread, a pita, or wrap rather than biscuits or cornbread. Go for salsa and skip the guacamole.  Turkey, baked ham, and grilled chicken are better choices than wings and fried chicken.

What Makes Us Eat Too Much?

Hunger doesn’t always prompt most of us to overeat – especially on holidays or event days. Family, friends, plate size, packaging, lighting, smells, distractions, the environment, and feelings all do. We make about 200+ food related decisions a day.– like deciding between pizza or wings; a sandwich or salad; chocolate chip or oatmeal cookie; light beer or diet coke; kitchen table or chair in front of the TV.  That’s about 200+ daily opportunities to be mindful or mindless – and probably a whole lot more when faced with a flow of food, an exciting game, a halftime show, and some good natured (hopefully) wagering.

Here Are Some Good, Better, and Best Options:

  • Tostada with guacamole:  2 pieces (9.3 oz), 360 calories, 23g fat, 32g carbs, 12g protein
  • Salsa:  1 tablespoon 4 calories, .04g fat, 1g carbs, .2g protein
  • Nacho flavored tortilla chips, reduced fat:  1 oz, 126 calories, 4g fat, 20g carbs, 2g protein
  • Nacho flavored tortilla chips:  1oz, 141 calories, 7g fat, 18g carbs, 1g protein
  • Potato chips:  1oz, 152 calories, 10g fat, 15g carbs, 2g protein
  • Potato chips, reduced fat:  1 oz, 134 calories, 6g fat, 19g carbs, 2g protein
  • Raw baby carrots:  1 medium, 4 calories, 0 fat, .8g carbs, 0 protein
  • Pizza Hut cheese pizza:  1 slice (1/8 of a 12” medium pan pizza), 240 calories, 10g fat, 27g carbs, 11g protein
  • Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza:  1 slice (1/8 of a 12” medium pan pizza), 250 calories, 12g fat, 26g carbs, 11g protein
  • Grilled chicken breast:  one 4.2 oz breast, 180 calories, 4g fate, 0 carbs, 35g protein
  • KFC Fiery hot Buffalo wing:  one 1oz wing, 80 calories, 5g fat, g carbs, 4g protein
  • KFC extra crispy drumstick:  one 2oz piece, 150 calories, 6g carbs, 11g protein
  • Chili (Wendy’s, with saltine crackers):  8 oz, 187 calories, 6g fat, 19g carbs, 14g protein
  • Wheat bread:  1 slice, .9 oz., 65 calories, 1g fat,, 12g carbs, 2g protein
  • Italian combo on ciabatta (Panera):  1 sandwich, 1lb. 7 oz, 1050 calories, 47g fat, 94g carbs, 61g protein
  • Subway 6g of fat or less turkey breast & ham on wheat sandwich:  8.3oz, 296 calories, 4g fat, 48g carbs, 19g protein
  • Chocolate chip cookie:  2-1/4” from refrigerated dough. 59 calories, 3g fat, 8g carbs, 0.6g protein
  • Chocolate ice cream, Cold Stone Creamery:   5oz (like it), 326 calories, 20g fat, 33g carbs, 5g protein
  • Apple:  medium, 95 calories, .4g fat, 25g carbs, .5g protein

Just In Case:  Some Football-themed Exercises To Help Burn Off Those Calories

Try these to burn off those 1200 game day calories (Source:  DietDetective):

  • Drinking six bottles of Budweiser beer means needing to do “The Wave” 4, 280 times
  • One KFC extra crispy drumstick and an extra crispy chicken breast requires 203 end zone touchdown dances
  • Applebee’s chili cheese nachos means 159 minutes of playing non-stop professional football
  • Eating ten Lay’s classic potato chips with Kraft French onion dip means you have to dance to Madonna for 134 minutes

Bread, Butter, Oil: Do You Eat A Meal Before Your Meal?

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Olive oil for bread sopping and dipping is giving butter some stiff competition. At one time it was butter on bread – big slabs, small pots, or foil wrapped rectangles.

Now olive oil — green or golden, plain, herbed, or spiced — frequently takes center stage. It can be plopped down on your table or poured with a flourish from a dark tinted bottle.  Some restaurants offer a selection for dipping – and attempt to educate you about the variation in flavors depending upon the olives’ country of origin.

Butter, Oil, And Bread Can Add A Big Caloric Punch

  • A tablespoon of olive oil has 119 calories, a tablespoon of butter has 102 calories, one pat of butter has around 36 calories.
  • Butter and oil are all fat; olive oil is loaded with heart healthy monounsaturated fat, butter is filled with heart unhealthy saturated fat.
  • Bread varies significantly in calories depending on the type of bread and the size of the piece.
  • Most white bread and French bread averages around 90 to 100 calories a slice. Most dinner rolls average 70 to 75 calories each.

Who Takes In More Calories – Butter Or Olive Oil Eaters?

Hidden cameras in Italian restaurants have shown that people who put olive oil on a piece of bread consume more fat and calories than if they use butter on their bread. But the olive oil users end up eating fewer pieces of bread than the butter eaters.

In a study done by the food psychology laboratory at Cornell University, 341 restaurant goers were randomly given olive oil or blocks of butter with their bread. Following dinner, researchers calculated the amount of olive oil or butter and the amount of bread that was eaten.

The researchers found that olive oil users:

  • used 26% more olive oil on each slice of bread compared to block butter users (40 vs. 33 calories)
  • ate 23% less bread over the course of a meal than the people who used butter
  •  took in 17% fewer bread calories:  264 calories (oil eaters) vs. 319 calories (butter eaters).

What Are Your Bread And Butter (or oil) Habits?

Do you mindlessly chow down on bread and butter or oil before a meal either because you’re hungry or because it’s there for easy nibbling?

The bread and butter or oil pre-dinner (and maybe during dinner) eating habit creates a real caloric bump – often without much added nutrition.

If you choose to indulge think about limiting the amount or don’t even let the breadbasket land on your table.  Harder breads and breadsticks are often less caloric than softer doughy breads.  The choice to eat and slather or dip is yours – just be mindful of the calories that add up quickly and are pretty easy to overlook.

This article is part of the 30 day series of blog posts called: 30 Easy Tips for Looser Pants and Excellent Energy.

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Take A Cue From Athletes: Rehearse Your Party Eating Behavior

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What happens when you’re invited to a “command performance”  party or event with a long cocktail hour followed by a fancy multi-course sit down meal?  Or maybe you’re going to a gourmet holiday lunch at a friend’s house where there will be lots of hot mulled wine, her special entree, and fantastic cookies accompanying mousse for dessert. You’ve been extremely conscious about eating well but you want to be both polite and eat some of the special foods and still be careful about overindulging on high calorie foods.  How can you enjoy your food, be polite, eat what really appeals to you, and leave with your waistline intact?

What Do You Want the Result To Be?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer since we all have our own needs and preferences. You may swoon over ten- layer chocolate cake while I can ignore it but can never pass up cheese fondue.

Part of the answer lies in figuring out what you really want the end result to be.   Then you can create your own individualized plan  — your own foodMAP — that you can use as a template for what to do when you find yourself in the land of food temptation.

Visualize

Visualizing a situation that you might find yourself in and then rehearsing your actions in your mind ahead of time will help you successfully navigate a whole host of food landmines and eating challenges. That’s a technique coaches use to prepare their athletes. They’re taught to anticipate what might happen and to practice how to respond to a situation. Sports performance improves with visualization exercises—so can eating behavior.

To do this effectively you have to be clear on what you want the end result to be. Is it to enjoy every kind of food available but in limited quantities – or is it to skip dessert but have a full range of tastes of all of the hors d’oeuvres?  Visualize what the environment will be like, where you’re going to be, and with whom. Think about what food is going to be available, how it will be served, how hungry you’re likely to be, what your usual eating pattern is like—and what you would like it to be.

Will your host insist you try her special dessert and refuse to take no for an answer? Will you be eating in a restaurant known for its homemade breads or phenomenal wine list? Are your dining companions picky eaters, foodies, or fast food junkies?  Will your host be really annoyed if you don’t finish every course at the special sit-down dinner?

Proactive Not Reactive

Be proactive.  Figure out your plan in advance — earlier in the day or the night before. Visualize the situation and if there’s temptation or anxiety, close your eyes and picture it. Imagine what people will say and how you will respond in a way that will make you proud of yourself without giving in to external pressures and food pushers.

Armed with your rehearsed plan, go out, use it, and stick to it as best you can. You assume control, not the circumstances and not the food.  You are firmly in charge of what happens and what food and how much of it will go into your mouth.

Key Words For “Maybe Yes, Maybe No” Menu Choices

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Menus, both restaurant and take-out, are filled with descriptive and sometimes mouth-watering words.  They’re meant to:

  • entice you to order certain items by making them sound scrumptious, or to
  • make you think that a food, sauce, or dressing is lower in calories or an awesome health food.

Maybe Yes, Maybe No Adjectives

This is a list of words frequently used on menus to describe foods that can be considered “yellow light foods.” They are the foods you  should cautiously choose because they may or may not be healthy choices.

  • Amandine/Almondine
  • Baked
  • Basted
  • Light/Lite
  • Marinated
  • Panini
  • Reduced
  • Sauteed
  • Stewed
  • Stir-Fry
  • Vegetarian
  • Vinaigrette

 Why They’re Yellow Light Foods:

Amandine/Almondine:  Means food that is garnished with almonds. The caution: the ingredients (often green beans, fish, asparagus, potatoes) are usually cooked with butter and seasonings and sprinkled with whole or flaked toasted almonds. The butter makes them taste good and allows the nuts to stick to the main ingredient — but both add significant calories.

Baked:  Food that is cooked by using dry heat.  The caution light applies to the main ingredients. What is being baked – is it baked fish or a baked cookie?

Basted: Means that either the juices of the cooking meat, melted fat, or other liquids such as marinades – are poured over meat during the cooking process to keep it moist.  The caution is in determining what the basting liquid is:  fat or the juice of the meat?

Light or lite:  If 50% or more of the calories in a food come  from fat, the fat must be reduced by at least 50% per serving to be called light. If less than 50% of the calories come from fat, the fat must be reduced by at least 50% or the calories reduced by at least 1/3 per serving for the food to be called light. The caution:  food manufacturers determine these percentages through laboratory analysis – but how does your local diner determine what is “light or lite” even if there is a “light or lite” claim on their menu?

Marinated:  Means to soak or steep meat, fowl, fish, or vegetables in a liquid mixture — which is usually vinegar or wine and oil combined with various spices and herbs.  The caution:  how much oil or even sweetener is in the marinade that has permeated the meat, fowl, fish, or vegetables?

Panini:  A pressed and toasted sandwich.  The caution:  What are the sandwich ingredients — for instance are they heavy on vegetables or on salami — and how much oil is used on the grill? If the sandwich comes out nice and crunchy and crispy you can bet it was pressed on a grill loaded with grease.

Reduced:  To be called reduced in calories, a food must contain at least 25% fewer calories per serving than the reference food (the version of the food that is not lower in calories).  For meals and main dishes there must be at least 25% fewer calories per 100 grams of food.  The caution:  the “reference food” (the regular, not low in calories version) may be a very high calorie food to begin with – meaning that 25% less of very high calories is still a lot calories.  And who’s measuring in the kitchen of your local restaurant? Don’t be duped.

Sauteed:  Means food that is fried quickly in a little oil.  The caution is the same as with stir-fry (see below); the amount of oil and the temperature of the oil.

Stewed:  To cook by slowly boiling or simmering.  The caution:  what is the stewing liquid — is it tomato based or is there a lot of fat?

Stir-Fry:  Means to cook small pieces of vegetables, grains, or meat by quickly frying and stirring them in a small amount of oil over high heat (frequently in a wok).  The caution is the amount and temperature of the oil.  Oil at a lower temperature will lead to a longer cooking time and the ingredients absorbing more oil.

Vegetarian:  Refers to a dish made without meat, fish, or fowl.  The caution is that many vegetarian dishes are prepared with a lot of breading, cheese, and fat.

Vinaigrette: A common salad dressing made with olive or other oils and combined with vinegar and/or lemon juice (plus seasonings and herbs).  The caution is in the proportion of oil to the acidic vinegar or lemon juice.  Sometimes it might be as great as 4:1 oil to acid and sometimes it might be 1:1, or half oil and half acid.  A fifty-fifty mix will be lower in calories than a mix that is 75% oil.

Do you have any “yellow-light foods” to add to this list?

For more menu key words and menu hacks be sure to sign up for my newsletter, “Eat Out, Eat Well.”  Just enter your email address in the box on this page — and don’t forget to confirm when you’re prompted by email.

How Many Calories Will You Be Drinking this Summer?

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Lazy, Hazy Days Of Summer

It’s summer.  It’s hot.  You’re thirsty.  You want some shade and something cool – or maybe ice cold – to drink.

Just remember – a lot of those cool, refreshing drinks come with a hefty dose of calories.

Check Out The Calories

You might be surprised at the caloric content of a drink you have been having for years.  There is a wide variation in the number of calories even in the same category of drinks.  Do a little research and learn your best choice and then make that your drink of choice.  You often can be satisfied with, for instance, a bottle of beer that has around 100 calories rather than another brand that has around 300.

Of course, there’s always water, plain or flavored (beware the vitamin enhanced kinds with added sugar)!

Non-Alcoholic Drinks

Water and Sports Drinks

  • Gatorade:  12 oz, 80 calories
  • Propel:  24 oz, 30 calories
  • SoBe Lifewater:  20 oz, 90 calories
  • Glaceau Smart Water:  33.8 oz, 0 calories
  • Vitamin Water:  20 oz, 125 calories
  • Vitamin Water 10:  20 oz, 25 calories

Iced Coffee and Tea Drinks

  • Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Bean Coolatta:  16 oz, 430 calories
  • Dunkin’ Donuts Sweet Tea:  16 oz, 120 calories
  • Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino:  16 0z (grande), 240 calories
  • Starbuck’s Coffee Frappuccino, light:  16 oz grande), 110 calories
  • Tazo Unsweetened Shaken Iced Passion Tea:  0 calories
  • Iced Brewed Coffee with classic syrup:  12 oz (tall), 60 calories

Soda

  • Coke Classic:  one 20 oz bottle, 233 calories
  • Diet coke:  one 20 oz bottle, 0 calories
  • Mountain Dew:  one 20 oz bottle, 290 calories

Alcoholic Drinks

Beer

  • Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale:  one 12 oz bottle, 330 calories
  • Samuel Adams Brown Ale:  160 calories
  • Amstel Light:  95 calories

Wine

  • Red Wine:  5 oz, 129 calories
  • White Wine:  5 oz, 120 calories
  • Sangria:  8 oz, 176 calories

Alcoholic Drinks

  • Mojito:  7 oz, 172 calories
  • Frozen Magarita: 4 oz, 180 calories (the average margarita glass holds 12 oz, 540 calories)
  • Mimosa:  137 calories
  • Gin and Tonic:  175 calories

The Single Biggest Source Of American Calories

According to CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest), carbonated soft drinks are the single biggest source of calories in the American diet.  We tend to forget about the calories in sugared sports drinks and in sweetened ice teas, juices, and alcoholic beverages.  Alcohol has 7 calories per gram  — compared to protein and carbs which have 4 calories per gram and fat which has 9 calories per gram.     Couple the alcohol with sweetened juices, syrups, and, in some cases, soda, and you could be drinking a significant portion of your suggested daily calorie allowance.  There are low and lower calorie choices in each category of cold drinks.  Choose wisely, sip slowly, limit the repeats and/or alternate with water, seltzer, diet soda, or iced tea or coffee.