Eat Out Eat Well

calories

A Dozen Reasons We Eat When We’re Not Hungry

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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.

Here are a dozen reasons and triggers for “mindless” eating:

  1. “Cheap” calories – the kind you find at all you can eat restaurants, those freebie tastes in markets, “value meals,” and three courses for the price of two.
  2. Bread and extras like butter, olive oil, and olives on the table or peanuts or pretzels at a bar.  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 rotten day.
  3. Opening your cabinet or refrigerator door and having your favorite snacks staring you in the face.
  4. Procrastinating or avoiding doing what you have to do by having a snack.
  5. Family gatherings that serve traditional and/or highly caloric foods that you wouldn’t normally eat – and a whole bunch of angst that causes you to eat.
  6. Watching TV with a bag of chips or a bowl of candy on your lap.
  7. Parties and events — especially when you drink — causing you to lose count and control of what you’re grabbing to eat.
  8. Sitting near a vending machine or the snack room at work – and the candy bowls on a lot of desks.
  9. Buffets – anywhere and everywhere .  Oh, the heaps and piles of good looking food. Enough said.
  10. Feeling tired, bored, angry, or “out-of-sorts” and looking for food as a “pick-me-up.”
  11. Having a stressful – or boring –meeting especially when there’s a table full of food nearby.
  12. Getting home, having no plan for dinner, and just picking and nibbling a ton of calories all evening.

What are your reasons?

Need To Work Off Some Extra Calories?

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According to Health Day TV there are some great outdoor ways to burn off a few of those extra calories you consumed – perhaps the ones left over from an indulgent 4th of July barbecue.

For each hour of activity (caloric burn varies somewhat with your size and effort):

  • Golf, walking with your clubs:  330 calories
  • Leisurely bicycling under 10 miles per hour:  290 calories
  • Bicycling over 10 miles per hour:  590 calories
  • Leisurely walking:  280 calories
  • Jogging at a 12 minute per mile pace:  590 calories
  • Swimming slow freestyle laps:  510 calories
  • Hiking:  370 calories
  • Yard work:  330 calories

Buy Me Some Peanuts And Cracker Jacks

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Happy Summer!  Baseball season is in full swing and so are visits to amusement parks.  What do you usually do at these places – other than watch the game, ride the roller coaster? EAT, of course!

Oh, the food!  Oh the calories!  Hang on – this post is not about ignoring the good time food.  Of course, there are always healthy food options:  you can bring your own or be scrupulous in making healthy choices. But honestly, do you think that most people really want to eat low calorie foods when they’re at a ballgame or amusement park? No way.

So what do you do when you’re at these places with food vendors about every 20 feet hawking dogs, ice cream, and beer?

There Are Ways And Then There Are Ways

If you’ve got a will of iron, I guess you could ignore the food and drinks.  But if you’re like most people and you’re tempted at every turn, you can try to minimize the damage without taking out the fun.  If you know you’re going to be having a stadium or food court meal, do some thinking, planning, and learning.  The best choices are not always the obvious ones.

Do you need both peanuts and popcorn?  Can you make do with a regular hot dog instead of a foot-long?  Can you keep it to one or two beers instead of three?  Can you choose the small popcorn instead of the jumbo tub?

Make Your Best Choice

Here’s some info to help you make your best choice.  Just a heads up – we’re not talking about the most nutritious choice because given these foods, quality nutrition is not front and center.  You can, however, enjoy your day and make the best caloric choice (with a nod to fat and sugar content) and still eat traditional ballpark and amusement park food.

  • Cotton Candy: Nothing but heated and colored sugar that’s spun into threads with added air. Cotton candy on a stick or wrapped around a paper cone (about an ounce) has around 105 calories; a 2oz. bag (common size) has 210. A lot of sugar, but not a lot of calories – albeit empty ones.
  • Cracker Jack (officially cracker jack, not jacks): candy-coated popcorn with some peanuts. A 3.5oz stadium size box has 420 calories but does have 7g  protein and 3.5g fiber.
  • Hamburger: 6oz. of beef with a bun has about 490 calories — without cheese or other toppings — which up the ante.
  • Grilled Chicken Sandwich, 6oz.: 280 calories – not a bad choice.  6oz. of chicken tenders clock in at 446 calories.  Barbecue dipping sauce adds 30 calories a tablespoon.
  • Hot Dog: Most sold out stadiums can sell 16,000 hot dogs a day. A regular hot dog with mustard has about 290 calories: 180 for the 2oz. dog, 110 for the bun, zilch for regular yellow mustard. Two tbs. sauerkraut adds another 5-10 calories, 2 tbs. ketchup adds 30, and 2 tbs. relish another 40. A Nathan’s hot dog racks up 320 calories; a foot-long Hebrew National 510 calories. Hot dogs are usually loaded with sodium.
  • Pizza: Stadium pizza is larger than a usual slice, about 1/6 of a 16-inch pie (instead of 1/8) making it about 435 calories a slice.
  • Super Nachos with Cheese: A 12oz. serving (40 chips, 4oz. cheese) has about 1,500 calories!!! Plain French fries look like a caloric bargain by comparison.
  • French Fries: A large serving has about 500 calories. A serving of Hardee’s chili cheese fries has 700 calories and 350 of them come from fat.
  • Potato Chips:  One single serving bag has 153 calories (94 of them from fat).
  • Peanuts in the Shell: What would a baseball game be without a bag of peanuts? Stadiums can sell as many as 6,000 bags on game days. An 8oz. bag has 840 calories; a 12oz. bag has 1,260. Yes, they have some protein and fiber.  But wow on the calories.
  • Soft Pretzel: One large soft pretzel has 483 calories – giant soft pretzels (7-8oz.) have about 700 calories.
  • Draft Beer: A stadium draft beer, 20oz. cup, the usual size, has about 240 calories. A light draft saves you 60 calories.
  • Coca Cola:  A 12oz can: 140 calories –- and close to 10 tsp. of sugar.
  • Helmet Ice Cream: Your team’s mini-helmet filled with swirly Carvel, 550-590 calories.
  • Souvenir Popcorn: At Yankee Stadium a jumbo size has 1,484 calories and a souvenir bucket has 2,473 calories.

Sources:

http://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition
http://www.active.com/nutrition/
http://www.drweigh.com/blog/

Calories Don’t Count When . . .

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  • You buy a candy bar at the gas station and eat it in the car
  • You snag 3 tootsie rolls from the receptionist’s desk
  • You grab a couple of samples of cheesecake at Costco
  • You finish your child’s grilled cheese sandwich
  • You taste the cookie batter and lick the bowl and beaters
  • You finish the leftovers because there’s too small an amount to save

How many more can you add?

Calories Do Count

Obviously, the calories do count, it’s just that all too frequently we neglect to add them – remember them – or acknowledge them (that would mean having to admit that you ate that candy bar).

That’s why a food journal can help with weight management.  By writing down everything that you eat – not at the end of the day but when you eat it  – you’re forced to acknowledge all of the random food that you either mindfully or mindlessly pop into your mouth.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest uses frozen yogurt to illustrate how mindlessly adding toppings adds a whopping amount of calories to what might be thought of as a healthy food.

“Let’s say you start with just 200 to 300 calories’ worth of frozen yogurt. (That’s a medium or regular at places like Red Mango, Pinkberry, or TCBY.)

But then the toppings call out. Forget the chocolate chips (80 calories per scoop), the gummy bears (80), and the Oreo pieces (60). Even the ‘healthy’ toppings like granola (60 calories), nuts (100), and ‘yogurt’ chips (100) pile on the calories.”

Think about it:  when don’t your calories count?

Is Chinese Food Diet Friendly Or A Diet Buster? Nine Tips To Help You Make Good Choices

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Chinese take-out can be a friend to your diet – or the devil in disguise.  Commercial Chinese food – or what you usually get for take-out – can be extremely high in fat (a caloric nightmare) and very high in sodium (a water retention nightmare).  And then there’s portion size:  those little white boxes hold a lot – and how often do you eat right out of the box – or refill your plate because it’s too little to really save – and why throw it away?

Nine Tips

To keep the gauge pointing more toward healthy than unhealthy:

1.   Interpret the menu and look for foods that are:

  • Steamed
  • Jum (poached)
  • Chu (broiled)
  • Kow (roasted)
  • Shu (barbecued)

2.    Aim for a plate filled with more veggies than meat and ask for them to be lightly stir fried rather than battered or deep fried (crispy means fried) but don’t think that all vegetable dishes are high on the best list. A serving of eggplant in garlic sauce (eggplant soaks up oil)  has 1000 calories; 13g saturated fat; 2000mg sodium.  Mu shu pork (without pancakes) has 1000 calories and 2600 mg sodium  Although there are a lot of veggies, there’s a bunch of fat and sodium. 8 inch pancakes add about 90 calories;  6 inch pancakes add 60 calories. Mu shu chicken is a better choice with about 5g less fat less and 200 fewer calories per serving.

3.    Eat with chopsticks:  it takes longer to eat and you can’t scoop up as much of the sauce or oil as you can with a fork.

4.    Don’t let the fried noodles near your table – or out of the delivery bag – one package has about 180 calories; 8g fat; 420mg sodium.

5.    Soup – like hot and sour, egg drop, or wonton soup is a good lower calorie choice (around 100 calories per cup) to fill you up – but is usually loaded with sodium. One cup of hot and sour soup has 91 cal, 3g fat, 876 sodium.

6.    Be careful with the thick sweet sauces like sweet and sour.  They are often made with flour, cornstarch, sugar, corn syrup.  Better choices are hoison, oyster, and hot mustard.

7.    Beware the rice:  there are around 200 calories in a cup of white or brown rice.  A takeout container often contains two cups.  Basic fried rice – without additions — is about 230 calories per cup — 1 cup of chicken fried rice has 329 calories; 11.96g fat; 598mg sodium.

8.    Lay off the barbecued spare ribs – four can have around 600 calories. One-half slice of fried shrimp toast has 148 calories; 9.27g fat; 447mg sodium.

9.    Try steamed dumplings instead of egg rolls or fried wontons which are both loaded with fat. One egg roll has 220 calories; 11g fat; 412mg sodium. A spring roll, with its thinner wrapper and smaller size, is a better choice at about 100 calories and 300 mg sodium. One meat filled fried wonton has 54 calories; 2.52g fat; 111mg sodium. A steamed dumpling filled with meat, poultry, or seafood is probably the best choice clocking in at 41 calories; 0.98g fat; 161mg sodium.