calories

5 Ways Your Plates, Glasses, Forks And Spoons Can Save You Calories

September 9, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

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 on your plate from barbecued ribs or even the number of empty beer bottles in front of you – can serve as an “environmental cue” to stop eating.
Drink from a tall, thin glass instead of a short, wide one. You’ll drink 25%-30% less. People who were given short wide glasses poured 76% more into them than people who were given tall slender glasses — and they believed that they had poured less! Even experienced bartenders poured more into a short, wide glass than they did into a taller, thinner one.
3. Use a (smaller) fork and knife instead of your fingers, a teaspoon rather that a tablespoon. It takes longer, requires more effort, and provides a smaller “shovel” for getting food into your mouth. Chopsticks slow you down even more. Chew your food instead of wolfing it down. If you have to work at eating your food – cutting with a knife for instance – you’ll eat more mindfully than if you pick food up with your fingers and pop it into your mouth.
Use a smaller plate. We eat an average of 92% of what we serve ourselves. We pile more food onto larger plates, so a larger plate means we eat more food. A two inch difference in plate diameter—decreasing the plate size to ten inches from 12 inches—would mean a serving that has 22% fewer calories. It’s a smaller serving but not small enough to leave you still hungry and heading back for seconds.
Get those serving dishes off of the table. If most of your meals are family style with bowls and platters of food brought to the table for everyone to help themselves, keep the serving dishes off of the table and onto the counter if you want to save some calories. When serving dishes are left on the table men eat 29% more and women 10% more than when serving dishes stay on the counter. It’s harder to mindlessly shove food into your mouth if you have to get up to get it. Sticking out your fork and shoveling more onto your plate while your butt remains firmly planted in your chair makes it far too easy to munch without much thought about the quantity of food that’s going into your mouth.

Want more tips — especially if you eat in dining halls of any kind? Get my new book, now available on Amazon — 30 Ways to Survive Dining Hall and Dorm Room Food: Tips to Avoid the Freshman 15.

How Many Calories Are In Different Kinds Of Nuts?

August 22, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Nuts are full of healthy fats and protein. They’re a great snack and can help tide you over until your next meal — but they’re also a high calorie food.

Be careful of portions — a serving size of most nuts is one ounce.

For a one ounce serving:

49 shelled pistachios, 162 calories
23 almonds, 169 calories
21 hazelnuts, 183 calories
18 cashews, 163 calories
19 pecans, 201 calories
14 English walnut halves, 185 calories
10-12 macadamias, 203 calories
39 peanuts (technically a legume), dry roasted, 170 calories

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.

Vending Machines: What’s Your Favorite Number/Letter Combination?

August 5, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Sooner or later you will likely have your next sharing moment with a vending machine: You share your money and the machine shares its calories.

Vending machines actually have a holy history. Around 215 BC the mathematician Hero invented a type of vending device that accepted bronze coins to dispense holy water. Vending eventually became economically viable In 1888 when the Adams Gum Company put gum machines on New York City’s elevated train platforms to dispense a piece of Tutti-Frutti gum for a penny.

Now they’re everywhere: around the corner from your hotel room, in train stations, and in just about ev- ery rest stop on road trips. They call your name when you’re especially vulnerable. You’re stressed, tired, bored, anxious, and your blood sugar is traveling south—all of which means the sugar, fat, and salt junk food allure is really hard to overcome.

When a vending machine calls your name, choose wisely. There are good, better, and best choices to be made.

Calorie Savers: No Choice Is Perfect; Make the Best Choice for You

You can almost always find packages of nuts, or popcorn, or pretzels, or dried fruit.
Be careful of things with too much sugar, especially if you’re driving. A big time sugar hit may give you energy from an initial blood sugar spike but more than likely it will be followed by a drop in your blood sugar levels possibly making you sleepy, grouchy, and hungry for more sweet and fatty food.
Your choice depends on what you want: protein or sweet satisfaction, fill-you-up fiber or salty crunch. Here are some choices; just be aware of calories, carbs, protein, and fiber.

Crunchy

Baked Lays Potato Chips: 130 calories, 2 grams of fat, 26 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Baked Doritos, Nacho Cheese: 170 calories, 5 grams of fat, 29 grams of carbs, 3 grams of pro- tein

Cheez-It Baked Snack Crackers: 180 calories, 9 grams of fat, 20 grams carbs, 4 grams of protein

Ruffles Potato Chips: 240 calories, 15 grams of fat, 23 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Cheetos, Crunchy: 150 calories, 10 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Sun Chips Original: 210 calories, 10 grams of fat, 28 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Snyder’s of Hanover Mini Pretzels: 160 calories, no fat, 35 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, Smartfood: 120 calories, 8 grams of fat, 11 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Nuts/Seeds

Planters Sunflower Kernels: 290 calories, 25 grams of fat, 9 grams of carbs, 11 grams of protein

Planters Salted Peanuts: 290 calories, 25 grams of fat, 8 grams of carbs, 13 grams of protein

Cookies/Pastry/Bars

Mini Chips Ahoy: 270 calories, 13 grams of fat, 38 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts (2 pastries): 410 calories, 10 grams of fat, 75 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Hostess Fruit Pie, apple: 470 calories, 20 grams of fat, 70 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Fig Newtons: 200 calories, 4 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Quaker Chewy Low-Fat Granola Bar, Chocolate Chunk: 90 calories, 2 grams of fat, 19 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein

Nature Valley Granola Bar, Crunchy Oats and Honey (2 bars): 190 calories, 6 grams of fat, 29 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Candy

Skittles: 240 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 56 grams of carbs, no protein

Twix (2 cookies): 250 calories, 12 grams of fat, 34 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

3 Musketeers, king size: 200 calories, 6 grams of fat, 36 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein

Peanut M&Ms: 250 calories, 13 grams of fat, 30 grams of carbs, 5 grams of protein

Snickers, regular size: 250 calories, 12 grams of fat, 33 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

For more tips on making calorie-conscious choices, get a FREE download for your Kindle or Kindle reader from Amazon through Tuesday, August 6th!

10 Ways To Save Calories At Summer Parties, Picnics, And Barbecues

June 6, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Before you grab some tasty morsel, 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.
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.”
Don’t show up absolutely starving. How can you resist all the tempting food when your blood sugar is in the basement and your stomach is singing a chorus?
If you know that the barbecued ribs, the blueberry pie, or your cousin’s potato salad is your downfall, acknowledge that you’re going to have it or steer clear. For most of us, swearing that you’ll only take a taste is a promise that is doomed to fail and you end up with second or third helpings heaped on your plate.
If you’re asked to bring something to a party, picnic, or barbecue, bring food you can eat with abandon – fruit, salad with dressing on the side, maybe berries and angel food cake for dessert (there’s no fat in angel food cake and moderate calories). Bring something that’s a treat but not over the top. That way you know you’ll always have some “go to” food.
Really eyeball the food choices so you know what’s available. Then make a calculated decision about what you‘re going to eat. Taking some of everything means that you’ll eat some of everything. Is that what you want to do?
Take the food you’ve decided to eat, sit down, enjoy it without guilt, and be done with it. No going back for seconds.
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 – serves as a visual reminder of how much you’ve already had to eat or drink.
Give yourself permission to eat – and enjoy — the special dessert or a burger or ribs. If you don’t, you’ll probably be miserable. Then when you get home you end up gobbling down everything in sight because you made yourself miserable by not eating the stuff that you wanted in the first place! But no seconds and no first portions that are the equivalent of firsts, seconds and thirds built into one.
If hanging around 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.