Eating out can be a real challenge to your waistband.  It can be pretty hard to make the best choices on the spur of the moment.

There are times to go all out and eat everything – maybe a special meal or celebration.  But for everyday eating, whether it’s at the coffee shop, takeout for lunch at work, or dinner at the local diner — why not resolve to stick to certain personal rules that are the most workable for you.

Here’s a list of some possibilities – all of them pretty doable – some easier that others depending on your preferences.  If you make up your mind to do one thing – and consistently stick to it – that behavior will eventually become your default habit pattern.

Ideas To Try:

1. I will not stick my hand in the breadbasket and eat what comes out.I will only have one piece of bread with dinner instead of two or three (harder breads tend to have fewer calories).
2. I will only have one piece of bread with dinner instead of two or three (harder breads tend to have fewer calories).
3. I will have my bread naked — without butter or olive oil (one teeny pat of butter has 36 calories, a tablespoon has 102, and a tablespoon of oil has 120).I will not use bread to sop up every last bit of sauce or dressing on my plate.
4. I will not use bread to sop up every last bit of sauce or dressing on my plate.
5. I will not eat all of the leftover broken pieces of cookies, brownies, crackers, etc.I will not taste everyone else’s meal at the table and then eat everything I ordered.
6. I will not taste everyone else’s meal at the table and then eat everything I ordered.
7. I believe it’s not necessary to clean my plate in a restaurant because (a) I paid for the meal, (b) it’s really good, or (c) it’s sitting in front of me.I will order pizza without extra cheese and meat.
8. I will order pizza without extra cheese and meat.
9. I will eat only two slices or pizza instead of three or four.I will have a two-scoop ice cream sundae instead of three – or maybe even one scoop.
10. I will have a two-scoop ice cream sundae instead of three – or maybe even one scoop.
11. I will order a single scoop sugar cone instead of a large waffle cone in the ice cream store. Sprinkles (jimmies) are a pretty low calories bonus.I won’t eat the crusts of grilled cheese or pizza off of my kid’s plate.
12. I won’t eat the crusts of grilled cheese or pizza off of my kid’s plate.
13. I won’t help with my kid’s ice cream cone, either – under the pretense of helping to keep it from dripping all over or falling on the sidewalk.I will hold my dinner wine to two glasses (a 5 ounce glass of wine has around 120 calories).
14. I will hold my dinner wine to two glasses (a 5 ounce glass of wine has around 120 calories).
15. I will keep my hand out of the bar snacks:  peanuts, goldfish, chips, etc.I will ask for salad dressing on the side and then use only a couple of spoonsful – not ladles like those commonly used in restaurants or salad bars.
16. I will ask for salad dressing on the side and then use only a couple of spoonsful – not ladles like those commonly used in restaurants or salad bars.
17. I’ll skip the pie a la mode and just have pie.I’ll eat the filling and leave most of the piecrust on the plate (can save around 200 calories).
18. I’ll eat the filling and leave most of the piecrust on the plate (can save around 200 calories).
19. I’ll order the smaller cut of steak in the steakhouse.I’ll ask for mustard instead of mayo on my sandwich (saves about 100 calories).
20. I’ll ask for mustard instead of mayo on my sandwich (saves about 100 calories).
21. I’ll have a cheeseburger instead of a bacon cheeseburger (two strips of bacon are about 100 calories).I’ll have plain coffee or tea instead of a mocha latte or hot chocolate.
22. I’ll have plain coffee or tea instead of a mocha latte or hot chocolate.
23. I’ll ask for veggies instead of mashed potatoes; salad instead of French fries.
24. I’ll have a regular burger or even a regular cheeseburger instead of a big mac, whopper, etc.
25. I’ll skip the mid-morning donut or pastry and have yogurt, fruit, or a small portion of nuts instead.
26. I’ll have grilled chicken or fish instead of fried.
27. I’ll only have one stadium-sized beer instead of two.
28. I won’t buy a candy bar when I stop for gas.
29. I’ll have a giant bagel only one of the weekend days instead of both.
30. I won’t use a road or plane trip as an excuse for non-stop candy and chip indulgence.

What are some of your eating out resolutions?  Post them on Facebook so others can try them, too.

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The post 30 Easy And Doable Eat Out Resolutions To Try — Pick One! appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

A lot of us actually plan to overeat during the holidays – although we may not admit it:  think about it — do you know that you’re going to overeat?  Do you think it wouldn’t be normal or celebratory if you didn’t overindulge and eat three desserts at Christmas or double helpings of stuffing and sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving?

It’s all too easy to do that.  Food is absolutely everywhere.  It’s there for the taking — and most of the time, holiday food is free (and in your face) at parties, on receptionist’s desks, as sample tastes while you shop.  How can you pass it up?

On top of it all, it’s sugary, fatty, and pretty.  How can you not try it?  Of course, sugary and fatty (salty, too) means you just crave more and more.   Do you really need it?  Do you even really want it?  If you eat it, will you feel awful later on?

Are you eating because of tradition – because you’ve been eating the same food during the holiday season since you were a kid?  Maybe you don’t even like the food anymore or it disagrees with you.  So why are you eating it?  Who’s forcing you to?

Do you think you won’t have a good time or you’ll be labeled Scrooge, Grinch, a party pooper, or offend your mother-in-law if you don’t eat everything in sight?  Really?

You can still love the holidays and you can still love the food. In the grand scheme of things overeating on one day isn’t such a big deal.  Overeating for multiple days that turn into weeks and then months can be become a bit and weighty deal.

The question is:  do you really want to overeat?  If you do, fine.  Enjoy every morsel and then take a nap.  Tomorrow is another day.  Just know that you don’t have to.  You make the decisions about what goes into your mouth.  Make thoughtful choices and enjoy them along with everything else the holiday represents.

What To Do

• Have a plan. Think about how you want to handle yourself in the face of food, family, eggnog, and pecan pie.  Nothing is engraved in stone but if you have an idea about what you want to do and how to do it you’ll be far less likely to nibble and nosh all day and night. You’re the one in charge of what goes into your mouth.

• Visualize the situation that you might find yourself in. What do you want the outcome to be? Rehearse, in your mind, how you’ll respond or behave to successfully navigate the eating challenges. Sports coaches use this technique to prepare their athletes to anticipate what might happen and to practice how to respond. Sports performance improves with visualization exercises—so can eating behavior.

• Make sure your plan is workable and realistic for what you’re aiming to achieve over the season.  The plan doesn’t have to be complex – just decide what you want to do and what steps you need to get there.

• Write it down –even if it’s on a napkin.  It will both reinforce your intentions and act as a measure of accountability.

• Consider what your surroundings will be.  Will your plan work for you – it may sound great, but is it doable for the situations you might find yourself in?  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? What will you do in these situations?

• 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 in charge of what food and how much of it will go into your mouth.

Do you have an ipad or an iphone?  Maybe both?  Check out Eat Out Eat Well Magazine coming soon to the Apple Newsstand.

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‘Tis the season to eat and there are “food landmines” everywhere you turn. We all have to eat but it can be a very slippery slope to eat well surrounded by food; family; friends; an encyclopedia of cultural, religious, and family traditions; and a whole host of expectations.

Holidays are supposed to be days of celebration and special significance — often religious, cultural, or traditional. Sometimes, they’re days just meant for play. A common denominator is that we often incorporate food – and lots of it — into celebrations.

Realistically, the actual content of your Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, or other holiday meal matters very little in the grand scheme of things. Although a few hundred calories here or there can make a difference when added up over weeks and years, the impact of overeating at one meal is usually negligible – even though your stomach might be singing a different song.

It’s the inevitable mindless eating – those treats on the receptionist’s desk, the gift of peanut brittle, the holiday toasts, the second and third helpings, the holiday cookies in the snack room – that are the main source of excess calories and added pounds during the holiday season.

What To Do

•  See it = eat it. It‘s incredibly difficult not to nibble your way through the day when you have delicious treats tempting you at every turn. How many times do your senses need to be assaulted by the sight of sparkly cookies and the holiday scent of eggnog or spiced roasted nuts before your hand reaches out and the treat is popped into your mouth?

• Don’t keep your trigger foods stocked in your pantry or fridge.  If you need to have supplies, don’t make them immediately visible.  Hide them in the back of the cabinet or in a “not too easy to be reached” location.

•  Be aware of openly displayed platters and bowls of cookies, nuts, candy, and other holiday specialties.  Make up your mind that it’s not okay – just because it’s the holidays – to taste test everything that crosses your path.

Coming soon to the Apple newsstand for your ipad and iphone:  Eat Out Eat Well Magazine!

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It might be hard to believe, but if you have reservations for eight you might end up eating 96% more!

Think about it – don’t you usually eat for a longer period of time when you’re eating with others compared to when you eat alone?  Maybe it’s due to mindlessly nibbling while someone else talks, or the good manners you learned in fifth grade, or because you’re just having fun and enjoying great food.

Most of us tend to stay at the table longer when we’re with others and the longer you’re at the table, the more you’ll eat.

Losing Track

Friends and family also influence how much you eat. Sometimes you can get so involved in conversation that all the monitoring of what pops into your mouth goes out the window.  Have you ever looked down at your plate and wondered where all the cookies went or how you managed to work your way through the mile high dish of pasta or the four pieces of pizza?  How many tastes did you take of everyone else’s meal and dessert?  Those tastes aren’t like invisible ink.  Those calories count, too.

Who Sets the Pace?

You tend to mimic your table companions. They eat fast, you eat fast.  They eat a lot, you eat a lot.  Ever wonder why you look at some families or couples and they’re both either heavy or slender?  As Brian Wansink, PhD says in his book, Mindless Eating, “birds of a feather eat together.”

How Much More?

Research has shown how strong the tendency is to increase how much you eat when you eat with others.  Compared to eating alone you eat, on average:

• 35% more if you eat with one other person
• 75% more with four at the table
• 96% more with a group of seven or more

Why?

The pattern of eating more when you’re in larger groups compared to  when you’re eating alone is common for adults. One reason is a phenomenon called “social facilitation,” or the actions that come from stimuli such as the sight and sound of other people doing the same that that you’re doing. When you’re eating in groups, social facilitation can help override your brain’s normal signals of satiety – allowing you to eat more even when you’re not hungry.

Calorie Savers:

• Think about how many people you’re eating with, who they are, and why you’re out to dinner with them.  If you want to have a blast and don’t care about how much you eat – eat with a big group and chow down.
• If you want to be careful about what and how much you eat, think about eating lunch with your salad (dressing on the side, please) friends rather than the pepperoni pizza group.
• You tend to adjust your eating pace to that of your companions.  So, sit next to the slow eaters rather than the speed eaters if you’re trying to control how much goes into your mouth.

The post Did You Eat Too Much? Blame The Other People At The Table! appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

If you’ve resolved to form new healthy habits, ones you want to keep and that fit in with your lifestyle, you need to keep repeating those new behaviors over and over again.  It’s like learning a language or a new game.  You need to keep practicing.

Why? Our brains are lazy. They like to default to what’s easy for them – and usually that’s an old habit (both good ones and bad ones).  That default is what takes the least amount of energy and it’s nice and comfortable. Doing something that’s very familiar can be done without much thinking or energy — like eating a certain thing everyday at the same time or going for a daily run at the same time and on the same route.

The way to create a new habit and to make it “stick” is to create a new “default” pattern to replace an old one. That requires the repetitive practice of doing the same behavior over and over again – like creating a path through grass or weeds by walking on it day after day.

Some Additional Tips

You might like to try one change at a time instead of making too many resolutions or setting too many goals. Create one new habit and then begin to work on another. Since our brains are, in a sense, kind of lazy, they don’t like too much disruption or change at a time.  They’re used to doing something one way, so pick one change at a time and create a habit around it.

Be committed and willing to work on your goal(s).  Decide if you’re really willing to make change(s) in your life. Are you serious or half-hearted about what you want to do? “Kinda,” “sorta” goals give you “kinda,” “sorta” results. Realistic, achievable goals produce realistic results.

Start Small And Specific. So many of us are guilty of all-or-nothing thinking and overly ambitious goals. Guess what happens?  We shoot ourselves in our collective feet and call ourselves failures.  Do it often enough and a “no can do” attitude gets solidly embedded. Make resolutions you think you can keep. If, for example, your aim is to exercise more frequently, schedule three or four days a week at the gym instead of seven. If you would like to eat healthier, try replacing dessert with something else you enjoy, like fruit or yogurt or a very small portion of a favorite indulgence — instead of seeing your diet as a form of punishment.

Unhealthy behaviors develop over time. Creating healthy behaviors to replace those unhealthy ones also requires time. Be patient.  And practice.

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

The post Practice Makes Perfect (Or At Least Good)– Especially With Habits appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The point of the holidays – any holiday – is not exclusively food.  Nonetheless, we wrap our holiday thoughts around food – after all, Thanksgiving originally was a harvest celebration and many cultures and religions have special foods to signify a special holiday.

Food Has Meaning

Food does have meaning–which may have different interpretations by people of varying religions, ethnicities, and cultures. Food acts like a cloak of comfort – something many of us look for and welcome around the holidays.

Nowhere is it written that food has to be eaten in tremendous quantity – or that a meal has to include stuffing, two types of potatoes, five desserts, or six types of candy.  That idea is self-imposed.

So is the opposite self-imposed idea: trying to diet during the holidays.  Restriction and overeating are both difficult – and often equally counterproductive. Winter holiday eating  comes during the cold and dark seasons in many parts of the world.  Warm comfort food just seems all the more appealing — whether you’re dieting or not — when it’s somewhat inhospitable outside.

Is Overeating Part Of Your Holiday Meal Plan?

Unconsciously, or perhaps habitually, a lot of us actually plan to overeat during the holidays.  Be honest:  do you know that you’re going to overeat?  Do you think it wouldn’t be normal or non-celebratory to overindulge and eat three desserts at Christmas or raid your kid’s Trick or Treat bag?

It’s all too easy to do that.  Food is absolutely everywhere.  It’s there for the taking — and most of the time, holiday food is free (and in your face) at parties, on receptionist’s desks, as sample tastes while you shop.  How can you pass it up?

On top of it all, it’s sugary, fatty, and pretty.  How can you not try it?  Of course, sugary and fatty (salty, too) means you just crave more and more.   Do you really need it?  Do you even really want it?  If you eat it, will you feel awful later on?

Eating And Tradition

Are you eating because of tradition – because you’ve been eating the same food at Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa since you were a kid?  Maybe you don’t even like the food anymore.  Maybe it disagrees with you or gives you acid reflux.  So why are you eating it?  Who’s forcing you to?

Do you think you won’t have a good time or you’ll be labeled Scrooge, Grinch, a party pooper, or offend your mother-in-law if you don’t eat everything in sight?  Get over it.  Do you really think you’re Scrooge?

You can still love the holidays and you can still love the food.  No problem.  In the grand scheme of things overeating on one day isn’t such a big deal.  Overeating for multiple days that turn into weeks and then months, is.

Do You Really Want To Overeat?

The question is:  do you really want to overeat?  If you do, fine.  Enjoy every morsel and then take a nap.  Tomorrow is another day.  Just know that you don’t have to.  You control the purse strings – and the decisions about what goes into your mouth.  Make thoughtful choices, the best choices for you, and enjoy them along with everything else the holiday represents.

The post Is Food The Main Focus Of Your Holiday? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

This quote from a story on Time.com called The Science of Appetite says it all: “Somewhere in your brain, there’s a cupcake circuit. How it works is not entirely clear, and you couldn’t see it even if you knew where to look. But it’s there all the same—and it’s a powerful thing. You didn’t pop out of the womb prewired for cupcakes, but long ago, early in your babyhood, you got your first taste of one, and instantly a series of sensory, metabolic and neurochemical fireworks went off.”

What Factors Feed Into What We Eat?

Many factors that feed into what we eat. Sometimes just the very sight, smell, and/or thought of something delicious trip some of your internal food bells and might make you want to eat even when you’re not hungry.

Come on, ‘fess up, how many times have you walked down the street – or have been in the mall – or have been sitting in a restaurant stuffed to the gills – and then you see or smell something that you didn’t know you wanted 30 seconds before? All of a sudden you absolutely crave whatever tickled your nose, eyes, and taste buds and 30 seconds after that you’re chowing down.  You’re putting food into your mouth even though you’re not hungry and didn’t even want what you find yourself eating before you saw it and/or smelled it!

Why we do this is really complicated – and if science had all of the answers weight management wouldn’t be such a topic of conversation.

How to Put On The Brakes

There is something you can try to help you put on the eating brakes – especially with holiday eating. Give yourself a mini-pause and ask yourself:

• Do I really want to eat that?

• Do I really, really want it or do I want it because it looks good, smells good, and means Christmas (or Halloween, or Thanksgiving, or Hanukkah, or Valentine’s Day or whatever memory it provokes?

• Is it worth the calories?

• Do I need all of it (or any of it) to be happy or satisfied?

• How will I feel after I eat it – both physically and emotionally?

• What is more important to me:  the food, how I feel while I’m eating it, how I feel after I eat it, and/or what the scale might say to me tomorrow morning?

Find more tips, strategies, and solutions in my new book, The Sensible Holiday Eating Guide: How To Enjoy Your Favorite Foods Without Gaining Weight available on Amazon for your Kindle or Kindle Reader.

The post Do You Really Want To Eat That – Or Is Something Else Making You Do It? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.