Eat Out Eat Well

eating habits

When’s The Best Time To Start Your Diet?

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Do the stars, moon, sun, and all of the planets need to be in alignment for you to start your diet?

The word diet usually means deprivation and a way of life that’s not easy, comforting, or fun.  So is there any wonder that there are tons of excuses and reasons to put off starting one?  Who wants to be deprived of food – especially if you love to eat?

Does This Sound Like You?

If you’re thinking about losing weight, do any of these seem familiar:

  • “I’ll wait until Monday to start” – and then you eat enough through the week and over the weekend to pack on more weight.
  • “Wow, it’s Monday, but it’s so and so’s birthday on Wednesday and we’re going out to dinner and then we’ll have cake – so I might as well wait until after Wednesday to start.”  And then it’s Thursday and you go back to “I’ll wait until Monday.”
  • “I don’t have the right kind of food in the house and it’s raining outside and I can’t get to the gym – so I might as well chow down today and wait until I can stock up on the right stuff” (and when will that be?).
  • “I was so ‘good’ all week and then on Friday I went out and had drinks and dessert and a ton of bread.  So I figured I ‘blew it’ and might as well eat what I want all weekend.  I can start again on Monday.”  Of course Monday comes along and another verse is added to this tune.

There’s Always A Reason — Or An Excuse – Not To Start 

You get the idea.  You can always find a reason not to start your new healthy eating plan.  How about listing the compelling reasons to want to start.

Just Start

Diets don’t work.  Maybe they do for the short-term, but it’s rare to have long lasting weight loss using a restrictive diet mentality.

Try a different approach.  Healthy eating habits are the key to success.  Finding what works for the long term may require some out of the box thinking and creative solutions.  Go for it and give it time.  Just start.

Have you ever watched an athlete look for an opening through a crowded field of players who are obstructing his or her way?  The athlete just keeps looking for an opening – an opportunity.  The ultimate choice might be unconventional and require lateral movement or some pulling back before surging forward, but without making some kind of move nothing happens.

The first step is deciding that you want to change your eating patterns.  Once you’ve decided you’re ready, look for your opening and take it – stop waiting for that elusive perfect moment in time.  You can keep telling yourself that you’ll start tomorrow — but will your “tomorrow” ever come if you don’t take some positive action to make it happen?

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

 

A Lot Of People At The Dinner Table: You Might Eat 96% More

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Planning on eating with seven friends? You might eat 96% more! No joke. We tend to eat more and for a longer period of time when we’re with other people compared to when we eat alone.

Why?  Perhaps it’s because we mindlessly nibble while someone else talks. Or maybe it stems from the good manners learned in fifth grade about eating what’s put in front of you. Or perhaps we’re just having fun and enjoying great food. We do tend to stay at the table longer when we’re with others and the longer we stay at the table, the more we eat.

Losing Track

Friends and family can absolutely influence how much we eat. Sometimes we can get so involved in conversation that any monitoring of what pops into our mouths completely disappears.  Think about it — 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 — the calories in them count, too.

Who Sets the Pace?

We tend to mimic our table companions. They eat fast, we eat fast.  They eat a lot, we eat a lot.  Ever wonder why some families or couples are either all overweight or all slim?  As Brian Wansink, PhD says in his book, Mindless Eating, “birds of a feather eat together.”

How Much More Do We Eat When We Eat With Others?

Wansink reports on a study that shows how strong the tendency is to increase how much we eat when we eat with others.

Compared to eating alone we average:

  • 35% more when eating with one other person
  • 75% more with four people at the table
  • 96% more with a group of seven or more

A Different Eating Pattern When We’re With Others

The pattern of eating more when we’re in larger groups is common in adults. One reason is something called “social facilitation,”  or the actions created by the stimuli that stem from the sight and sound of other people doing the same that that you’re doing. When you eat in groups social facilitation can help override the your brain’s normal signals of satiety.

Things To Think About

  • Who are eating with – and why?  If you just want to have a good time and don’t care about how much you eat, go ahead and eat with a big group.  The likelihood is that you won’t pay much attention to what or how much you eat.
  • If you want to be careful about what and how much you eat, think about eating lunch with your salad friends rather than the pepperoni pizza group.
  • You tend to adjust your eating pace to that of your companions.  Try sitting next to the slow eaters rather than the gobblers if you’re trying to control how much goes into your mouth.

Does Clean Eating Mean Making Sure You Wash Your Veggies?

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What Is Clean Eating?

Clean eating is about wholesome and natural food – food that isn’t full of chemicals, preservatives, additives and isn’t processed and/or refined.

Clean eating is healthy eating. All of the whole, natural, unprocessed foods in a clean diet are chock full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrition that will help you control your weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, and other markers important for good health.

What To Do

To eat clean, the April 2011 edition of Environmental Nutrition lists seven basic behaviors:

  • Eat fresh, uncomplicated, whole food – and choose it in its natural state.
  • Eat smaller meals – perhaps three small meals and two snacks each day instead of behemoth portions.
  • Eat good carbs  — keep the healthy carbs like veggies, legumes, whole grains, and fruit in your life – and ditch the processed and refined ones like the “whites”  (sugar, flour, rice).
  • Incorporate healthy fats like the monounsaturated fat in olive oil and nuts and cut down on the saturated fats found in dairy and animal products and the trans fats in processed baked and fried foods.
  • Eat high quality lean protein like fish, chicken, turkey, lean meat, and low or non-fat dairy.
  • Make water your beverage of choice.
  • Move your body.

By the way, you do need to wash your vegetables – and fruit.  Wash them really well in plenty of plain water.  No need for detergents or fancy vegetable washes.