Eat Out Eat Well

weight management

Are You Ready For Some Super Bowl Food Facts – And Some Calorie Saving Tips?

By Leave a Comment

Will you be joining the ranks of over 20 million Americans who will attend a Super Bowl party?  Do you side with half of all Americans who say they would rather go to a Super Bowl party than to a New Year’s Eve party?

Some Amazing Super Bowl Food Facts:

  • About one in twenty (9 million) Americans watch the game at a restaurant or a bar.
  • Americans double their average daily consumption of snacks on Super Bowl Sunday, downing more than 33 million pounds in one day.
  • The average Super Bowl watcher consumes 1,200 calories. (Source: Calorie Control Council). Potato chips are the favorite and account for 27 billion calories and 1.8 billion fat grams — the same as 4 million pounds of fat or equal to the weight of 13,000 NFL offensive linemen at 300 pounds each. (Source: ScottsdaleWeightLoss.com).
  • Nearly one in eight (13%) Americans order takeout/delivery food for the Super Bowl. The most popular choices are pizza (58%), chicken wings (50%), and subs/sandwiches (20%). (Source:  American Journal).  Almost 70% of Super Bowl watchers eat a slice (or two or three) during the game.
  • The amount of chicken wings eaten clocks in at 90 million pounds or 450 million individual wings. It would take 19 chicken breasts to get the same amount of fat that you usually get from a dozen Buffalo wings.
  • On Super Bowl Sunday Americans eat an estimated 14,500 tons of potato chips, 4000 tons of tortilla chips, and eight million pounds of avocados. Five ounces of nacho cheese Doritos equals around 700 calories. You’d have to run the length of 123 football fields to burn them off.  You’d have to eat 175 baby carrots or 700 celery sticks to get the same number of calories.
  • Stew Leonard’s, a local chain of southwestern Connecticut grocery stores, sold more than 40,000 pounds of chicken wings and 10,000 pounds of barbecued ribs and 60,000 pigs-in-blankets ahead of Super Bowl Sunday in 2012.  This year they are slso offering some healthy alternatives along with the traditional game day food.  Choices include: grilled or roasted Mediterranean vegetables, hummus instead of high-fat and high-calorie sour cream onion dip, pita instead of potato chips, and provolone salad on crostini made from aged provolone diced with roasted peppers, carrots, red onions, parsley, basil, olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, white vinegar and a touch of brown sugar on pieces of fresh, crusty bread.
  • And, according to 7-eleven, sales of antacids increase by 20% on the day after Super Bowl.

Super Bowl Party Calorie Saving Tips

  • Stick with grilled meat, veggies, or baked chips rather than fried.
  • Turkey, baked ham, and grilled chicken are better choices than wings and fried chicken.
  • Plain bread, pitas, or wraps are less caloric than biscuits or cornbread.
  • Go for salsa and skip the guacamole.
  • Minimize calories by dipping chicken wings into hot sauce instead of Buffalo sauce.
  • Try using celery for crunch and as a dipper instead of chips.
  • Try fruit for dessert.
  • Go for thin crust rather than thick doughy crust pizza. Choose the slices with vegetables, not pepperoni or meatballs.  If you’re not embarrassed, try blotting up the free-floating oil that sits on top of a greasy slice (soak up even a teaspoon of oil saves you 40 calories and 5 grams of fat).
  • Alcohol adds calories and dulls your mindful eating. Try alternating water or diet soda with beer or alcohol.  That can decrease your alcohol calories (alcohol has 7 calories/gram) by 50%.

The next post will give some examples of Good, Better, And Best Super Bowl Food Choices.

Buffet Table Woes? Keep Your Back To The Table

By Leave a Comment

Whether it’s a fancy catered affair or pizza, wings, and cold cuts laid out on the kitchen and coffee tables on game day, why give yourself extra opportunities to shovel chips and dip or salami and cheese into your mouth all night long? You’re human, so stay out of hand-to-mouth range – and don’t stare at the delicious stuff, either. You’re far less likely to mindlessly eat if you have to leave a conversation and walk across the room to get to the food.

Keeping your back to the table is one of the easiest strategies to use.  We often eat with out eyes – if we see something delicious, we want to eat it.  So, don’t look at it.  Keep your back to the tempting food as you’re having conversations or watching the game.

Hors d’oeuvres can really sucker punch you, too.  They’re small, but the calories really add up. Make up your mind how many you’ll eat ahead of time or you’ll have shoved down a thousand calories before you know it. Pick the ones you love and avoid the ones you don’t.  Why sacrifice your calories for something you don’t love?  Try to keep a mental count because when you’re talking and drinking it’s far too easy to grab from each passing tray.

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

Free Food: No Money For Lots Of Sweet, Fatty Calories And Little Energy

By Leave a Comment

You have an early morning meeting.  Sitting in front of you is a platter loaded with bagels, danish, and doughnuts just waiting to be eaten and washed down by copious amounts of coffee.

If you didn’t have time to grab some and if all the platters aren’t picked clean, the remnants will surely end up in the snack room next to the birthday cake (it’s always somebody’s birthday) or the leftover cookies from someone’s party the night before.

Perhaps you shop at Costco on the weekend.  At least three tables will be manned by someone offering you samples of hot pizza, luscious cheesecake, or tooth-picked pigs ‘n blankets just waiting to be quickly and neatly popped into your mouth.

Maybe you then make a stop at the cleaners, the tailors, or the veterinarian.  There it is – the giant bowl piled high with freebie candy.  You can dig deep for the kind you like – Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, mini Snickers, or Tootsie Roll pops.  You name it — it’s usually there for the taking.

Going to a wedding that night?  How do you escape the platters of salami, cheese, mini quiches, and then the desserts covered with icing and whipped cream?

What’s The Problem With Easily Accessible Free Food?

Not a thing if you don’t care about calories, nutrition, and how you’re going to feel after an overload of sugar, fat, and salt. It’s also very attractive if you don’t have a lot of money to spend and your belly is screaming, “I’m hungry.”

Occasional dips into free food probably aren’t going to hurt anyone in reasonable health.  But, consistently finding your hand in the candy or goldfish bowl or on the sample tray in Costco has a caloric downside. And, non-nutritious junk, processed, and high calorie food negatively impacts your concentration, alertness, and energy. Your simple carb freebies will send your blood sugar on highs and lows worthy of a roller coaster ride.

Easy To Understand – Hard To Do

It’s one thing to understand all of that. The problem is that most of us find it pretty darn hard to ignore the food that’s just there for the taking. It’s everywhere – and we value cheap calories. When was the last time that you resisted the peanuts, pretzels, or popcorn sitting on the bar counter?  What about the breadbasket – that’s usually free, too.

We don’t have to eat any of this stuff.  But we do.  Why?  Some of us have trouble passing up a giveaway; some of us see it as a way to save money, even with possible negative health consequences; and some of us use “free” as an excuse to eat or overeat junk food or the sweet, salty, fatty foods that some call addicting.

And the calories?  Just because it’s free doesn’t mean the calories are, too.  It’s all too easy to forget about those calories you popped in your mouth as you snagged a candy here and tasted a cookie there.

Things To Think About Before The Freebies Land In Your Mouth

You might want to come up with your own mental checklist that, with practice, will help you decide if it’s worth it to indulge.  If you decide to taste the salami and have a cookie and a piece of cake, at least you’ll have made a conscious choice.  Ask yourself:

  • Is the food fresh and tasty?  It might be if you’re at a catered wedding or a private party, it’s more questionable if it’s being handed out at the supermarket or sitting in a large bowl at the cleaners.
  • Is it clean?  How many fingers have been in the bowl of peanuts on the bar counter or have grabbed pieces of cheese or bunches of cookies off of an open platter?
  • Do you really want it – or are you eating it just because it’s there?
  • Is it loaded with fat, sugar, and salt that add up to mega calories?  Every calorie counts whether it’s popped in your mouth and gone in the blink of an eye or savored more slowly and eaten with utensils off of a plate.
  • If you fill up with the non-nutritious free food, are you skimping on the nutritious stuff later on because you’re simply too full to eat it?
  • If you start nibbling on the free food, does it open the flood gates so that you continue to indulge? Loading up on simple sugars – like those in candy, cookies, cake, and many processed foods – causes your blood sugar level to spike and then to drop – leaving you hungry and pretty darn cranky.

You Do Have Choices

  • You don’t have to eat food because it’s free.  No one is forcing you to make some more room on the serving tray or breadbasket by sampling one (or more) of each variety.
  • If you sample the candy, pizza, cheesecake, popcorn, or pieces of cookie, are you giving yourself permission (perhaps in disguise) to overindulge in food you might not ordinarily eat?
  • Be aware of the cascade.  Sometimes you can’t eat just one – it’s more like eat one and you can’t stop.
  • If you know you’re going to be tempted, plan to indulge. Do it mindfully, not mindlessly:  build it in.  Eat a lighter lunch and don’t go shopping or to an event when you’re starving — a sure ticket to chowing down on almost everything in sight.
  • Have your own personal policy for bowl dipping – the quick hand dips into the candy bowl at the receptionist’s desk, the jelly beans on your friend’s table, the chocolates on the counter. Aside from the calories think about all of the other hands – and where those hands have been – that are also dipping into the same bowl.

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

Did You Forget These Calories?

By Leave a Comment

Are you keeping a record – virtual, written, or in your noggin – of how may calories you’re eating?

Even if you’re not (and some people find it very hard to do – actually loathe doing it) you probably take note of what you eat each day – at least most of what you eat.  But, all of us have things that we eat, and consequently calories we take in, that easily slip being added to our mental or written calorie ledger sheet. The reasons for the oversight vary but either:

  • we truly forget
  • we find keeping track of them to be an onerous task
  • we don’t want to address the fact that we ate what we did.

Calories That Are Way Too Easy to Forget

There are some kinds of calories that are particularly easy to forget.  Here’s some ideas – perhaps you’d like to take the opportunity to think about the mindless, sneaky calories in your life.

It’s easy to forget to include the calories in:

  • the candy bar you buy at the gas station and eat it in the car
  • the 3 tootsie rolls you snagged from the receptionist’s desk
  • the couple of samples of cheesecake at Costco
  • the crusts of the grilled cheese sandwich or the ends of the pizza that you finished from your child’s plate
  • the cookie batter you tasted and the dough you licked from the bowl and beaters
  • the leftovers you polished off because there was too small an amount to save
  • the  extra hors d’oeuvre you mindlessly popped into your mouth
  • the ice cream you licked from your child’s ice cream cone to prevent it from falling on the street
  • the peanuts and goldfish you nibbled on at the bar
  • the bread you practically inhaled from the breadbasket
  • the glass of juice from the fridge in the snack room
  • the extra coffee and cream in your tea and coffee
  • the extra wine in your glass that is half again the size of a “regular” portion
  • those “I’ll just have half a cookie” moments

How many more can you add?

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

No Seconds: Here’s A Useful Tip

By Leave a Comment

Do you skimp on putting food onto your plate thinking that it will keep your calorie count down?

What happens?  You eat the skimpy portion – decide you’re still hungry – and then go back for more.

If the serving dishes are right in front of you there’s potential for making caloric matters much worse.

Get Those Serving Dishes Off The Table

If you want to make it a little easier for yourself to save on calories, one thing you can do is to get those serving dishes off of the table.  According to an article in the May 2011 Nutrition Action Healthletter, when serving dishes are left on the table men eat 29% more and women 10% more than when those serving dishes stay on the counter.

Why?

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 refill your plate without much thought about the quantity of food that’s going into your mouth.

According to the article, men chow down on more servings than women because they tend to eat fast  — impatiently gobbling food while they wait for everyone else in the family to finish. As a result, they end up eating seconds and thirds while other people are still on firsts.  Women usually eat more slowly so they’re not as likely to get to the seconds and thirds.

Pay Attention To What Goes Onto Your Plate

To help avoid the temptation of going back for seconds:

  • figure out a reasonable portion of food that is within reason but not so skimpy that you’re no where near satisfied when you’re finished
  • fill your plate with that portion from stove or from serving dishes on the counter
  • eat and enjoy knowing that you’ve selected a healthy meal that’s satisfying but neither too skimpy nor too large.

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