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Dining out is one of the biggest challenges for dieters. Menus are designed to lure you in, and studies have shown that simply seeing or smelling food can erode the steeliest resolve (it’s hard to resist ordering that brownie after seeing it pass by on the dessert cart!). That’s why it’s important to have a game plan before you set foot in a restaurant.
Check Out the Menu in Advance. Access it online if possible, or call therestaurant and ask if they can fax a copy. When you get there, don’t even open the menu—simply tell the waiter what you decided on earlier in the day.
Start with greens. Salad helps fill you up without adding many calories… as long as you don’t drown it in dressing or smother it with fatty toppings like cheese and nuts. Vinegar contains negligible calories (plain vinegar, not vinaigrette), so feel free to douse your salad with as much as you want. Or ask for a dressing on the side and use no more than one to two tablespoons.
Watch portions. They are notoriously huge in restaurants. Even if you choose everything right, you can go wrong by cleaning your plate. You want to leave the table satisfied, not stuffed. One way to achieve this is to eat slowly and mindfully, paying attention to the company, not just the food. Try putting down your fork and taking a break every three bites or so. This gives your brain time to get the “I’m full” message from your stomach. On a similar note, don’t get so wrapped up in conversation that you forget what and how much you’re eating. To make sure you don’t overstuff yourself, when you’re about halfway through what’s on your plate, stop and assess your hunger on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being ravenous and 5 being stuffed. If you’re at a 3 or 4, stop eating.
Skip the bread basket. Most of the time, it’s a calorie bomb. If you must have something, a small slice of French bread or a small plain roll (no butter) is the way to go.
Don’t drink your calories. Stick with water, seltzer or a diet soda. If you enjoy alcohol, limit yourself to one drink—preferably a glass of wine, a wine spritzer, a light beer, or a shot of hard liquor mixed with club soda or another noncaloric beverage—all of which are around 100 calories. Avoid frou-frou drinks like frozen margaritas, which contain hundreds of calories.
Go lowfat. As a general rule of thumb, order foods that are broiled, grilled, roasted or steamed, and steer clear of those that are fried or sautéed. When entrées are pansautéed, the food soaks up more oil than during grilling or broiling.
Don’t be afraid to make special requests. You can save lots of calories by asking for sauce on the side, steamed vs. fried or sautéed vegetables, double orders of veggies instead of a starch, and half-portion entrées. Plate-sharing and doggie bags are also a great way to cut calories and cost. (A charge for a plateshare is less than another entrée.)
Order two appetizers instead of an entrée. Seafood appetizers like shrimp cocktail, oysters or grilled calamari are low enough in calories that you can order two (stick to the same guidelines about avoiding fried, sautéed, etc.) plus a salad as your entire meal.
Ditch dessert. If you need something sweet to end your meal, go for fruit or a few small bites of a shared dessert. Sometimes a cup of tea or a skim cappuccino is all it takes to make you feel like you’ve had a full dining experience.
When You’re Eating Ethnic Foods…
It can be hard to choose when you don’t completely understand the menu! You can always ask the waiter what’s in a dish and how it’s prepared, but here’s some help.
Best Italian picks:
• Mixed green salad with vinaigrette dressing on the side (no cheese)
• Mussels marinara
• Grilled calamari (squid)
• Grilled, broiled or roasted chicken or seafood (plain or served with a tomato-based sauce)
• Cioppino (tomato-based fish stew)
• 1/2 portion of pasta with frutti di mare (tomato and seafood) sauce
Avoid dishes with these words: Alfredo, parmigiana, scampi, carbonara
Best Mexican picks:
• Gazpacho
• Ceviche (raw fish “cooked” in lime or lemon juice)
• Chicken or shrimp fajitas (have only one soft tortilla, and limit the cheese, sour cream and guacamole)
• Camarones de hacha (shrimp in a tomato-coriander sauce)
• Snapper Vera Cruz
Avoid dishes with these words: Frito (fried), con crema (cream), con queso (cheese)
Best Chinese picks:
• Tofu and vegetable soup
• 1/2 order steamed vegetable dumplings
• Steamed chicken or seafood and vegetables (order garlic, ginger or black bean sauce on the side, and have 2 tablespoons)
• Moo Shu chicken (limit yourself to two pancakes and skip side rice)
Avoid dishes with these words: Crispy, chow (stir-fried in oil), sweet and sour
Best Japanese picks:
• Miso soup
• Edamame (soybeans)
• Oshitashi (spinach)
• Sashimi (fish without rice)
• Chicken or seafood yakitori (skewers)
• Chicken or salmon teriyaki
Avoid dishes with these words: Tempura, katsu (fried)
Joy's Bottom Line
1. Know before you go. Coming to the table armed with info is key to eating out without blowing your diet.
2. Order strategically. Don't be afraid to ask servers questions or ask them to make substitutions
3. Savor your dining experience. Eat slowly and pay attention to when you feel full so you don't walk away stuffed.
So, as if the challenge hasn’t been difficult enough, I had to go and throw a girls' weekend to Vegas smack in the middle of it. Changing routine can be tough when you are so focused on your goal, especially when you must rely solely on restaurants for your food and be in a completely different environment. The ladies at the gym assured me that it would be fine: they encouraged me to pack my workout clothes and said if I had one “cheat” it wouldn't be the end of the world.
I started the trip with protein bars, my running shoes, and a plan.
And yes, I turned into one of “those” girls, constantly asking how many calories are in that, how far do you think we just walked, etc. Luckily, my girlfriends all knew my goal and were all super supportive; and armed with a plan and the support of my friends, I actually was able to stick to my diet and break a sweat every day. Yes, while they were downing cheeseburgers and fries, I was having chicken and rice with vegetables; and while they were ordering biscuits and gravy, I was ordering an egg white omelet with whole wheat toast.
I walked away feeling so empowered and in control, and never felt like I was missing out on something.
It occurred to me that these are truly lifestyle changes I am practicing. My main goal of the challenge is ingrain in myself a healthy lifestyle that will inevitably lead to a healthy body; it is not to miraculously starve myself and then struggle with keeping the weight off once the challenge is over. And you know what? It's working: I was able to wear dresses out dancing that I haven’t worn in years. Even better? I didn’t miss a beat, my first day back home I was back in the gym. That’s my idea of success.
I got arrested by the fashion police. A couple of years ago I was training for a triathlon, and I was in the habit of leaving the house at an ungodly-early hour to get my workout in. Since I was trying to be polite and let my wife sleep, I would grab clothes out of my dresser and get dressed in the dark. It showed.
One morning, my 17 year-old daughter saw me and spewed her orange juice across the kitchen. Then she asked in a horrified, high-pitched voice,
“you aren’t planning on leaving the house wearing THAT are you?!?!”
I didn’t get it. I wasn’t wearing plaid with polka-dots. It wasn’t a polyester leisure suit. How bad could a blue/green & white patterned shirt with old WSU shorts, tube socks with green stripes, and blue running shoes be?
What followed was 3 months of her trying to educate me about the nuances of color and pattern matching.
One of the great things about clothing choices, is that everything can be changed in 5 minutes (or in my daughter’s case; 45 minutes). Unfortunately, the results of exercise selection take longer to change. It can take years of rehab and corrective exercise specialists to undo the results of unbalanced exercise habits.
Still, a lot of people approach their workouts the same way I had been choosing my outfits; kind of a “whatever’s convenient” methodology. We have an idea that we need to get the whole body, but how? How do we decide which exercise to do next? To answer these questions, I offer 4 basic guidelines for determining exercise order.
Begin Big- Start with the biggest muscles, the most complex exercises, and the most demanding technique first. We never, EVER, use only one muscle for an exercise. During every lift, muscles are doing 1 of 4 things; moving the weight (called prime movers), assisting (called synergists), stabilizing some other part of your body still so that the prime movers can pull on it, or relaxing (because you really don’t need your big toe flexed while you do curls) By starting with the biggest muscles, you make sure that the limiting factor in the workout is that prime mover, and not a stabilizer. The upside to using this order is that you will see significant strength gains. The downside is that it is easy to fall into a routine and get stuck in a rut.
Circuit Training- The idea behind setting up a circuit, is to let the upper body rest while you are working on the lower body. The advantage is that there is never any down time; you are always working something. The drawback is that it often requires a decent amount of space to set up the circuit, and unless you are part of a class others can ace you out of the Lat Pull machine while you are doing Calf Raises.
Push and pull- The concept of push and pull exercises is similar to circuit training. The difference is to rest from pushing motions (push-ups, overhead press, tricep extensions, etc) happens while you are working the pulling motions (pull-ups, rows, hamstring curls, etc). Again, there is never any down time. A major advantage is that this can keep the body balanced. A disadvantage is that you can overload mutual stabilizers (the muscles that stabilize your shoulder blade in a bench press also hold your shoulder blade still
during a seated row), so it is important to vary the body area as well as push-pull motions.
Super-sets- Sometimes called a compound-set is when you perform 2 exercises without a rest in between, often with the same motion or piece of equipment. One of my favorites on this is to do leg presses on a machine where I can really load up heavier weight than I can stabilize on my own, then jump immediately to body-weight squats on a bosu. I have a friend who loves to do power-cleans, front squats, and dead-lift all as a single super-set; all done with the same barbell. Advantages include time and equipment efficiency. Disadvantages include limited options for which exercises to pair together.
These are just rules of thumb. Nothing is set in stone. You can use these strategies individually, or combine them in a mix-and-match. You are not going to get pulled over by the exercise police if you don’t, but if you DO follow them, you WILL look better when you leave the house.
All you need is love! If only the Beatles were right.
As M&M put it, "If it were easy you wouldn't need me." It takes time, sweat, and in my case some tears from the frustrations that come along with the challenges of losing weight. I have been on a roller coaster that is out of control these past few weeks. Most would agree the primary goal of this challenge is to LOSE weight. Unfortunately, I have been more successful at the yo-yo part of losing weight.
But back to the love.
Without the love and support of everyone through this process I can honestly say I would not be where I am right now.
Chili (no beans)
3 ½ oz lean ground beef ( 7%fat)
1 cup chopped tomatoes
½ cup water
1 Tablespoon minced onion
2 cloves garlic crushed and minced
pinch of garlic powder
pinch of onion powder
¼ teaspoon chili powder
pinch of oregano
Cayenne pepper to taste (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Brown ground beef in small frying pan, add onions and garlic .Stir in tomatoes and water. Add spices and simmer slowly until liquid is reduced. The longer it cooks the more tender and flavorful.. Add a little water as needed to prevent burning. Serve with chopped green onion or tomato garnish and salt and pepper to taste.
For a more hearty meal add a cup of black beans. (optional)
Wenatchee Fitness Blog is following a local Wenatchee blogger named Shelley. Her blog, named "Fat, Interrupted." is filled with Shelley's 'random thoughts and experiences while trying to become less woman.'
I first called this entry Things I Would Do if I Wasn't so Fat, but I decided to change it to something better.
So...
Being fat sucks. It keeps me from doing all kinds of things, either because of self-consciousness or just because I can't physically do it. Why on earth would someone put themselves in a position of not being able to do stuff??? It's dumb. So I'm going to work hard so I can do stuff. Stuff that non-fat folks can do all the time with no problem. Here are some of the little things I will do when I'm not so fat:
And here are some bigger things I will do when I'm not so fat:
Most importantly, I will be a better servant to God and to my neighbors. My fatness truly limits my ability to serve. I will have the energy to spend more time doing the love-one-another thing. I will load furniture for the furniture ministry, I will lug boxes of food around, I will help with clean-up and landscaping projects and all those other loving things that my expansive girth keeps me from fully engaging, and fully enjoying.
I'm sure there's lots more things I'll do when I'm not so fat. But I've been fat for so long, I don't know what all those things are. I'll keep you posted!
We are excited to announce we will soon be following a local blogger named Shelley. Her blog, named "Fat, Interrupted." is filled with Shelley's 'random thoughts and experiences while trying to become less woman.'
You won't want to miss it. Subscribe now to the Wenatchee Fitness Blog RSS feed to receive all blog updates 😉
While it is always nice to get the opinion of a professional, there are some greetings that just leave you speechless. This is one of them. For those who missed that particular day in French history class, the Marquis de Sade took perverse pleasure in tormenting others. How do you respond to that?
As a trainer, I’m used to clients swearing at me. I’ve had a good number of 4-letter adjectives applied to me; “nice” was never one of them. I’ve been called “evil”, “mean”, “jerk”, and “nuts”, but “sadist”? Really? I’ll admit to enjoying the faces that people make during some exercises, but that is just a fringe benefit of the job; it has nothing whatsoever to do with taking perverse pleasure in inflicting torment. Really! I swear!
But there are some strange opinions regarding pain that float around the gym. We’ve all heard, “no pain, no gain” or “pain is weakness leaving the body.” And as someone who, at one time, was on a first name basis with the doctors at the local Emergency Room, I have developed something of a sophisticated palette when it comes to discomfort; a “connoisseur of suffering” as it were. Not all pain is the same. Through various breaks, dislocations, rips, tears, slides, grinds, subluxations, and paper cuts, I started differentiating various types of anguish.
For the uninitiated, or fearful who may feel intimidated by masochism (“love of pain”) in the gym, here are a few “flavors of affliction” that you may run into, some likely causes of each, and what to do when you DO feel each. Think of it as a “how to hurt”...for dummies.
Burning pain- This is the “good” kind of pain that everyone talks about. It is located in the muscle and stops when we stop pushing ourselves in the exercise. This one likely comes from Lactate building up as we exercise. It is usually followed in a day or two by the...
I-didn’t-even-know-I-had-a muscle-there pain- The trainers will call this DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness), but it really means that you can’t freaking MOVE two days after a hard workout. Regardless of what YOU call it, it is caused by microscopic tears in the muscle as a result of working out. It is normal, and it WILL go away. One thing you can do to get rid of it faster is to work through Range Of Motion (ROM) exercises, or do a Restorative Exercise like some forms of Yoga (note: your first Hot Yoga class with Susan in the 9th Street Studio will more likely CAUSE this than HEAL it. To work it through, you will want a Detox & Destress with K.C., or a stretch session with Cara). A warm bath will help too. Drink LOTS of water, and get blood flowing to the stiff muscles.
Sharp, stabbing pang- Often this is a pinched nerve. It means STOP! It is a sign that something is not aligned correctly, and the more you push now, the more you will pay later. Often runners, who are landing too hard on their heel, will get this in their knees. And weigh lifters who overload a squat can get this in their back or knees. If you are getting this, then get professional help with proper structure before it leads to...
Back-of-the-leg-weakness- say hello to Sciatica. Pressure on the Sciatic nerve can cause pain, weakness, numbness, or tingling in the leg. It can be caused by a slipped disc, inflammation of the Piriformis muscle, degenerative disk disease, pelvic injury or misalignment. Get this one looked at by a medical professional to make sure that what you are doing is not more damage. For the most part, heat or ice (according to what feels good) will help, and our trainers can show you a few stretches that may help. But deal with this before it turns into…
The Omniscient Pain- With a break, dislocation, or tear, the brain literally overloads with pain signals. The effect is sometimes described as a moment where you cannot see, but know exactly where every person an object in the room is. You cannot hear, but you know that you are screaming. You cannot feel, but you know that things are no longer attached correctly. When you DO finally come back into your body, it starts with a queasy, churning stomach. If you get this one, just lay there. The paramedics will be along shortly. Do what the doctor and the physical therapist tell you, and get ready for…
The dull ache- When bones heal, there is a lump of scar tissue on what would otherwise be a smooth surface that delicate muscle slides over. This causes inflammation. The inflammation puts pressure on nerves which your brain interprets as pain. When ligaments and tendons heal, the scar tissue responds to temperature and humidity differently than everything else. There is typically nothing to actually be “fixed” here. The more active you can be the more natural anti-inflammatory exercise response you will get. Just be cautious and make sure that you get a proper warm-up, so that you can avoid…
“The Alien” ailment- This is when it feels like THE Alien is about to burst out of your chest, and you start looking around for Sigourney Weaver. Severe chest pains when doing cardio are a result of a lack of oxygen to the heart. If you are feeling this, STOP IMMEDIATELY!!! This MAY be as simple as something you ate, or it may be the beginnings of a heart attack. No matter what, it is something that you need a professional to look at before you see a white light and hear the voices of dead relatives beckoning. Explanations range from high cholesterol and coronary artery disease, to gas or indigestion.
The Cramp- This is one that just about everyone has had. When a muscle seizes and WILL NOT relax. Explanations for this range from improper warm up to electrolyte or calcium deficiency. While this one is usually not dangerous, it WILL put a stop to your workout. Stop and stretch. Your body is telling you to back off; it isn’t getting some nutrient that it needs.
As a general rule, pain is a positive thing. Your body is talking to you. LISTEN TO IT!!! Most of these types of pain are your body’s way of asking, “are you SURE this is what you want to do?” If YOU aren’t sure about proper form, our trainers are more than happy to help. You CAN ignore it and push through with more machismo than intelligence. Remember, what doesn’t kill you might make you stronger; or it may leave you broken and crippled for the rest of your unnaturally shortened life. You just have to decide how much you enjoy pain.
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