7 steps to mix Weight Loss with Eating Out at Restaurants.

Steps to Weight Loss and Restaurants: Think, Read, Ask, Alter, Half, Slow, & Walk

It’s difficult to navigate the landscape of the over-sized, over-oiled, over-salted menus of today’s restaurants. In my opinion, mixing Weight-Loss with Restaurants is similar to mixing oil and water.

It’s much easier to prepare your own meals in portion sizes that you control what ingredients are being used. Having said that, one can still enjoy meals at restaurants and lose weight. It’s definitely possible, but more difficult.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune describes Bernie Salazar’s, of Biggest Loser Fame, method for eating out and losing weight.

Bernie Salazar, who eats out twice a week, sometimes has half of his meal boxed up before the food ever gets to the table. And he asks them to keep it in the back—to avoid eating it right away. “Keep it out of sight,” he says. Do not have the other half sitting on the table with you. “A meal in a box is just a present!” he says, adding that he would be tempted to open it – and eat it – if it were sitting there with him.

Above all, he says, don’t be afraid to ask for food to be prepared the way you want it. “Would you rather offend the waiter or the cook by being picky or would you rather offend your heart?”

source: Trine Tsouderos, Chicago Tribune: A ‘Biggest Loser’s’ calorie-busting tips

Let’s break it down into steps we can repeat every-time we dine out.

7 tips for eating out and maintaining weight loss

1. Think before picking a restaurant. Try to find restaurants that don’t sacrifice taste in low-calorie dishes. Obviously, metropolitan areas like Chicago offer a large variety of restaurants to choose from, but in Paducah, KY, one might have less of a culinary choice.
2. Read and comprehend the menu. By actually reading the menu for comprehension, you’ll have to think about it. Consequently, if a starter sounds appetizing (then you’ll remember while reading) that you will have to exercise more later to compensate the increase in calories.
3. Ask questions! How is this prepared? What oil are our using? Is it fried or baked? How many calories are in this dish? Most restaurants will not divulge or conveniently choose not to know how many calories are in their menu items. By asking questions about how the food is prepared, you can make a better educated case into how many calories, carbs, fat, protein, nutrients are in the dish you are about to eat.
4. Ask the waiter, chef, to alter the dish to your dietary needs. In other words, ask them for no salt, or to bake the fish instead of frying it. Paraphrasing Salazar, its much better to offend the restaurant than to come to a premature death due to poor diet.
5. In the event that you do find yourself in a large-portion restaurant, while ordering your food, Ask the restaurant to half your order, and keep the doggie bag in the back as a gift for you when you leave the establishment. This way, you are not tempted to eat it, because its not on the table. Secondly, you’ll have a meal for home. I’ve suggested splitting the order in half in the past prior to eating, but I had not thought about asking the restaurant to split the order before even delivering the food to my table. That’s such a great idea.
6. Eat Slow during the meal taking it one bite at a time. Chew your food completely, savoring each bite. By making the meal a slow event, you enjoy the food and give your body time to digest the food. Consequently, you’ll eat less and get your money’s worth.
7. Take a walk after you eat to help with digestion. Exercise helps burn the calories. In fact, many experts suggest eating before and after a workout helps the body burn fat. I don’t go that far, but just the fact of walking around helps increase your activity and thus increases your Food Out.

What are your steps for maintaining weight-loss while eating at your favorite restaurant?

Help Wanted: Front End Designer Apply Within

Yes,  Simpleweight is looking for a Front End Designer willing to become a partner in our new Triumvirate Technology Team.  We solve problems with Technology.  Do you want to join us?

Here’s what we have?  We’re currently a team of two, Ryan and Scott.

We’ve always felt we’ve been missing someone.  We need a Designer.
Help us convert our  Duumvirate into a Triumvirate.

If you’ve read Getting Real, we’re fond of small talented, hungry teams.  We stayed small on purpose, but it’s time to grow.  We’ve got the Developer (Ryan), We’ve got the Sweeper (Scott),  We’re missing the Designer (Possibly You).  I know its odd, I read stories of different designers having difficulty find back-end developers.  Not us,  We have the developers, we need a Designer who is creative, effective, efficient, and an awesome Web Application User Interface Specialist.

However, we don’t just want any ordinary web designer. Here are our needs:

• You are a designer who is passionate about Design. You read the popular design blogs, but you stay true to yourself.  Our individual lives, jobs, family life take priority, but your passion is so strong, that you are designing in your spare time.

• You are a designer who writes well and thinks.  We often communicate via email/chat.  So, clear concise writing is imperative.  We feel good writing demonstrates creative thinking. Finally, good writing helps grow a business with blogging, twitter, friendfeed, etc.

• You are a designer who wants to learn, experiment, and do.  If you look at our post:  Why Build Simpleweight - Defining Simple Weight Success, our number one goal and our number two goal details learning.  We built simpleweight to learn about ourselves, to learn about entrepreneurship, to learn about weight loss, and to learn new technology.  Learning happens by doing and experimenting.  So you must be a learner and a doer.

• You are a designer who has a broad list of passions including but definitely not limited to Health, Fitness, or Weight Loss.  We’re trying to help large numbers of total strangers achieve a healthful weight loss balance.  However, we’ve got a number of other ideas in our ten webs project that we’d like help on.

• You are a designer who lives in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago, but this is not really a requirement it is optional.

• You are a designer that is efficient yet exceptional with web and graphic design tools. We will be wowed by your ability to take designs and make them come to life into interfaces that people will want to use many times a day.

• Finally, You are a designer who is willing to work for FREE and become a partner in our Triumvirate. You think I’m kidding?   Simpleweight is more about helping others than making big dollars.  Yes, if we had 200 million users, we’d all be doing pretty good financially, but our hope is that those 200 million users are healthful and saving the economy money.  We’re not a non-profit company, we expect to make a profit.  Eventually, it is our desire for our websites, applications, and other projects to grow enough financially where we’d be able to decide whether we want full-time jobs or not.  Until that time comes, our profit is funneled back into the company to help more people.  We expect you to have a current income that is sustaining your lifestyle.

Now, we understand no one works for FREE.  What do you get in return for working on simpleweight?  You get an outlet for your passions: Design and Fitness.  You get to learn and grow your career.  You get experience that is unmatched in your current set-up, because you now become a ground-floor partner in a business that compliments your passions. You get untold rewards that are limited only in our collective creativity and ability to act.  How cool is that?  You also get some developers to help you take your ideas to market into real-live products. Yes, we’re open.  Our ideas become your ideas and vice versa.

Are we asking for too much?  We don’t think so.  If you do, then obviously, you’re not the right candidate.

Contact us - We’d love to hear from you, see your portfolio, or read your blog.  Tell us why you should become a member of our triumvirate?

New Diet Books of 2008 for weight loss

Today, 2008 is 7/12ths complete, and summer weight loss has only a month to go. It’s time to get back to basics and review those 2008 new years resolutions, goals, and weight loss articles that proliferated in January.

Time Magazine wrote a piece titled: Weighing the New Diet Books which does a good review of the 2008 diet books.

I’m amazed at all the diet books out there, and they keep coming. Of course, I am tempted to write my own diet book. In fact, I have two working titles and I’ve been brainstorming outlines for a while. Besides that, What are the New Notable Diet Books of 2008 for weight loss

1. Eat This, Not That!, By David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, 304 pages.
2. How to Eat Like a Hot Chick, By Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent, 168 pages. (Such a short book, What! Do Hot Chicks not eat much ?)
3. Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, By Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, 192 pages.
4. Slim for Live, By Dr. Gillian, 223 pages.
5. The GenoType Diet, By Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo with Catherin Whitney, 317 pages.
6. The All-New Atkins Advantage, By Dr. Stuart L. Trager with Colette Heimowitz, 362 pages.
7. The No-Crave Diet, By Dr. Penny Kendall-Reed and Dr. Stephen Reed, 224 pages.
8. The Spectrum, By Dr. Dean Ornish, 386 pages.
9. The Ultimate TEA Diet, By Mark “Dr. Tea” Ukra, 306 pages.
10. Women’s Health Perfect Body Diet, By Cassandra Forsthe 356 pages.

A couple of notables missing from Time Magazine’s list:

1. The Flat Belly Diet, by Liz Vaccariello
2. The 12 Second Sequence: Shrink Your Waist in 2 Weeks by Jorge Cruise, 256 pages.
3. The Advanced Mediterranean Diet: Lose Weight, Feel Better, Live Longer, 304 pages.

Let me give you a hint (since my book is not yet published). I think you are what you read, and you are what you eat. So, if you read books about science, you’ll become a scientist. If you read books about diet and nutrition, you’ll soon adapt those habits as well. So, you can never read too many books. You’ll always learn something. However, It does not matter how many diet books you read, you still need to DO! Action needs to conincide with your reading Exercise, Fitness, Weight Loss, Diet, or even Cooking Books. If you don’t do, you’ll never reap the benefits.

What are some of my books in my Library that I re-read every so often?

I still recommend the free Hack Diet Book as a great starting place. For other great books, I recommend the following:

• 8 Minutes in the Morning: A Simple Way to Shed up to 2 Pounds a Week Guaranteed by Jorge Cruise and Anthony Robbins
• The 3-Hour Diet: Lose up to 10 Pounds in Just 2 Weeks by Eating Every 3 Hours! by Jorge Cruise
• The Abs Diet: The Six-Week Plan to Flatten Your Stomach and Keep You Lean for Life by David Zinczenko and Ted Spiker
• Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink
• The Cardio-Free Diet by Jim Karas
• You: On A Diet: The Owner’s Manual for Waist Management by Mehmet C. Oz and Michael F. Roizen
• The Volumetrics Eating Plan: Techniques and Recipes for Feeling Full on Fewer Calories by Barbara J. Rolls

What about you? What is your favorite Diet or Fitness Book?

Categories : Diet Tags : , books, Diet, fitness, weight loss

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Chinese Diet gives us 10 tips to help with our Western Diet

A great article in The Independent titled:

Use your noodle: The real Chinese diet is so healthy it could solve the West’s obesity crisis - Healthy Living, Health & Wellbeing - The Independent.

I encourage you to read the article.  It provides a great list of Diet tips.  Some I agree with some I don’t, but still great food for thought.  I file this in the category of everyone is different, and each person needs to find the diet that works for them.  Here are the tips with my summary and comments.

1. Stop Counting Calories:  The secret of the Chinese people is avoiding the empty calories of nutrient-free (sugary) foods. I think being in a western diet, we’re bombarded with sugary food.  So, its much more difficult for us to gauge portion sizes. I also have learned first hand that counting my calories helps me lose weight.
2. Think of vegetables as dishes:  This goes well with our thought that Eat Plants and Protein.
3. Fill up on Staple foods: If your staple foods are carb rich nutrient-free foods.  I disagree, but if they are complex carbs.  Then, well, it’s acceptable.
4. Eat until you are full: Forget the eating to finish the plate or eating for social reasons. you eat when you are hungry, and you stop when you are not.  This takes a long time for us Americans to re-calibrate our stomachs, but over time, you will learn to listen to your stomach after you force it for 45 days or longer.
5. Take Liquid Food: We’re not talking Starbucks.  We’re talking watery nutrient-rich soups.
6. Bring yin and yang into your kitchen: Balance wet and moist foods (yin) with dry and crisp foods (yang).  In other words, a well balanced diet of Vegetables, with Protein, and Complex Carbs.
7. Raw power?  Not necessarily: People overcook too many vegetables.  All you have to do is slightly steam broccoli or carrots.  Or just sautee them briefly to warm them.  This makes it easier for us to digest.  At the same time, RAW foods have more nutrients.
8. Use Food to keep fit: Different foods help keep the body in balance and help the body fight different bugs.  I’ve always said that pizza helps sore muscles, and ice cream helps with headaches, but I think that’s just wishful thinking.  Remember, food is nourishment for every organ of the body.
9. Drink Green Tea: Drink any tea, but green is the best.
10. Practice Restorative exercise: Think Yoga, Think Tai Chi, Think Kung Fu, Think Balanced Aerobic Exercise with Rhythmic breathing.  While I agree, I also think High Intensity, 5 second methodical interval strength training can provide some of the same rhythmic benefits.

What a great list.  Every Culture has positive benefits.  Yes, certain diets are healthier than others, but there are food fundamentals that everyone can use regardless of diet.

Take a look at the book:

Why the Chinese Don’t Count Calories

Weight Loss - Back to the Basics

I recently read a ChangeThis manifesto, The New Time Management: Simply Focus on the Fundamentals, and Toss Away the Tips, By Francis Wade.

Francis describes 7 fundamentals he believes are critical for any professional to master Time Management. He makes the comparison to athletes who have to refocus on the fundamentals. For example:

• Tiger Woods going to practice and making 1000’s of putts a day.
• Or a Professional basketball player, such as Michael Jordan, taking 1000’s of free throws or jump shots a day.
• Or Maria Sharapova, a tennis player who takes thousands of tennis swings a day.

All of these all stars, or professional athletes, practice fundamentals deliberately every day.

Can we stop there? As a hobby trombonist taking lessons with Professional Trombone Performers, They all stress fundamental practices such as learning scales, breathing exercises, note flexibility studies, and so on and so forth.

Let’s rephrase Francis Wade’s Title:

Weight Loss Manifesto: The New Weight Loss System: Simply Focus on the Fundamentals and Throw Away the Tips.

Every day, we hear tips in the form of fad diets. Flat Belly MUFA Diet, South Beach Diet, Atkins Protein Diet, Mediterranean Diet, French Diet, Don’t Eat Anything Diet, See Food Diet, Peanut Butter and Jelly Diet, I could go on and on. As my brother says, in You don’t diet? you have a diet - now make it a good one.

What’s the deal? What should I do with all these fad diets? Francis Wade Suggest when it comes to Time Management Systems:

…The result is that the users of different systems are either raving fans, or failed adopters.
The fans are the lucky ones whose habits easily fit into the new system they are learning. The failures are those who get fired up for a few days, and after a week are forced to go back to their old habits.

My observation is that the vast majority of professionals take a bit from here and a bit from there to craft their own unique set of habits. Unfortunately, they do so without understanding the fundamentals, and the results in some cases are disastrous.

Their system of habits doesn’t work, but they don’t know why. It allows stress, missed appointments and forgotten commitments to occur too frequently, but they don’t know where to start to fix their systems.
…
Luckily for them, the 7 fundamental practices are perfect for the job or fixing, upgrading or adapting personal time management systems.

When a professional athlete’s game deteriorates, which happens to all of them at some point in time, they go back to the fundamentals. So must a working professional.

I would add so must an everyday healthy person. Everyday, we must be cognizant of our diet and exercise choices and focus on the fundamentals.

Often times, people start a new diet, see results at first, but then fall off the wagon. Why? Because that system doesn’t fit YOU. Everyone is different. Just as a professional must pick and choose what items fit in their own time management habits, we as healthy eaters must pick and choose habits that fit our own bodies and minds.

Okay, we understand.  Focus on the Fundamentals: What are the fundamentals of a becoming physically fit the abridged version?

Monitor your Biometrics at regular intervals

Possible examples:

• weigh yourself everyday,
• measure your waist line every week
• Record your BMI every month
• take a picture of yourself every month

Exercise, and be mindful about the exercise

Find an exercise you like and do it effortlessly.

• Some people are Artists, I say then paint building sized murals that require dexterity.
• Some people are outdoors people, I say hike in the forest, or garden.
• Some people are shoppers, then I say go to the biggest mall you can find and walk and walk, and walk as much as you can as often as you can.
• Do it everyday.

Eat Standard Portions

Healthy Eating has its own set of Fundamentals which we’ll talk about sometime in the future. Generally, I’d say:

• Eat Protein and MUFA at every meal
• Eat Plants as much as possible.
• Learn what the correct portion is, and stick to it!

Retrain your Emotional and Social Eating

How do we do this?

• Keep a Food Diary.  By keeping a food diary and writing down what you eat before you eat it, You’ll be mindful of what you are doing.  This will you stop binges.
• Making your Weight Management Public and Social.  By sharing your goals with your friends, you are putting peer pressure on yourself.  It’s amazing how many people will not want to let someone else down, but they’ll let themselves down all the time.  In other words, if you tell your friend you are not going to eat ice cream today.  You don’t want to let that friend down.  If you tell yourself and only yourself, you are more likely to break that self promise since it is not out in the public.
• Become a Positive person.

Some diets say exercise 8 minutes a day. Some diets say eat 60% protein, 30% fat, 10% carbs. Some Diets say eat fish and oil.  Some diets suggest walking 10,00 steps a day. Whatever it is, Focus on the Fundamentals.

Since Weight Loss is personal and everyone is different,  What are your fundamentals?