Also, always order any sauces/dressings on the side.
A baked potato is awesome drenched in salsa…very few calories! Or with broccoli and just a LITTLE bit of cheese. Or a butter substitute…
My husband and I have learned that we are happy with the smallest size of fries…and we split it. Each of us could probably eat a medium or larger order by ourselves, but we’ve learned that we’re actually satisfied with the half order of small. We just have a hard time resisting fries (and other foods) if they’re actually on our plate, or otherwise available.
One trick we’ve learned is to split a dinner, or one of us gets a senior dinner (if we think we can get away with it) and one gets a light meal, and then we swap food around so that both of us get a little taste of everything. We can do this and be satisfied. Neither of us needs to eat until we can’t eat any more. This was particularly hard for my husband to learn, as he was a stereotypical teenage boy with the notorious hollow leg, not just in his teens, but well into his twenties. He was very skinny for a couple of decades, until his metabolism slowed and he kept eating like a lumberjack.
Subway is my usual go-to: turkey sub, no cheese, mustard no mayo, vinegar no oil, loaded with veggies. Add baked chips and water or a diet soday. Now i’m hungry…
Yeah, don’t ever trust fast food salads unless you plan on eating it plain with no dressing
We always have a copy of the Calorie King Calorie, Fat and Carbohydrate Counter with us. It has a large restaurant section in it. I’m counting calories, and our daughter uses carbs for her insulin dosages, so this book works for both of us. It’s small and portable, too!
I always plan what I’m going to eat beforehand and stick with it. If we end up at a fast food joint, I’ll get a kid’s meal. Sonic is my favorite: I can get a burger, milk and a banana instead of a soda and fries. I also log my food on SparkPeople so I can visually see what I’m eating and how many calories, how much fat, etc., it has.
At home, I’ll do a lot of different things. Last night, the family had burgers and fries. I had a turkey burger and green beans. The meal had the same feel overall as what everyone else was having, but my turkey burgers were half the calories of their hamburgers. And, of course, the calorie difference between green beans and fries is huge.
I’m lucky in that I enjoy a good salad with no dressing, which automatically cuts out the bulk of the calories. Wendy’s has an excellent grilled chicken caesar salad, which is less than 300 calories without dressing and is very filling.
I’ve also learned to live without french fries. Sigh.
I’ve actually learned I like oven fries better than the real thing. And sweet potato oven fries!
I always use dressing, but I’ve learned that I don’t need nearly as much as I think I do.
You don’t necessarily need to live without dressing, BTW. Dressing is good. It makes the salad taste yummy.
The problem is that most restaurants drench the poor salad in way more dressing than it needs, and have a distinct preference for rich, creamy, fat-laden dressings as opposed to lighter vinaigrettes.
However, when it comes to those rich, creamy dressings, just ask for it on the side. Then, dip your fork into the dressing before grabbing each forkful of salad… that way, you get just enough dressing on each bite to get the yummy creamy delicious flavour, but not all the calories.
Diets should never be about cutting something completely out of your life because it’s fattening. It should be about eating less of it, instead.
Chipotle can vary widely based on how you order it. If you get the bowl, and forgo the sour cream and cheese, it’s not too bad. But the chips and tortilla are killer. The tortilla is 300 calories and the chips are 570. My entire burrito is only 625, and I get double meat, and don’t forgo the cheese. Of course, that assumes the online calculator is accurate, and chipotle is very variable as to how much you get.
My story, which I’m sure I’ve told on here before is about Carl’s jr’s grilled chicken burrito. Sounds like it’s much healthier than, say, a carne asada burrito, right? Wrong. The grilled chicken burrito is 1070 calories, about half from fat. The carne asada burrito is “only” 680. It’s still a little below half fat, but half of 680 is better than half of 1070.
I always get a salad when I go to Wendy’s, but it’s the side salad. According to their website, it’s 130 calories with the dressing and I never use more than half the dressing. With the sour cream and chives potato and a Diet Coke, you’re looking at 450 calories, including dressing and sour cream.
To me, that’s a pretty satisfying lunch, but I generally order those items because I’m a vegetarian rather than a calorie-counter.
No kidding!
Everyone is different, but I know I spent most of my 20s trying to teach myself not to want salad dressing, desserts and all that other “forbidden” kind of food. It never worked; I wanted my food to taste like something!
I have MUCH better luck cutting out the stuff that is truly just not worth it because it’s not that good, cutting portion sizes - but not eliminating - the stuff that is worth it, and doubling up on the stuff that’s REALLY worth it.
For example:
Eliminating: Chips and other salty snacks are not really my favorite things to eat, but if they’re in the house, I’ll eat 'em. Same with most packaged cookies. Those were eliminated, I simply don’t buy them, and when they’re not in my kitchen, looking at me, I don’t have any issues not eating them.
Cutting portion sizes: Homemade cookies and really good chocolate, on the other hand, ARE worth it to me. So I make homemade cookies, make them small, and freeze them. I’ll have one every day or two, with lunch. Chocolate? I’ll buy the best chocolates I can find, and have one a day. And it’s either the cookie OR the chocolate, not both!
Doubling up: I looooove chef’s salads that I made myself - start with a bed of good lettuce, add lots of bell peppers, cukes, tomatoes, and whatever other fresh veggies I have in the fridge. Top with sliced deli meat or chicken breasts that I’ve cooked myself, and a bit of cheese, avocado sometimes, a hard boiled egg, and (my fav) pickled beets that my Mom makes. Have a reasonable amount of dressing with it. This is so good that I look forward to it, and it’s incredibly healthy. I eat a giant one of these for dinner at least once a week.