Archive for the ‘Diets and Weight Managment’ Category

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So many of us toast to the New Year with drink in hand – alcoholic or not.

Here’s a quick primer so you can make some informed choices:

• A standard drink is 1.5 ounces of hard liquor, 5 ounces of wine, or 12 ounces of beer.
• Nutritionally:

1. 12 ounces of beer has 153 calories and 13.9 grams of alcohol
2. 12 ounces of lite beer has 103 calories and 11 grams of alcohol
3. 5 ounces red wine has 125 calories and 15.6 grams of alcohol
4. 5 ounces of white wine has 121 calories and 15.1 grams of alcohol
5. 1 1/2 ounces (a jigger) of 80 proof (40% alcohol) liquor has 97 calories and 14 grams of alcohol

• Alcohol has 7 calories per gram but doesn’t fill you up the way food does, so you can drink a lot and not feel stuffed.
• Alcohol lowers your inhibitions and your resolve not to eat everything at the buffet table often flies right out the window.
• Eating something before drinking can help blunt alcohol’s intoxicating effects.
• Drinking light beer rather than regular saves about 50 calories a bottle.
• Mixed drinks and fancy drinks significantly up the calories.   For instance,

1. A frozen margarita has about 45 calories an ounce
2. A plain martini, no olives or lemon twist, has about 61 calories an ounce
3. An 8-ounce white Russian made with light cream has 715 calories.
4. The alcohol, heavy cream, eggs, and sugar in a cup of eggnog has about 343 calories and 19 grams of fat
5. Mulled wine, a combination of red wine, sugar/honey, spices, orange and lemon peel has about 210 to 300 calories per 5 ounces, depending on how much sweetener is added.

• Watch your mixers — per ounce club soda has no calories, tonic has10, classic coke has 12, Canada Dry ginger ale has 11, orange juice has 15, and cranberry juice has 16.
• And, if you’re toasting to health and happiness in the New Year with champagne – it’s a comparative caloric bargain at about 19 calories an ounce! To your health!

My very best wishes for a very happy and healthy New Year.

After a very successful year, starting in 2011  SocialDieter  will be “wearing” a brand new look and donning a new name — but keeping the same “attitude.” Our new name will be My foodMAPs, a moniker that better represents our approach to healthy eating and weight management.  For a sneak peak at the new look go to www.MyfoodMAPs.com

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There is a heck of a lot of snow outside.  I actually can’t open my kitchen door because of a gigantic snowdrift.  Many hours after the snow has deposited a foot and a half of whiteness (without the drifts), the guy who plows my driveway hasn’t been here yet because his truck broke down.

It also happens to be two days after Christmas.  I served lunch to twenty people on Christmas Day.  I have leftovers – lots of them – and most of them are not, by any stretch of the imagination, of the low calorie variety.

Being stuck inside with many leftovers in the fridge and a post-holiday slump leads to almost continuous nibbling and noshing.  What to do?

What To Do As The Caloric Intake Approaches Stratospheric

You can do lots of things, but some of them are just not happening – like not making any trips to the fridge or just sipping chicken broth!  Sometimes there’s just no choice and you just give in and eat – recognizing that you probably will feel like a slug – a very beefy slug – for several days post food frenzy.

You can counter with some activity. It does a lot for your mood and might use up some of those excess calories. Check out the calories you can burn with these winter activities.  These are for a 150 pound person. If you weigh more you’ll burn more calories, if you weigh less you’ll burn fewer calories.

Calories Burned Per Hour With Some Winter Activities

Building a Snowman:   285 calories

• Having a Snowball Fight:   319 calories

• Making Snow Angels:   214 calories

• Snowshoeing:  544 calories

• Shoveling snow:   408 calories

• Baking cookies:  170 calories

• Sledding:  476 calories

• Cross country skiing:  612 calories

Bundle up and go have some fun!  The hot chocolate and cookies will taste even better.

After a very successful year, starting in 2011  SocialDieter  will be “wearing” a brand new look and donning a new name — but keeping the same “attitude.” Our new name will be My foodMAPs, a moniker that better represents our approach to healthy eating and weight management.  For a sneak peak at the new look go to www.MyfoodMAPs.com

For email delivery of MyfoodMAPs  please click here:  http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=MyFoodMaps&loc=en_US

Pound?   Doesn’t it feel like at least seven pounds of weight gain, all of it blubber?

A lot of us start indulging at Thanksgiving (some at Halloween) and don’t stop the free style calorie fest until those onerous New Year’s Resolutions.  Then, because we feel guilty about indulgences, we swear we won’t touch another cookie or piece of cake or candy until we lose massive amounts of weight.

That resolution is doomed to fail because it is unrealistic.  Banning something entirely (unless it is for very specific reasons) equates to deprivation. That almost always leads to you know what: admitting you can’t stand it and chowing down on a box of cookies, half a pie, or three candy bars (definitely super-sized) in a row.

Some Facts

A study of holiday related weight gain published in The New England Journal of Medicine found:

• 85% of the study’s participants made no effort to control their calorie intake
• the average weight gain between Thanksgiving and New Year’s was slightly less than a pound
• participants thought they had gained four times as much
• less than 10% gained five pounds or more
• participants who gained the most weight were more likely to already be overweight or obese

The problem is that most of us don’t lose that extra pound that attaches itself  during the holidays. That means that some of midlife weight gain can be explained by holiday eating.

And, for those of us already overweight, the news is worse. Although the average holiday gain is only one pound, people who are already overweight tend to gain a lot more – one study found five or more pounds during the holidays.

Something To Think About

You need to eat 3,500 extra calories to gain a pound. The average Christmas dinner has about 956 calories. What packs on the weight?

Most of the extra calories don’t come from the “day of” holiday meal but from the nibbling during the holiday season. It’s way too easy to add on 500 extra calories a day which means a pound in a week (7 x 500 = 3500 calories, or 1 pound).

Some Common 500 (around) Calorie Indulgences

•                12 ounces of eggnog

•                1 piece of pecan pie

•                3 ounces of mixed nuts

•                22.5 Hershey’s Kisses

•                Starbucks Venti Peppermint Mocha with whipped cream

•                4 glasses (5oz.) of wine

•                10 regular size candy canes

•                2-3 large Christmas cookies

Some Questions To Ask Yourself

• Do I really want it or does it look good, smell good, or just mean Christmas?
• Is it worth the calories?
• Do I need all of it (or any of it) to be happy?
• What is most important to me?

Answer your questions and decide what you want to do.  Eat mindfully and enjoy.

Happy Holidays!

Chocolate bark at the receptionist’s desk.  Candy canes at the dry cleaners.  A rotating selection of Christmas cookies on just about everyone’s desk.  Happy holiday food gifts from grateful clients.  And that doesn’t include the fantastic spreads at holiday parties and family events!

It’s All So Tempting

It‘s incredibly difficult not to nibble your way through the day when you have all of these treats tempting you at every turn.  How many times do your senses need to be assaulted by the sight of sparkly cookies and the holiday scent of eggnog or spiced roasted nuts before your hand reaches out and the treat is popped into your mouth?

Be Realistic

It’s the holidays and even though some of these treats are a week’s worth of calories, by depriving yourself of them you are denying yourself the tradition of celebrating with food.

Make the distinction between mindful indulgence in the spirit of celebration as opposed to mindless indulgence in the spirit of trying to taste everything or to soothe your psyche by eating.  The first is part of the nurturing, sharing, and communal spirit of eating, the latter is an element of overeating.

Nix The Restrictive Thinking

Creating a restrictive mentality by denying yourself a treat that has always been part of your holiday celebration means it’s just a matter of time until you start an eating fest that only ends when there’s no more left to taste. Think of this:  what would it be like to swear that you won’t eat a single Christmas cookie when those cookies have been a part of your Christmas since you were a little kid when you baked them with your Mom?

Pick One – And Make It Special

You know that you are going to indulge.  Pick your treat, limit it to one, and enjoy it.  To help control the temptation, decide early in the day what your treat will be and stick with your decision. If you wait until later in the day when all the food is right in front of you and you’re hungry and tired, you’ll find that your resolve is not quite as strong!

Make an informed choice, too.  Being informed doesn’t deprive you of deliciousness, but does arm you with an element of control.  If you know the calorie count of certain foods, you can make the best choice.  For instance, perhaps you enjoy both wine and eggnog.  If you know that one cup of eggnog has around 343 calories and 19 grams of fat and a five ounce glass of red wine has around 125 calories and no fat – which would you choose?

There are many online sites that will give you the calorie count for specific foods, but I find that keeping a calorie counter book for quick checks is very helpful.  One that lists just about everything, including restaurant food, is the 2011 edition of The Calorie King, Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter.