See you there!

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

Please note that even if you are receiving email delivery of SocialDieter you will have to sign-up for email delivery of MyfoodMAPs.

I invite you to receive email delivery of MyfoodMAPs  by clicking here:  http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=MyFoodMaps&loc=en_US

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

It’s a time of celebration for both you and your pets.

As the big week of celebrations approaches, here are some quick tips to keep your pet family members safe and healthy during the winter holidays.

• If the weather turns nasty and you need to use salt and de-icing materials, remember that they can get into your pet’s paws and onto their stomachs as they climb over snow mounds.  Wipe their paws and tummies with a damp rag.  Antifreeze tastes sweet to dogs and cats so  mop up any spills and bottle drips.

• We find tree ornaments fun to look at and pets absolutely adore them, but metal, glass, ribbons, styrofoam and tinsel can cause serious medical emergencies for your pet.  So can artificial snow and the snow in snow globes.  Ditto for holiday wrappings that get thrown around and fall everywhere.   These can be a hazard for little kids, too.

• We may want our homes to look festive, but ivy, holly, mistletoe, lilies, poinsettia, and some Christmas greens can be toxic to pets if they nibble on them.  Christmas tree water with tree preservative can be attractive to thirsty pets — and harmful, too.

• The holidays are a time to welcome visitors into your home.  Too much activity and too many people can frighten your pets — and sometimes cause them to run away.  Consider putting them in a room away from the roaring crowd and make certain they are wearing  collars with current tags.

• Oh how we love to feast on our holiday treats!  So do our pets. My Golden Retriever, Rufus, was carbo-dog and adored desserts.  Spike, my pug, given his druthers, would eat anything, anytime, anywhere. Some foods can be harmful and cause GI or choking problems. Chocolate that is so prevalent in holiday treats can be quite harmful to our pets.  We truly love out animals, but giving them table scraps is not a good way to show it. And, if you don’t want the leftovers, send them home with visitors or toss them – don’t feed them to the dog — not all of them are healthy for animals.

SocialDieter will be “wearing” a brand new look and offering weight management educational and accountability programs called My foodMAPs (starting in January).  For a sneak peak at the new look, go to www.myfoodMAPs.com.

Have a wonderful, safe, happy, and healthy holiday.

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.

I might as well have

• Another drink
• Dessert at lunch and dinner
• A second helping
• Both pieces of pie
• A bacon cheeseburger

The Possibilities Are Endless

So, you’re thinking, “I already blew it by shoving a gazillion calories into my mouth, so what the heck, I might as well have (insert your choice here).”

The problem is that you’re compounding the problem.  The gazillion calories turn into day after day of a gazillion calories despite your good intentions every morning.  The scale starts its inevitable upward creep and your pants keep getting tighter.  And, it keeps getting harder and harder to control your eating.

What To Do

There are lots of choices – and you have to choose what’s going to work best for you.  Unfortunately, most of us decide to go pure Spartan and cut out everything that we really like to eat.  A total denial of goodness.  Guess what.  That kind of strategy not only doesn’t work, it probably ends up backfiring in a big way.

Make Some Realistic Choices

Instead of denying yourself everything that tastes good, how about making some personal rules.

Especially during the holiday season telling yourself that you will not have a single Christmas cookie or glass of cheer is really like spitting into the wind.

Instead, think about some trade-offs. If you have a drink, limit it to one and allow yourself a small piece of dessert.  If you invade the bread basket, skip the dessert.  Have two vegetables with some lean protein instead of a big plate of pasta and allow yourself a glass of wine.  The rules are yours.  Just set them before you find yourself in an eating situation – and then commit to them.

Try One Or Two Of  These Tactics, Too

These are some tactics that work for many people.  Perhaps you can incorporate one or two of them into your daily routine.

• Drink water, especially before meals.  It fills you up and hydrates you.
• Exercise for ten minutes.  Jump rope, march in place, get up and walk around during every television commercial.  It all adds up – and makes you feel better.  Just don’t exercise over to the fridge.
• Open the door and take a walk. Don’t worry about how long or how far you go – stick your nose out the door and follow with your body.  Small amounts add up and you’ve distracted yourself from eating.
• Check the nutrition facts of foods you are likely to eat before you go out so you can make informed choices.
• Take the stairs whenever you can.  Use the bathroom on another floor and take the stairs to get there.

Try coming up with some other rules, distractors, and motivators of your own.  Don’t overload yourself with choices.  Pick a few and stick to them.

And, if you blew it – realize that everybody does at some point.  Recognize it, don’t dwell on it, and put some personal rules in place.  Honestly, having your own rules and a plan really works!

The season of sugar plum fairies, ribbon candy, and sparkly cookies (and even fruit cake)  is upon us.  For about the past ten years we’ve been warned about watching how much sugar we’re eating and we still haven’t really listened.

According to the American Heart Association’s nutrition committee, Americans average 475 calories from added sugars every day.  That’s a lot more than the recommended daily max of 100 calories (six teaspoons) from added sugars for women and 150 calories (nine teaspoons) for men.  Think of it this way, that extra added 475 calories of sugar is the equivalent of 30 teaspoons a day.

A big problem with added sugars is that they both add calories and those “empty” calories displace the other nutritious foods.

Where Do Our Calories Come From?

Added sugars and solid fats account for about 35% of the calories in the average American’s diet. The recommended maximum is 5-15%.

About 36% of the added sugars come from sugary soft drinks — so cutting back on them is a good place to start trimming.

Natural vs. Added Sugars

Natural sugars are found in foods like milk and yogurt (lactose) and in fruit (fructose) as well as in many other foods. Because these sugars are found along with other healthy components in the foods, they’re considered okay.

Unfortunately, nutrition labels don’t differentiate between natural and added sugars.  Look for any form of sugar in the food’s ingredient list.

Look for all forms (typical sugars end in –ose like lactose, glucose, fructose) including brown, raw, or invert sugar and/or “syrup” including corn, high fructose corn, and malt syrup. Also look for honey, molasses, agave nectar, evaporated cane juice, and fruit juice concentrate.  Don’t be fooled by these. They sound healthy but are really just other forms of sugar.

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Examples Of Foods With Added Sugar

A 16 ounce soda has about 11 teaspoons of added sugar. Although most of our extra added sugar comes from soda, sweetened beverages like fruit drinks, sports drinks, and teas; desserts; candy; and breakfast cereals all contribute.

Here are some examples of the added sugar in some common foods. This is just the added sugar, not the natural sugar that might also be in these foods.

• Cola, 8 oz. 22 grams

• Cranberry juice cocktail, 8 oz., 20 grams

• Chocolate Milk, reduced-fat, 8 oz., 14 grams

• Tea, instant, sugar-sweetened, 8 oz., 21 grams

• Applesauce, sweetened (1 cup), 16 grams

• Baked beans, canned (1 cup), 15 grams

• Oreo-type cookies (3), 12 grams

• Cranberries, dried (1/3 cup), 25 grams

• Fruit cocktail in syrup (1 cup), 26 grams

• Granola bar (1 oz), 12 grams

• Jellybeans, (1 oz, 10 large), 20 grams

• Popcorn, caramel-coated (1 oz), 15 grams

• Fruit yogurt (6 oz container), 19 grams

Fructose:  A Simple Sugar

Fruit sugar, or fructose, is a simple sugar that your body metabolizes quickly and easily. Fructose, has few, if any, advantages over sucrose, the kind of sugar in candy.

Moderate fruit intake is recommended as part of a healthy diet. The simple sugars, like fructose, found in fruit are not a problem for active and healthy people. But, if you have diabetes or prediabetes, too much fruit could throw your blood sugar levels out of whack.

Fruit juice is often made from fruit concentrate with added refined sugar, so too much fruit juice can be a bad thing.  FYI:  there really isn’t a big nutritional difference if your jam is sweetened with “sugar” or “fruit juice sweetener.” They are both sugar.

A Good Idea

Having fruit in your diet is a good idea for a bunch of reasons. It tastes good and most of it has a substantial amount of fiber — which helps to reduce the risk of some diseases. Fruit is also a good source of vitamins and minerals.  A well rounded diet with plenty of fruit, vegetables, and some lean protein is a good bet.

It’s also pretty cool that a lot of fruit comes in it’s own wrapper and single serving package.  Think oranges, clementines, tangerines, apples, pears, and bananas to name a few.  They’re really grab and go.  And berries – so high in antioxidants.  Delicious, too.  Watermelon is 92% water by weight, filled with vitamin C, and a necessary part of so many barbecues and beach parties.

All sugar adds calories but there are certainly a lot of reasons to choose fruit and its sugar over the nutritionally empty sugared sweet stuff like candy and soda.

The fiber and water in fruit help you to feel full.  The fruit is packed with vitamins and minerals.  Because of its fiber, fruit takes longer to digest than processed sweets made with refined sugar.  And, it doesn’t create a spike in your blood sugar —  which is then followed by a steep drop that makes you hungry all over again.

Sugar And Calories In Popular Fruit

Some examples:

It’s Christmas Cookie Time

In my family holiday season means, among other things, baking.  Lots of  cookies:  spritz, rolled, ginger bread men, meringues, Greek powdered sugar cookies; a savory carrot bread; poppy seed bread; and whatever dessert sounds good.  No fruit cake, though.

If I ever added up the butter and sugar calories in all of these baked delights, the number would be so staggering it would absolutely spoil the deliciousness.

I’ve been doing some research on lower calorie substitutions for the ingredients in baked goods.  Some I’ve tried and some I haven’t.

I’ve been decreasing the fat and sugar in the things I bake since this summer and in most cases have had a good deal of success.  I find that decreasing the amount of sugar by a third doesn’t even really affect the taste. I’m working up to decreasing by a half.  The true test will be the spritz cookies!

Some Baking Substitutions To Try

• Use ¼  cup of applesauce and ¼  cup of vegetable oil or butter instead of a half cup of oil or butter – OR — replace half the butter or oil with unsweetened applesauce, pureed pumpkin, or mashed bananas

• Use 2 egg whites or ¼ cup egg substitute for one egg; use 3 egg whites and 1 egg yolk for 2 whole eggs

• Decrease the amount of sugar in your recipe by up to a half and add ginger, lemon zest, cinnamon, or cloves

• Substitute nonfat sweetened condensed milk for sweetened condensed milk

• Substitute evaporated skim milk for evaporated milk

• Instead of sour cream use nonfat or low fat sour cream; pureed low-fat cottage cheese; or low or nonfat Greek yogurt

• Substitute low or nonfat cream cheese for cream cheese

• Substitute non-fat, 1%, or 2% milk for whole milk and half and half for cream

• Substitute 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, chopped dried fruit, or chopped nuts for 1 cup of chocolate chips

• Swap 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon of oil or water for one ounce of baking chocolate

• For frosting use sliced fresh fruit with a dusting of powdered sugar; sweetened and flavored (vanilla, peppermint) nonfat cream cheese; or nonfat whipping cream

• Use whole wheat flour or ground flax for up to half of your recipe’s white flour. Regular whole wheat flour will make baked goods heavier and denser.  Try using white whole wheat four that is higher in fiber and nutrients than refined flour but is lighter than regular whole wheat flour.