Tag Archives: restaurants

Healthy Restaurants Can Still Make You Fat

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I saw an article today about how Chipotle has good organic food and grass-fed meat.  However, if you still eat one of their burritos, you are getting over 1,000 calories in one meal.  If you get a burrito there and have everything in it…the beans, the rice, the guacamole, etc.–it comes out to be over 100g of carbs.  That is the most you should have in a whole day if you want to lose weight.

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I have written about this before, but I get double salad in a bowl, and I choose to not have the rice and beans (adding up to about 40g of carbs, all by themselves) and I have the cheese, the meat, sour cream, salsa, etc.  You have to pay attention to what you are ordering and what you are eating.

Here is the Chipotle calculator here, but I would think that the numbers are pretty much the same wherever you go.  http://www.chipotle.com/en-us/menu/nutrition_calculator/nutrition_calculator.aspx

I had a client who wanted to lose weight, who brought a giant chicken burrito into my office and she ate the whole thing.  This is why she has not lost weight.  It was two to three times the portion that she should have had.  She should have split it with her daughter, at the minimum!  It was there, so she ate it. But, if she keeps this up, not only will she never lose weight (will gain), but her daughter will eventually have weight issues too if she emulates mother’s overeating style.

Restaurants make big food.  You should always break down your food, put half in a box and then it is out of sight–out of mind.  Then, just eat the half in front of you.  It really is the right size portion that you should have had in the first place–unless you are a very active long-distance runner, an athletic man, etc.  But, most people are sedentary and not that large.  There is NO way they should be eating those adult-sized portions.  It is ok to order from the children’s menu, which actually is the appropriate size portion for the average eater.

AND THEN THERE ARE THE CHIPS:  Each chip is about 2g of carbs.  If you eat the bag of chips that comes with it, it is an extra 63g of carbs–empty calories!

And don’t forget, you can make your own burrito by using low-carb tortillas.  Here is the brand that Costco and other stores has, and it is very low carb.  Tastes good too.

smarttortilla

Choose wisely!!  Don’t suffer and miss out on foods, just realize the restaurants are giving  you high calorie crap and you have to be smart and pay attention to what you are eating.

Counting Carbs While Eating Out

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Carbohydrates have a big impact on weight because they are broken down into glucose, which in turn raises your blood sugar. They are found in starches such as cereal, bread, and pasta, and in sweets such as cakes and cookies, but also in many “good for you” foods like fruit, starchy vegetables like potatoes, peas, and corn, and dairy products including milk and yogurt. Learning how to accurately identify and count carbohydrates will help you lose and maintain your weight.

On my eating plan, having between 50 and 100g of carbs a day helps me to lose and maintain my weight.

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Tips for Counting Carbs Home or Away

You can buy a carb-counting book, use an online version, or download a smartphone app to see how many carbohydrates are in the foods you eat. You can also read the nutrition label on prepared foods to tally up the number of carb grams in each serving. You might have to guesstimating carbohydrates at a restaurant.

Here are tips to make tracking easier:

Use measuring tools. At home, use a food scale to weigh that apple or whole-wheat roll. Use a measuring cup to dole out your portion of cereal or pasta. When you measure the serving size, your counts are more accurate – and you learn what a ½ cup or 1 cup serving looks like. Keep the tools handy so you’re not searching for them at every meal. I don’t even need to bring cups with me anymore.

Use every day visuals. For example, a cup of fruit, starchy vegetables, or ice cream is about the size of a baseball or an average fist. A pancake or waffle is equal to a CD. Then you can look up your serving size using a carb-counting guide or smartphone app.

This also gives you a point of reference when you’re eating out. According to Melissa Joy Dobbins, RD, LDN, CDE, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, “if you know what a cup looks like and how many carbs are in a cup of that pasta when you eat it at home, you can use that to guesstimate carb counts at the restaurant.”

Table(spoon) it. When you’re away from home, estimate your portion by counting tablespoons. Here’s the conversion:

4 level tablespoons is equal to about 1/4 cup,

8 tablespoons is 1/2 cup, and

16 tablespoons is 1 cup.

So 8 tablespoons of macaroni salad equals 1/2 cup and 30 grams of carbohydrates.

Do your homework. Before you head out to a restaurant, check out its menu online. Decide what you’re going to order, and then gather the nutrition facts for the ingredients to put together a guesstimate of the carbs in your meal. Many restaurant chains now put all their nutrition facts, including carbs, on their Web sites.

Mind the proportions. Know that the more grains and starches in a dish, the higher your carb estimate. For instance, you can count an 8-ounce cup of a broth-based soup as 15 grams of carbohydrate, while a thick soup with beans, lentils, or noodles should be counted as 30 grams.

There’s an app for that. There are many apps available. Many are free, and many can help you with counting carbs. For example, GoMeals provides three apps in one – a database of nutritional values (including carbs) of thousands of foods you’ll find at the grocery store and your favorite restaurants, a tool to track and record your meals, and a restaurant finder with menus and nutritional information.