Ways of Maintaining Your Diet And Keeping Your Social Life.

If you're on a diet, preparing your own meals or buying a solo lunch is generally no big deal. But factor in brunch with friends, birthday dinners, and a general social life, and your weight loss rules can quickly start to fall to the wayside. 

But being on a diet shouldn't mean rejecting each and every event invitation. Instead, check out these 5 tips for maintaining your diet while eating out with friends, from the women who completed the Tighten Your Tummy in 2 Weeks weight loss program: 

1.    BYO! 

What do you do when dining with friends at restaurants or at parties? The temptation to join the party can be tremendous unless you prepare ahead of time. Barbara Trombetta owes her 15-pound fat loss to her new beverage of choice: LaCroix sparkling flavored water. "At happy hour, I just poured a glass or two of it in a wine or champagne glass," says Barbara. "The seltzer bubbles made me feel like I was drinking something special." At dinner parties, ask your host if you can bring a dish you can share and savor with friends. "I always took my own food to parties or dinners," says Joan Cortez. "Travel with your own party in a bag and remember: The veggie tray is great, but not with dips!"

2.  Research the menu.

 
"The most important thing to do before eating at a restaurant is to get on the Internet and look up the menu and nutritional value of each meal," says Joan. Plan your order before arriving and ask the waiter to hold off on bread or chips for the table.

3.  Cut it in half. 

Restaurants are notorious for big plates and big portions. "As soon as my order comes out, I divide it in half down the plate with a fork," says Angela Choate. "Halving your order once it's out keeps the idea of portion control fresh on your mind before you dig in."

4.  Play it safe. 

Can't find the menu online? Stick with salad, says Pam Waters: "I order mine with oil, vinegar, lemon on the side, and request broiled fish or chicken." Most places will accommodate what you want. Just be sure to ask for your protein sauce-free and think of the plate as a pie chart—50 percent carbohydrates, 25 percent protein, and 25 percent fat. When you're unsure if a half-size is small enough, keep your order simple, says Angela: "I order a cup of soup and side salad with dressing on the side."

5.  Dodge the dessert tray. 

When everyone around you seems to want something sweet, pop a mint in your mouth, says Denise Rodriguez. "It keeps your mouth busy and your mind preoccupied while everyone's eating." If the craving persists, indulge your sweet tooth by savoring a slice of fresh fruit or small square of dark chocolate instead.

Adapted from Tighten Your Tummy in 2 Weeks

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10 Foods That Are Trying To Kill You

Whoa. Some of these are really shocking.  What do you think?

Portion Control Tips to Assist Your Portion Sizes. Part 2 of 2

Use smaller spoons

Stick with teaspoons, even when you're dishing food onto your plate. In another Cornell study, people who used three-ounce serving spoons shoveled out nearly 15 percent more food than those who scooped using smaller two-ounce spoons.

Dim the lights before dinner

A revved up eating environment--think bright lights and high-tempo music--encourages you to finish a meal faster and take in more food, according to Cornell researchers. When restaurant patrons dined in a softly lit room where jazz music was playing, they consumed less than diners who ate amid typical fast food joint ambiance--even though study participants who ate in the fine-dining environment spent more time eating.  

Don’t put platters on the table

When you leave serving dishes on the dining table while you eat, it's too easy to reach for seconds (or thirds), says Palinski. Portion out foods on your plate while you're in the kitchen, sit down, enjoy your meal, and if you're still hungry when you're done, go back for seconds of vegetables only, she suggests. 

Dine in a blue-hued room

If your kitchen or dining room could use a coat of paint, skip warm-colored hues. Red, yellow, and orange tones may make you to eat more, while blue hues tend to suppress appetite by making food look less appealing. Gala attendees who dined in a blue room at 33 percent less food than guests who enjoyed dinner in a red or yellow room, according to a study published in Contact magazine.

Set your fork down between bites

Slow down--clearing your plate is not a race. "There's no need to preload your fork for each bite," says Marisa Moore, RD, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. "Taking breaks will extend the time it takes to eat your meal and possibly reduce the amount of food you eat since it takes 15 to 20 minutes for your brain to get the signal that the stomach is full."

Limit dinnertime distractions

Turn off the television and don't invite your laptop or phone to the table, suggests Dubost. When electronics and other distractions have our attention, the amount of food that we're putting into our mouths does not--it's the perfect environment for mindless eating, she says. 

Recall visual cues

If you don't have a measuring cup handy, use a visual shortcut. For example, a 3-ounce serving of meat is equivalent in size to a deck of cards; a cup yogurt should take up as much space as your fist; 2 tablespoons of peanut butter are the size of a ping pong ball; and a half-cup of cooked rice or pasta is equal to half of a baseball. 

Brush, floss, or chew gum

When you're done eating, keep your chompers busy with a piece of gum, or head to the bathroom to brush and floss. "Keeping a clean mouth may be motivating enough to keep us from mindlessly grazing on food," says Heather Mangieri, founder of Nutrition CheckUp, LLC. She suggests trying this tip between meals and while cooking as well. 

Keep trigger foods out of sight and healthy eats when you can see them

"Out of sight means out of mind--and out of mouth," says Moore. "Put bags of chips or cookies in a high cabinet or in the back of the pantry, or better yet, leave these at the store, she says. Use that same logic--that anything you can see may tempt you--to your healthy-eating advantage. "Leave a bowl of fruit on the counter or table, and when you open the fridge, have snacks such as pre-cut fruits and veggies or low-fat cheese at eye level so it reminds you that that's what you should be consuming," suggests Dubost.

Don’t eat from the bag or box

Instead, place food on a plate or in a bowl so you don't plow through the entire package, suggests Moore. Or make your own 100-calorie packs. "As soon as you get home from the store, divide cereal and snacks into single-serving zippered baggies," says Taub-Dix. "That way you won't have to think about serving size later."

Hide your candy dish (or don’t have one at all)

When sweets are visible and convenient, you'll eat more of them than you would if you had to travel to get to them. When containers of chocolate candy were placed on office workers' desks, they ate 48 percent more of the treats than when the dishes were set 2 meters away, according to a study published in the journal Appetite.

Pick opaque containers over clear

When you stash food in clear containers, seeing it can lead you to eat it. In fact, women ate 71 percent more out of transparent containers than they did out of opaque dishes in a study published in the International Journal of Obesity.



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Portion Control Tips to Assist Your Portion Sizes. Part 1 of 2

How many food-related decisions do you make in a day? In a Cornell University study, most participants guessed around 15--but the true answer is more like 200. You make so many of your choices on autopilot that seemingly insignificant factors like bowl size, room lighting, and plate color can make a huge difference in the amount of food you eat. Test-drive these portion control strategies to cut calories and ease up on overindulging.

Steer clear of small packaged candies

In theory, fun-size candy bars should help you keep portions petite. But tiny treats are always sold in multiples, and it's hard stop at just one or two. Science backs that up: In a study conducted at the University of Alberta, people ate more of a food when it was placed in small packages than they did when it was offered in a regular-sized container.

Use big-box shopping trips to your advantage

Melissa Joy Dobbins, RD, founder of Sound Bites nutrition practice, calls it the "Costco Effect"--if you want to eat more of something, make sure a huge amount of it makes its way into your grocery cart or home. "The presence and volume of it will make you eat more of it," she explains. Instead of picking up a case of chocolate chips cookies, go big on spinach, eggs, and other healthy eats when you hit up big-box retailers, she suggests.

Don’t buy foods labeled “low fat”

When "low-fat" labels are placed on snack foods, they encourage people to eat up to 50 percent more and take in 84 extra calories than they would if the claim wasn't present, according to researchers at Cornell University. Consumers see "low fat" and assume the food has fewer calories, the scientists concluded. On average, study participants underestimated the calorie counts for "low-fat" M&Ms and granola by 48 percent and 50 percent, respectively. Low-fat labeling also caused them to increase their perception of an appropriate serving size by 25 percent.

Add veggies for volume

"If you miss large portions, bulk up your dish with non-starchy vegetables," suggests Erin Palinski, RD, CPT. "For example, adding large chunks of tomato to a pasta dish allows you to see a bigger serving, but you are eating less pasta and having more low-calorie high-fiber veggies." Produce can also add volume to your plate. Fill half of it with fruits, vegetables or a salad and you'll leave less space for higher-calorie protein and grains, says Joy Dubost, RD, PhD.

Choose fragrant foods

The stronger your food smells, the less of it you may need to feel satisfied. Subjects in a study published in the journal Flavour took smaller bites of a vanilla custard dessert when they simultaneously sniffed an intense cream aroma than they did when the smell was weaker. Pay attention to the scent of your centerpiece, too. When obese and overweight people whiffed green apples, bananas or after-dinner mints before a meal they ate less and lost 60 pounds, on average, over six months, according to a study from the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.

Change your plate color

If you want to eat less of something, your food shouldn't match your plate--the monochrome colors make it look like there's less there. When participants in a Cornell study ate pasta with Alfredo sauce on a white plate or pasta with tomato sauce on a red plate, they served themselves 22 percent more than participants who contrasted their food and plate colors. 

Know your bowl or plate size

People ate 31 percent more ice cream--127 more calories' worth--when they were given large 34-ounce bowls compared to 17-ounce bowls, according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Similarly, Cornell University researchers found that the larger your plate, the smaller you'll perceive the portions of food being served on it.

Bonnie Taub-Dix, RD, author of Read It Before You Eat It, discovered that plate sizes have grown over the years. "I received a set of antique china, and first thought the dinner plates had been left out," she says. "Turns out they were there--but they were the size of today's salad plates." The takeaway: if you eat from a smaller plate or bowl, your brain believes you're eating more food.

If you need help learning what appropriate serving sizes look like, think about purchasing portion-control tableware, like Precise Portion's bowls, cups, and plates. Decorative lines divide out spaces for vegetables, meat, and grains or indicate how many ounces you're pouring into a bowl or glass. 

Sip from taller glasses

Adults pour an average of 19 percent more liquid into short, wider glasses than they do into tall tumblers, according to a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Our brains tend to focus more on an object's height than its width, so short glasses don't appear quite as full, the scientists suggest. 

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The Crazy Amount Of Sugar Hiding In Random Foods

What?! Its crazy how much sugar in the orange juice. What do you think?

10 Weight Loss Success Strategies - Part 2 of 2

Success Strategy #6: Cut out soda and sugary drinks

It is no secret that Americans consume more sugary soda, sweetened iced tea, and other high-sugar beverages than water, daily. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sugary drink consumption is associated with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. Here's why this is important to you. Your weight loss is at stake, and nixing sugary beverages from your diet can be a huge boon to your success. By eliminating sugary beverages, the average American could lose about 15 pounds in a year without making any other changes. 

Do yourself a favor and stop drinking liquid sugar. And remember, this includes sweet tea (whadup, Alabama and Georgia!), which is loaded with sugar and calories. Try making your iced tea without sugar, flavor- ing it with fresh mint, ginger, or a splash of lemon, lime, orange, peach, mango, even cucumber, instead (the citrus and cucumber are alkaline in nature and reduce inflammation in the body). It may take some getting used to, but before you know it, you'll love it--and when you take a sip of sweet tea, you'll wonder how you could stand that overly sweet taste!

Switching to diet sodas may not be the solution, even though they contain many fewer calories than sugar-sweetened drinks. The same study, as well as others, found that people who drink diet sodas have a higher risk of diabetes than those who don't. This is referred to as the diet-soda paradox. 

Success Strategy #7: Avoid eating within 3 hours of going to bed

At the end of the day, your digestive system needs to slow down and rest, so I recommend that you avoid eating anything within 3 hours of bedtime. Eating before bed can interfere with sleep quality and throw off your circadian rhythms. It can also contribute to heartburn and acid reflux. If you must eat before bed, choose a small protein-rich snack, such as a cup of yogurt.

Success Strategy #8: Use a daily food diary

Keeping track of everything you eat and drink can truly help with weight loss. Tracking your food makes you think more about the foods that you choose to eat. Mindless eating is one of the biggest contributors to weight gain, and keeping a food diary helps to get your mind back into the correct process of eating. Reflecting on what you eat, when you eat it, and the emotions you feel before, during, and after eating can help you to understand the habits and emotions that impact your eating choices.

Looking back at your food diary gives you an opportunity to identify trends and unconscious habits—for example, you may realize that you overeat on days that you work late or that you do a fantastic job of sticking to your eating goals on days that you exercise vigorously. These kinds of patterns are different for each one of us, and one of the best ways to understand your own individual patterns is to put everything in writing.

Using a food diary also helps to up your accountability—to yourself. By writing down everything you eat, including the "cheat foods," you give yourself space to be honest with yourself, which is one of the first steps toward true mindfulness. With accountability and honesty comes true acknowledgment of what you're doing, how it's helping or harming you, and what you can do to improve your habits and your health.

Success Strategy #9: Shop with a list

Always use a shopping list when you go to the grocery store; it is a surefire way to cut back on junk food. Not only will this save you from eating food you hadn't planned on eating, but it will help you to lose weight and save you money, too. By sticking to the foods on your list and refusing to buy other, unplanned foods, you spend the money that you previously planned to spend, which supports your calorie and weekly or monthly food budget, as well.

Using a grocery list is an example of what's referred to as a precommitment strategy. These kinds of strategies help build momentum for success because they allow your present and future selves to work together. When you write a grocery list, your present self is promising your future self that you will make smart choices in the grocery store. This commitment can spread out to other choices, as well.

In a study published in the journal Nutrition & Diabetes, Australian researchers found that women who used shopping lists lost an average of 27 pounds (9 more pounds than those who did not use lists). Ultimately, these researchers found that planning your meals ahead of time by creating shopping lists helps you to gauge food intake better and stick to the meal plan while avoiding the pitfalls of strategically placed, unplanned treats that you might otherwise buy on impulse at the grocery store. Their results support the reasons that I have used shopping lists for my entire career to help clients stick not only to their food budget but to their calorie budget, as well!

Success Strategy #10: Take special care if you work nights

Shift work disrupts your circadian rhythms, which are the physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle (think of it as a clock) within your body. Circadian rhythms are directed by environmental cues such as sunlight, darkness, and temperature. People who work night shifts often experience disruption of their circadian rhythms, which affects their sleeping and eating patterns. Because of circadian rhythm disorders, people who do shift work can have higher rates of heart disease and mental health conditions such as depression. Shift workers are also more likely than 9-5 workers to be overweight or obese.

Shift working requires you to sleep during the day and work during the night, forcing you to go against your body's natural rhythm. As a result, your metabolism can slow down, which reduces your body's calorie and fat burning potential. Shift workers may also eat more because their mealtimes get mixed up. And if they don't get enough sleep, exhaustion may negatively impact the action of their hunger and satiety hormones. It can also be more difficult for shift workers to get the exercise they need, and it may be harder for them to schedule stress-relief techniques into their daily life. 

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Adapted from Lose Your Final 15

10 Weight Loss Success Strategies - Part 1 of 2

Weight-loss success is much more likely if you follow some important behavioral strategies in addition to the choices you make for every meal. Based on my many years of experience working with hospital patients and the clients in my private practice, I've identified 10 Success Strategies that go a long way toward helping people stick to a weight-loss plan.

These strategies are simple—no need to reorganize your life to fit them in. Just start working them into your daily routines, and before you know it, you'll be much better positioned for weight loss success

Success Strategy #1: Eat within the first hour of awakening

When you are at rest, your body wants to conserve energy, so your metabolism slows down. Just as you shut off the lights when you sleep, your body turns down many of the processes involved in metabolism. When you wake up, you want to turn everything up and start burning calories and fat as soon as possible. That's why I recommend eating breakfast within one hour of waking up.

By eating a nutritious, energy-revving breakfast, you are jump-starting your metabolism. When you add healthy food to your tank, so to speak, you prime your engines and get them ready to go, go, go for the day, so you can do everything that you have to do as well as those things you want to do, while feeling energetic.

Despite what you may have heard or read, it still stands that if you skip breakfast, you're telling your body to stay in conservation mode. You're setting yourself up to feel tired, lethargic, and irritable. When no fuel comes into your tank, your body starts thinking about holding on to calories and fat rather than burning them because it doesn't know when more food will come. This is absolutely not the way you want to start your day. Even if you don't feel like having breakfast, push yourself to have something—an apple, an orange, some yogurt, maybe a glass of vegetable juice. Something is better than nothing.

Success Strategy #2: Eat early and often

Many people follow this kind of daily eating plan: They either skip breakfast or have a small bite in the morning. They go light on lunch. Then their hunger roars like a starved lion in the middle of the afternoon, at which point they start eating sweet/salty junk food. Then at dinner, thinking they didn't really eat much during the day, they help themselves to giant portions of their evening meal, followed by dessert and bowls of ice cream and chips while sitting around watching TV for a few hours before bed.

This is not the way to eat.

It's much better for your body to eat early and often. That means having a healthy, lean, green breakfast; a morning snack to keep your metabolism humming; a healthy lunch; an afternoon snack; and a dinner that's smaller than you're probably used to, with a small snack in the evening. Ideally you should eat the bulk of your calories at breakfast and lunch.

Researchers have found that people who consume most of their calories before 3 p.m. are more likely to be successful at weight loss than those who pile on the calories later in the day. And get this: It takes 24 hours for your blood sugar to stabilize after a late-night meal. Eating earlier gives your body plenty of time to burn up calories and stabilize your blood sugar before you get into bed.

Success Strategy #3: Get 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night

We Americans are an exhausted bunch of people. Although sleep researchers recommend 7 to 8 hours per night, studies show that 30 percent of us get fewer than 6 hours of sleep a night. 

Being chronically tired truly interferes with your health. Lack of sleep is associated with higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity, and cancer. In fact, studies show that getting fewer than 5 hours of sleep per night is associated with a higher body-mass index. The more sleep-deprived you are, the higher your risk of obesity. Insomnia causes hormonal changes and cravings for carbohydrates. And when you deprive yourself of adequate sleep, fatigue lowers your ability to resist trigger foods. Instead of eating, try taking a power nap for a bigger, more effective payoff.

Nighttime sleep even has an effect on daytime hunger, influencing the production of the hormones that regulate appetite. When we're over-tired, we tend to eat more than we do when we are well rested. Overall, people who sleep less appear to weigh more. Be sure to get your 7 to 8 hours a night. If you're having trouble sleeping, see your doctor; you may have a sleep disorder, such as sleep apnea.  

Success Strategy #4: Eat snacks that are no larger than your closed fist

Incorporating snacks into your daily meal plan is a helpful way to prevent hunger. But in order to stay on track, you have to make sure your snacks are a reasonable size. One of the eas- iest ways to do this is to eat snacks that are no larger than your closed fist.

The exception to this is free foods (leafy green vegetables, which contribute few calories) and calorie-free beverages, such as coffee and tea. For example, a closed fist holds about half an ounce (1 tablespoon) of nuts. But remember, I'm talking about a closed fist, not an open palm.

Success Strategy #5: Drink half your body weight in water

Drinking water helps fill your stomach and boosts your body's metabolism, so fool yourself into drinking more water. It also keeps you hydrated, which is important because often we mistake thirst for hunger, leading us to eat high-calorie snacks when all our bodies really want is a glass of water. To figure out how much water to drink, divide your weight in half. If you're 160 pounds, aim for about 80 ounces (10 8-ounce glasses) per day. Liquids such as unsweetened coffee, tea, and seltzer can also count in your daily tally.

But keep in mind that caffeinated beverages, though acceptable, are also diuretics, meaning the caffeine dehydrates your body and makes you pee. A good way to offset this effect is to drink a glass of water for each cup of coffee or tea you consume. Make the water ice cold, because drinking cold water revs up the metabolism even more. Your body has to work harder to stabilize its temperature and, in so doing, burns more calories for you. Winner!

To add pizazz to water and seltzer, make grape-cubes. Place a grape or two in each section of an ice cube tray, and then fill with water. Once they're frozen, pop these grape-cubes into water for a refreshing, tasty drink. This works for cut pieces of almost any of your favorite fruits. Think pineapple, mango, berries, peaches, nectarines, and melon.

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Adapted from Lose Your Final 15