Day 58 - "Simple Food Swaps can Help you Build a Better Body"

In an article from USA Today called "Simple Food Swaps can Help you Build a Better Body", Barb Berggoetz talks about the new edition of "Eat This, Not That" for 2011. The book makes it clear that making good choices in the grocery store and while out at a restaurant can be extremely difficult; however, making some simple swaps, watching the intake of specific nutrients, and cutting back on portion sizes can help to better your healthy diet.

The premise of the "Eat This, Not That" book series is to help the consumer make better choices when shopping in the grocery store, eating out at restaurants, and helping to reveal the best and worst foods. The books help us to decide how to make choices that save us the number of calories, amount of sodium, and sugar that we consume. They really try to help us manage the situations when we cannot make 100% healthy decisions and yet help us to make choices that are at least a little bit better.

For example, the article brings up one of the examples given in the book: instead of eating the sausage, egg, and cheddar on an asiago bagel at Au Bon Pain for a whopping 810 calories, 46 grams of fat, and 1,340mg sodium; go for the bacon and egg melt on a ciabatta roll for 470 calories, 23 grams of fat, and 980mg sodium. While both of these options are not necessarily the best choices you could make, the second one is at least a little better between the two.

According to dietitian Margie Fougeron, "If you're making swaps and better  choices, then it just becomes a habit and that's going to promote weight loss and better weight management long term." Although, the absolute best option would be to stay at home and make homemade meals with lots of fruits and vegetables!

The last bit of the article gives some hints for how to make better choices:

Look for Key Words on Menus - such as baked, broiled, roasted, steamed, or grilled. These foods usually have lower calories than fried, battered, crispy, marinated, or stuffed. They also say to ask for dressing on the side and to ask cooks to go easy on the oil when making your meal.

Cut Back on High-Sugar Foods - cut back on the amount of sodas and fruit drinks you consume. Fougeron tells us to avoid packaged foods with added sugars in the ingredients list. She especially cautions against low-fat and light products because companies will dump in a lot of sugar to compensate for the taste lost from the fats.

Pay Attention to Portion Size - according to the article, not watching portion sizes is the number one way people add high amounts of calories to their diets. One way to help do this is to actually pause while you are eating two or three times to see if you are even still hungry. A lot of times we will over eat in order to clean our plate. By pausing during our meals we can hope to stop eating when we are truly full and prevent overeating.

Finally, here are some ideas the article gives to help you eat healthy and cut your calories. (Keep in mind that the USDA recommends that women eat a total of 2,000 calories a day, and men eat 2,600 calories per day)

1. Draw an imaginary X on your plate. The quarters should be as follows: one for protein, one for whole grains, one for fruits, and one for vegetables.
2. Check the calories per serving size.
3. Check the nutrient facts for percentages of fats and sodium, then choose those lowest in them.
4. Select foods higher in fiber, especially legumes, fruits, and vegetables.
5. Check the ingredients lists and make sure they do not have enriched wheat flower or sugar as their main ingredients.

Exercise: As predicted… I did not workout today again. I figured it was the last day of my vacation and we were going to be spending a good five hours in the car anyway. If you workout today, I suggest either going for a run or doing another bike workout!

Eat: Continuing in the tips for shopping at the grocery store from "What to Eat", Cooking Light tells us to "look high and low". Many companies pay a premium price to have their products placed strategically in the middle, eye level of shelves so we will grab them first, regardless of price or nutrition. When you are shopping, make sure you also look at the bottom and top of the shelves for equally if not more nutritious options and for better deals as well.

Relax: On the ride back home today, I was able to not only take a car nap (which I love) but I was also able to get some quality reading time in. This Sunday I want to encourage you to open up a book, either fiction or non-fiction and relax in a story. I finished my fiction book "Catching Fire" (which was amazing) and bought the final installment in the series today as well. I was also able to get my portion of next week's book read too! Quite the productive day.