EAT SMART Nutritional Guide
with 6 Week Step By Step Training Program
30
• Avoid creamy foods. Many dishes that are normally prepared with cream are just as tasty without it.
Ask the kitchen to prepare it the way you want it.
• Order a salad first, the larger the better, and ask that it be brought out immediately. Avoid the
oily/creamy dressings, and eat the salad as soon as it comes out. This will help “take the edge off” your
hunger, help you resist the temptation to eat those unhealthful white flour rolls and butter, and get
you started in the right direction.
• Resist the temptation to order dessert. If you must do so, get one that is as close to “real
recognizable food” as you can get. A cup of fruit, or a fruit tart may do. In any event, avoid the creamy
cakes and pies.
• In general, do not be afraid to ask for what you want. If they say “no”, say “good-bye”. There are
plenty of restaurants that will be only too happy to accommodate you, so don’t put up with anything
less than what you know is right for your body.
Cheating (Indulging)
OK, we all know you’re going to do it. Nobody’s perfect.
That’s why we use that well-worn euphemism... “indulging”, instead of “cheating”.
The secrets of success are:
•
Don’t “indulge” too often, and
•
If you
do
cheat, choose ways that are not so bad for you; i.e.,
minimize the damage
.
There is no quota for “cheating”. We urge you to strive for perfection. If you find yourself succumbing
once in a while,
consider it cheating
, not your “quota of bad stuff for the week”. You should always strive to
reject your old, bad ways — to renew your dedication to yourself and to the new body and health you are
determined to achieve.
But if you are going to cheat, at least don’t eat
all
of whatever you’re cheating with. Leave some to throw
out. That way you’ll get in the habit, and someday you may find yourself throwing it out
before you eat it!
EAT SMART Nutritional Guide
with 6 Week Step By Step Training Program
29
Lunch is the perfect time to eat your largest meal of the day, if you have one. There’s plenty of time left
to burn it off, and the satiety will probably last well into dinnertime, thereby helping to keep dinner small.
When to Eat, When to Stop
Naturally thin people typically follow both of these two simple patterns:
1) Eat only when hungry; and
2) Stop eating when no longer hungry.
This is how primitive man ate, a good indication that it is the way nature intended. Most of us have been
conditioned to eat when it’s time to eat: lunchtime, dinnertime, breakfast. But the truth is that it is far more
natural to
eat when you’re hungry
. That means
truly
hungry, not just craving food. As much as possible, try
to follow this simple but powerful principle of eating.
The second timing principle - to stop eating when you’re no longer hungry - is also very powerful,
but may contradict some childhood training. Remember
“Eat! Children are starving in India/ Somalia,
wherever...”?
That may be true, but it is certainly no reason to stuff yourself. Childhood lessons are not always good
ones. The most natural time to stop eating is when you’re full, which is, surprisingly, not what most of us
do. This principle means that you should stop even if 95% of the food is still left on your plate or if only 5%
is left. It doesn’t matter. The amount of food on the plate is of no importance; it is completely arbitrary and
irrelevant to your body’s needs. What is important is only how you feel. If you’re satisfied... if the hunger is
gone... STOP.
If you can master these two basic eating concepts, you will, to a large extent, master your nutritional and
weight situation forever.
Restaurant Eating
This is a particularly troublesome area. Restaurants, for some unknown reason, love oil. Even simple sal-
ads are drowned in truly
ridiculous
amounts of oil. This abuse of oil is the single biggest problem with eat-
ing in restaurants.
Food freshness is also an area of concern. Fish, poultry and meat, in descending order, are most likely
to be problematic. Be careful. Ask plenty of questions, particularly about freshness. If there is any reason to
believe your food is not fresh, order something else, or leave.
When ordering in a restaurant follow these simple rules:
• Always ask how much oil is in the dish(es) you wish to order.
• Insist that the dish(es) you want be made with
no
oil, or at worst, a very small amount.
• Refuse any offer of sprinkled cheese to go over your food.
• Order salads with vinegar dressing only, or lemon wedges that you can squeeze onto the salad. If you
must order dressing from the house, get one that
separates
, like vinaigrette, so that you can pour
off the oil that floats on top, using only the tasty part below the oil. Or bring your own, healthful
salad dressing.
•
Never order anything that is deep fried!
Remember to ask about this, because there are many more
foods that are deep fried than is obvious from most menus. For example, Italian restaurants often deep
fry their “eggplant parmigiana”. You must
ask
, and avoid all foods that are so prepared.
