Action Plan to Take the Weight Off
This Year
By Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP
Addicted to Restaurants
Are you addicted to restaurants? So are lots of Americans. What used to
be a "treat," going out for dinner, has become more common that cooking
at home, and we think we're better off? Think again. Restaurant eating,
fast foods and highly processed foods are turning us into a nation of
tubby's. It's time to take back control of our waistlines.
You choose where you eat, and you choose what you eat. Here are some
suggestions to begin to make better choices.
Restaurants Exist to Make a Profit
The bottom line is restaurants exist to make a profit. They pile on the
extra butter and rich cream sauces, carmelized sugar toppings, cheese
sauce, double-deluxe, new improved, and whatever they can do to make the
food so enticing, so delicious, we just cannot resist. Fine for an
occasional splurge, but not everyday fare, and herein lies the problem.
Extra Value Meals
McDonalds started the trend by offering slightly larger portions for a
bit more money, and every other food establishment quickly followed
suit. Extra value they called it. Who wouldn't order a bit more for only
pennies? Today nearly every restaurant, fast food or sit down dining,
serves gigantic quantities that boggle the mind. There is usually enough
food served for two, sometimes three meals.
Reading in Restaurant Confidential (get a copy of this book and read it
until it sinks in), the calorie count in the typical restaurant meal is
so staggering it ends the surprise of why obesity is rampant and on the
rise. Cheese fries with Ranch dressing are listed at having over 3,000
calories and 217 grams of fat (91 of them saturated). That's an entire
day's worth of food, and it's considered an appetizer. Most people don't
just eat the cheese fries either, so add in the rest of your day's
calories and you end up with far more than you may realize.
Anyone who eats out regularly (at least once a day) is likely consuming
closer to 5,000 calories a day, which easily explains their being
overweight.
Getting the Calories Out of Restaurant Food
Unless you mentally make it okay to pay good money for very plain foods,
you're not likely to solve this puzzle. Here are a couple of painless
ideas you can put into action at restaurants:
1. Just say NO to super sizing. The size you ordered is already too big.
Stop super sizing and you'll save money (see How to Save Money and Lose
Weight).
2. Skip the bread and rolls served with most meals. Most family
restaurants still serve a bread basket with your meal. Unless it's a
fresh baked loaf, or some special bread, just skip it. You don't need to
fill up on ordinary bread when you're paying good money for a meal -
just push it away - it's not that good. You can do it, if you want to -
it's not that hard to simply choose not to put a roll on your plate. Try
it, just once and see if you don't walk out of that restaurant feeling
strangely powerful.
If you can't skip the rolls, at least skip the butter. That's right. Eat
it plain. Bread all by itself is good enough.
3. Stop ordering drinks with your meals. I stopped buying the soft
drinks many years ago when I realized they are a huge cash cow for the
fast food restaurants. For pennies, they sell you a squirt of syrup and
soda water and act like they're doing you a big favor by only charging
you $1.29 for a giant 64 oz. soda. Start saving those dollars. If you
take the meal home, just don't get a drink, and if you're eating it
there, ask for water, or at least switch to diet drinks. Never drink
"fat pop."
5. Trim visible fat and skin. You really love the skin - of course it
tastes good, it should, it's pure fat. Do you want to get leaner, or do
you want to eat fat? You choose. I never eat chicken skin, and never eat
the visible fat hanging off a steak, good taste or no. You have to
decide what you want more, the second's worth of pleasure of a yummy
taste, or a lifetime of carrying around an extra 40 lbs?
6. Ask for a doggie bag at the beginning of the meal. When the food is
served, immediately portion off some to take home for tomorrow. Some
restaurants always serve too much. Do this at those establishments to
get used to the idea.
7. Get a copy of Restaurant Confidential and start checking out how much
you're eating. Yes, I mentioned this twice. It's important. If you think
eating out isn't causing part of the problem, I say, you're fooling
yourself. This little book can help you realize what's been going on,
and then you may find it easier to choose other dishes, split the meal
into two, or skip some extras.
8. Order one dinner and ask for an extra plate. Many restaurants will do
this for $1.00 or $1.50 extra and it's well worth it. Then share the
meal with your friend and you split the cost straight down the middle.
Turn Eating Out Back into a Treat
If you really want to get a handle on your weight problem, then first
look at where you eat, second what you eat, and third how much you eat.
If you absolutely cannot give up going to restaurants or fast food
places every day, then you must start ordering plain, unadorned foods. I
you can't do that (which I can't) then just go out less often. Turn it
back into a treat, a special occasion type thing, and then eat whatever
you want. Find what works for you, and then do it.
Train your Eye to Accept Less Food
Start training your eye to accept less food on the plate. We've taught
ourselves to expect heaps of food, but your body doesn't need such huge
quantities. Frankly, it takes a very tiny amount of food to supply our
needed nutrients.
If they developed a pill which contained all the calories and nutrients
our bodies required, no one would want to take it. We like to eat.
Eating is pleasurable, it's part of the makeup and experience of being
human. Take back control of that most basic of human needs. Cook at home
for friends and bring joy back into your life through food.
If I Ate Out More Often I'd Gain Weight - it's That Simple
I know I maintain my weight with an average of about 2,200 calories a
day. That's more than most dieters strive for, so how do I get away with
eating that much -- I make better choices.
If I started eating out at restaurants more often, I'd suddenly be
eating nearly double what I eat now (calorie wise), without even trying.
Double the calories and guess what? Weight gain won't be far behind.
Trying to radically change your approach to food or exercise is rarely
successful. More people that are successful at losing weight and keeping
it off do so by making changes and incorporating them into their
lifestyle. Start now. Choose one habit (such as eating out every day) or
regular food you eat, and decide to cut back on how often, or the
quantity. Set a plan, and do it.
Make a deal with yourself and keep it. If you find you cannot - that you
set yourself too strict a cutback, then modify it and do it again. Keep
at it and you'll be successful.
If you eat out every day during the week for lunch, here's a plan to
make a small change. Carry your lunch one day a week, or save the extra
from dinner out on Sunday night for lunch on Monday. Get together with
your coworkers for a walking lunch every Wednesday. If there's a gym of
fitness club in the vicinity of your work, join along with your
coworkers and make an agreement to work out together three days a week,
at lunch time. Take brown bag foods you can eat at your desk those days.
These small changes add up to big results. Try a couple in your daily
life and see what happens.
Kathryn Martyn, Master NLP Practitioner, EFT counselor, author of
Changing Beliefs, Your First Step to Permanent Weight Loss, and owner of
OneMoreBite-Weightloss.com
Get the Daily Bites: Inspirational Mini Lessons Using EFT and NLP for
Ending the Struggle with Weight Loss
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