All I Can Eat?

OK, so here I am on vacation at one of those all-inclusive places: all I can eat, all I can drink, everything's included. So what's a dietitian to do? My strategy, which I planned out ahead of time, was to try to include 2 fruits and 2 vegetables at every meal (except for the veggies at breakfast), to eat fish at least once a day, and to eat meatless meals as much as possible. My plan was to limit desserts to just a bite or two of a couple of selections (just being realistic, here--I know I can't choose one when there are eight of them staring at me). As for the drinks, it's tough to limit them as well, when you're passing a bar every 5 feet and seeing people walk off to their spot on the beach with chilly-looking blue and pink and purple frozen refreshments!
So far, I'm not doing too badly: Breakfast is easy. It's a buffet and I head right for the cereal, yogurt, fruit and toast. I know I will be tempted with eggs and bacon and sausage, so I concentrate on the selections of fresh breads and the assortment of fruits. I love mango and melons and they are here in abundance!

Lunch can be something from the grill or from the buffet. There is always a variety of salads and I know if I fill up on those I won't have room for too much else. So I choose a small amount of pasta salad, some vegetable sides, and the tasty fish dishes that are always available. Once I add the fruit salad to these, I'm plenty full until later.

When it's time for dessert I am lucky here because they've already portioned everything into one-inch squares. I can choose two or three tastes and know I won't get carried away into eating an entire wedge of cheesecake because there are only two bites there!

Truly, by the time dinner rolls around I'm not exactly starving. There is food everywhere you look and it loses its appeal after seeing it all day. I did have a bag of popcorn from the snack bar yesterday afternoon, and by dinner the entree of little chunks of pineapple chicken on a scoop of rice were plenty to fill me up at the Thai restaurant.

As for the drinks, there is beer and champagne, wine, and frozen concoctions flowing like water.
There are also plenty of other drinks around here, so I'm managing to keep my palate sated with rich, delicious Jamaican coffee, fruit punches, and raspberry-flavored unsweetened iced tea. And my new favorite drink: they put a large pitcher near all the pool areas filled with ice and water and chunks of watermelon and honeydew. Yum! It's very cool and refreshing with a mild hint of sweetness. I'm going to make this when I get home and drink it all the time!

Hopefully, I will come home without gaining weight which, unfortunately, is par for the course on vacations for most people. I'm trying to get to the fitness center everyday for a short stint on the bicycle or treadmill, and mind what I eat and drink during the day. It's not really that hard to do since I'm finding plenty of healthy foods that I like!

Portion Control for the Holidays

I was speaking to one of my clients the other day and she has progressed so far with the changes in her eating habits since we first met in September. I wanted to pass along some of the tips that have worked for her because she is losing weight and feeling great, so I thought these ideas would work for someone else out there!

1) The first change Lucy made was to use smaller plates in her home at dinner time. Many have extremely large dinner plates that can easily measure nearly a foot in diameter. At the time I suggested she change to smaller plates, she hesitated and said to me, "but I only put food in the middle part--not all the way out to the edges". Then she realized how much plate was still being filled as she compared the size of her usual serving plates to the smaller 'salad' plates. "I'll try using these and see how it goes," Lucy agreed. And ever since then she has been dining with the smaller ones, feeling satisfied and not stuffed.

2) The other trick Lucy tried for dinner meals was to reduce the amount of food she was cooking. "It's just me and my husband for dinner, but sometimes we cook enough for four or six people--then we just keep taking more helpings because the food is in front of us." Now she and her husband start with just enough food for two, and they both get just enough and never overeat at dinner.

3) When dining out, Lucy and her husband share a main entree with an additional order of a side salad. Or sometimes they'll each get an appetizer instead of a full meal. "They really give you so much food when you eat out, if you don't stay aware of how much you're putting away, it can be gone before you remember to ask for a take-out container!"

4) At the recent buffets Lucy has been going to around the holidays, she's come up with a couple of tips of her own that she shared with me: "Since I can't get a smaller plate wherever I go, I just leave more plate showing than I have covered!" What a great idea that is: Instead of saying to herself, "I'm at someone else's house now so I'll just fill up my plate like all the other guests," Lucy remains aware of eating reasonable portion sizes to help continue her weight loss and meet her goals. She makes sure there is plenty of space on the plate because that means it's not overflowing with food--translation--calories!

5) And the last tip she shared with me was another useful one when going through buffet lines: "I just take one spoonful of each item on the line--a spoonful of turkey, a spoonful of mashed potatoes, a spoonful of sweet potatoes, and so on. I'm not missing out on anything and it's plenty of food by the time I reach the end of the line. It's just so easy to take too much. Reminding myself to stick to one spoonful of each food works out just perfectly."

Thanks to Lucy for all the great tips, and congratulations on the 15 pounds you've shed so far!