Bob's Healthy Book Review

If you have been to Hilton Head Health in the last few years, and sat in on my Portion Control class, you might remember that I often referred to a book entitled Mindless Eating. This book is incredibly relevant for those focused on weight loss, healthy living and developing a healthy diet plan. Brian Wansink, Ph.D. and the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab Director, wrote this must-read book based on hundreds of studies and experiments he conducted looking at what factors influence what and how much we eat. His research clearly shows how our environment strongly and unconsciously impacts our eating behavior. As a result of your visit to H3, I hope many of you have taken steps to create an environment that helps manage your portions more effectively, such as: getting smaller plates and glasses, keeping 'less healthy' treats out of sight and more healthy foods around.

Since then Wansink, dubbed the “Sherlock Holmes of food”, has continued his research and just released his new book entitled, Slim By Design. Wansink suggests that the most effective way to manage weight and maintain weight loss long-term isn’t to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do but to help them set up their living environment in a way that will help them lose weight naturally.  He not only shares new and surprising research, (who would guess that the color of the plate you use could influence how much you serve yourself by almost 20%) but provides specific recommendations as to how you can use that information in the areas where most of our food decisions are made: the home, restaurants, grocery stores, your work place, even your kids' schools.

I am looking forward to incorporating this new information into the Portion Control class here at H3, but why wait until you come back to get the benefit? Pick up the book and get started creating the environment that will help you become Slim By Design! Do you have a favorite weight loss or wellness related book?

Coaching Corner: Dip and Spear

As many may know, an easy way to consume more calories than planned without thinking about it is by putting too much salad dressing on your salads. A popular method to counteract that which we encourage here at H3 is the “Dip and Spear” technique. There are just a few simple steps to the dip and spear technique;

1.)    Salad dressing must be on the side

2.)    Dip your fork into the salad dressing

3.)    Spear that fork through your salad

4.)    Enjoy the deliciousness of your salad + dressing with a reduced risk of over-consuming calories!

Below is a video about the dip and spear technique. Enjoy! =D

Do We Really Eat With Our Eyes?

Looks like our nutrition expert, Bob Wright, really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to portion control. In so many words, Bob has always preached that our eyes are hungrier than our mouths. Ask any chef and they will agree… we eat with our eyes and then our mouths. So when it comes to weight loss and weight management, one of the keys to success and cutting back on portions.

In a recent study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University found that we tend to eat less when tricking our eyes by portioning out food. They came to this conclusion by giving students one of two types of Lays' potato chips. One group was simply given a regular can of Lays’, while the other was given a stack of chips with red, edible potato chip dividers inserted every 5-14 chips.

It’s easy to guess what the first group did. Not realizing how many chips they were actually eating, this group (without the red chip dividers) ate far more chips than the group with the dividers suggesting they had reached the serving size. In fact, the group with the red chip dividers reduced their potato chip consumption by 50%! Who knew a single red chip could do all that.

I think the lesson here is that we do in fact eat with our eyes. If a full plate is placed before us, chances are we’re going to eat everything on the plate and not stop at the suggested serving size—especially, if you grew up as a ‘clean plate’ kid being rewarded for eating everything on your plate.

Over and over again, people are amazed when they arrive to Hilton Head Health and are surprisingly full on our 1200 calorie diet. Why is that? Because when we serve meals we usually start off with a salad and/or soup, we bulk up everything with lots of vegetables, and we avoid using huge plates. At home, there’s the temptation to load up oversized plates, not to mention the leftovers just begging to be eaten. Trick your eyes into thinking your eating more than you are by joining the Small Plate Movement. Hop down from a 12 inch plate to a set of 8-10 inch plates. A two inch difference in plate diameter or will result in 22% less calories at each meal.  To put this in perspective – if the average dinner is 800 calories, a smaller plate would lead to a weight loss of around 18 lbs per year for the average sized adult. Read this post for more information on the Small Plate Movement.

The next time you’re itching for something salty try this: separate your servings of popcorn or chips as soon as you purchase them and you’ll know exactly how much you’re eating at a time. This simple act can put you one step closer to success!

Don't Let the Appetizer Become Your Whole Meal

[caption id="attachment_6753" align="alignleft" width="300"] Fresh Tomato Salsa[/caption]

There are many great reasons to have appetizers before your meals, but remember the appetizers should not be as big as the main course. They are to slightly seize the appetite before the big meal, so you don’t feel like you are starving, plus appetizers always buy you cooking time.
Rule Number 1: Don’t make your appetizers so heavy you won’t want to eat the main course otherwise you have wasted time and energy on the best part of the meal.
Rule Number 2: Make your appetizers simple but tasty, such as a vegetable crudité (raw vegetable platter). Shrimp cocktail is also a simple appetizer and it offers minimal calories.
Rule Number 3: Make only a few appetizers, no need for a buffet. Remember, it’s a good thing if you run out of appetizers. That means guests are probably still hungry and not too full for the main meal!
Make sure your appetizers are bulked up with vegetables so you are eating more nutrient dense foods that are not a waste of calories. For instance, let’s make mini pizzas, Arnold sandwich thins layered with H3 marinara, spinach, chopped peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and turkey bacon bits then garnished with part skim mozzarella cheese. Perfect!
How about spinach artichoke dip, use twice the amount of fresh spinach then sneak in onions, artichokes, fat free cream cheese, skim milk and a small amount of parmesan cheese.
You might be asking, what about buffalo chicken wings? Well, how about buffalo chicken tenders with our low fat Bleu cheese dressing. The boneless chicken tenders look like they have been fried but are actually baked and contain much less calories and fat.
Always try and rely on some easy appetizers that in general are not high in calories, but that everyone loves. Who doesn’t like salsa? It’s the chips that get us in trouble so try cutting corn tortillas into chips and baking them!

Here are a few other naturally lower calorie appetizer ideas:
H3 Hummus and baked whole wheat pita chips
Pico de gallo with baked corn tortilla chips
Fat free cream cheese and onion dip for veggies
Refried bean dip with baked corn tortilla chips
Baked chicken tenders with H3 BBQ sauce
Panko shrimp with H3 bang bang sauce

Now for the cheese and cracker tray…let’s talk about this for a second. Cheese is great but those calories sure do add up quickly. Pick more pungent cheeses to be on our cheese tray such as Sharp cheddar, Provolone, Havarti cheese, Feta cheese cubes or rounds, Gruyere cheese or Gouda cheese. Make the selection stronger so we are less apt to eat more. The more flavor in the cheese, the less we will want to consume.
Make your holidays special like you always do, just save yourself some calories by making the same great food you usually do but with a little twist!

Small Meals, Big Payout

[caption id="attachment_6378" align="alignleft" width="420" caption="H3 Metabo Meal Station"][/caption]

There is a large discrepancy when it comes to eating frequency and weight-loss. At Hilton Head Health, we emphasis eating every two to three hours to stabilize blood sugar levels and portion control using visual cues. Starting as simple as setting up your plate ¼ starch, ¼ protein (about the size of your fist), and ½ fresh vegetables. We base our entire nutrition plan on eating often, but with moderation.  Most of our guests find that a 1200 calories diet is actually quite satisfying and most nights can’t even get to their 3^rd metabo meal (100 calorie snack).

What’s interesting is that some people even go so far to think that eating less at meals is ineffective because people compensate by eating more at other meals. This is not the case.

A small study was recently reviewed in the October Issue of the Journal Appetite. For two weeks, researchers had 17 men and women eat all their meals and snacks, as much as they wanted, at a buffet where portions consumed could be weighed and caloric intake calculated. After the first two weeks, participants then ate a 200-calorie lunch, but the rest of the day they ate whatever they wanted from the original buffet.

Participants consumed 1,568 calories on days they had the 200-calorie lunch and 1,560 calories on days when they did not – very insignificant. However; overall when the 17 participants had the 200-calorie lunch they consumed 245 calories less on those days. Unsurprisingly, the result was an average of 1.1 pounds lost per participant in the two weeks.

What’s the take-away? Lower calorie meals will do the trick as long as you eat frequently. If you’ve never implemented the 6 meals a day approach, give it a shot! When we don’t eat often enough, we’re putting our bodies into starvation mode, which can set us up for portion control fatigue later in the evening. If you never let yourself get hungry – you’ll not only feel good, but the results will be imminent.

 

Source: "A Low Calorie Meal is Shown to Pay Off"

Battling Out of Control Serving Sizes with Portion Control

Portion Control. Yes, I cringe when I hear it too. The fact is we all have a hard time controlling our portions; and who wouldn’t with the way food items are served to us these days. If you’ve visited H3 and attended Bob Wright’s Portion Control class, then you’ve seen firsthand how servings have grown out of proportion!

Bob Wright gave us some tips on how to eat healthy while dining out a few days ago, but I would like to help you with controlling portions when in your own home.

We say it over and over again, but environment definitely plays a huge role. Keep your pantry stocked with healthy snack and know the serving size before you start eating. Better yet, separate snacks and meals into baggies or containers to make things easy! We don’t always have the time to prepare food before running out the door, so planning for the unforeseen ahead of time can save you from undoing your whole day.

Pay attention to the serving size and nutrition label on each item you purchase while in the store. It’s not always easy to tell if you’re making the best decision with the way foods are marketed today, so read carefully. (Just because it says ‘less fat,’ it still may not be the best option.) Reading labels while in the store also gives you time to really think to yourself if the serving size is right for you. Don’t set yourself up. If the serving size is too small or unrealistic, choose something else.

Keeping it in Portion Perspective

By Jeff, H3 Program Intern

When we finally come to that final motivation to embark on lasting lifestyle changes, many of us get into that mindset: “This is it, go big or go home this time.” What a fitting phrase right? However, this is where it gets a little shady because when it comes to nutrition we’ve go to stop applying that same principle. In this respect, bigger is never better and our environment is certainly not helping any.

 

Why is it, when we are out and about, in an airport or at a restaurant, the portion sizes become outrageously enormous? Mammoth muffins, bountiful bagels, plethora pizza slices – it’s unreal on how today’s portion sizes stack up to twenty year’s ago. Let’s put the past in perspective:  

 

	20 Years Ago	Calories	Today	Calories
Bagel	3” inches	140	6” inches	350
Muffin	1.5 oz.	210	4 oz.	500
Pizza	2 slices	500	2 large slices	850

 

Obviously, we all just finished up a great portion controlled Thanksgiving, yet this is still an ideal time to update our perspective. With the holiday season almost in full-gear, there’s definitely going to be plenty more sweets on the horizon. It may not be the pumpkin pies this time, but various treats will be readily available and it’s not always easy to measure the exact portion size. Going along with our portion control theme, here are a few visualization techniques for understanding correct portions specific to several common holiday goodies.

 

- One square brownie should equal about one package of dental floss

- One slice of cake should equal a deck of cards

- One cinnamon roll should equal the size of a hockey puck

- One ounce of holiday candies should easily fit into the palm of your hand 

- One cup of cocoa equals eight ounces

- One cookie should equal roughly two poker chips

- One ½ cup ice cream should equal the size of a light bulb

 

Nobody wants to spend the holiday’s completely zoning out every treat, therefore by understanding what constitutes “a portion” we can help control the weight. In our H3 portion control class many guest learn the fundamental tips for managing portions. Today, I’ll just give you the top three and hope that the past comparisons and dessert portion visualizations guide you the rest of the way!

 

Top Tip #1:      Re-engineer your home

-          “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

-          Buy snacks in single serve

-          Keep variety to a minimum

 

Top Tip #2:      Recognize the difference between a portion and a serving

-          Read all the labels

-          Refer to the H3 food pyramid

 

Top Tip #3       Eat more slowly and mindfully

-          Food will be coming at you left and right so take it easy

-          20 minute rule: Stop, Take a breath, Observe, Proceed

10 Simple Ways to Control Your Portions (and waistline…)

Last week, I challenged you to join the Small Plate Movement -- to decrease your portions and learn to enjoy smaller meals (while still feeling satisfied!)

Here are 10 other ways to control your portions...

-  Oldies but Goodies.  Instead of putting your leftovers into one large container - break them up into individual meals.  This way you are reaching for one meal, not the entire serving.

- Start with a Salad.  Eating a salad before lunch or dinner is a good way to keep from overeating.  By including lots of fiber-full veggies, it will help curb your appetite.

- Single serve your Trigger Foods.  Buy snack foods in single serving sizes or separate into smaller individual baggies.  It may be more difficult to stop eating [insert favorite snack food here] straight from the bag, but you are less likely to eat 5 zipper bags full.

- Eat Mini Meals.  You can make sure your blood sugar stays stable and keep your stomach from rumbling by eating small healthful meals throughout the day.  Here at H3, we encourage 100 calorie 'Metabo Meals' of fresh fruits and veggies in between meals.

- Out of Sight, Out of Mind.  Keep pots and dishes away from the table during meals, where it's easy to go for seconds.  You may rethink your 2nd helping on the way from the table to the counter.

- Meat on the Side, Please.  Treat meat entrees as a side dish rather than the main part of your meal.  Load up on veggies and healthy grains as the bulk of your meal and you'll feel full sooner.  Your plate should be 2/3 veggies and 1/3 lean protein.

- Double Up.  Eat 1/2 of a meal at lunch - and then save the rest for dinner.  Or have a grilled chicken breast and veggies for lunch, and turn the left over into a chicken salad for dinner.

- You look 12 (and under).  When eating out -- order a kid portion.  Not only do you save money, but you are also saving calories!

- Serving Smarts.  Learn how to 'eyeball' the standard portion sizes and make sure to stick to them when dining out or eating at home.  For example: 3 oz. of meat is the size of a deck of cards.

- Live a little.  Don't forbid yourself of certain foods - this will only lead you to feel deprived - which will most likely lead to bingeing.  Treat yourself once in a while to avoid this cycle!

It's an Optical Illusion!

Let’s take it back to the 1960s.  Not only would we be running around in hot pants and miniskirts, singing “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon – but we would be [smaller] eating off of a groovy 10 inch plate. 

Now fast forward to the year 2009- where after we spend hours watching reality TV, drive thru Hardees for a hearty dinner - a Monster Thickburger (all 2/3 pounds of meat, cheese and bacon), and later come home to Twitter about it all…And we wonder why we have an ever growing obesity epidemic?



Over the years, many different health initiatives have been put in place to encourage America to take steps to get active, eat healthy and lose weight.  One of my favorites is the Small Plate Movement. 

The Small Plate Movement encourages American families to lose weight and feel healthier by simply reducing the size of their dinnerware, without having an effect on their perceived fullness or satisfaction.  Since 1960, the surface area of the average dinner plate has increased 36%.

Research shows that people perceive serving size not by the label on the box, but rather in relation to the size of their dish.  Let me put this into perspective- a 3 ounce portion on a 10 inch plate will look like a huge helping so you’ll most likely stop there, whereas a 3 ounce portion on a 12 inch plate will much smaller (like you’re not getting enough food).  As a result, we tend to over-serve, over-consume (the Clean Plate Club) and over-eat on larger plates. 

A two inch difference in plate diameter or will result in 22% less calories at each meal.  To put this in perspective – if the average dinner is 800 calories, a smaller plate would lead to a weight loss of around 18 lbs per year for the average sized adult.

Starting today – September 1^st – I challenge you to join the Small Plate Movement and eat off a 10 inch plate for your largest meal of the day for the whole month. 

I think you will be pleasantly surprised...



 

Are you interested in learning more?  Click here to read more about the 5 W’s of Portion Control.

 

Source: Smallplatemovement.org