This week we talked about how to keep your diet in check while you’re eating out. The easiest and most obvious way is to simply check the menu for calories.
Many fast food places publish the calories for most items, either in the store or online. You’ll also find them on the good phone apps. Some of the larger restaurant chains also have a low calorie menu where you’ll know the value of the whole meal.
Most of the fast food chains now have some pretty healthy menu choices like grilled chicken sandwiches and salads, wraps, and of course 6” subs. The key there is to avoid the fries and large pops, which add a ton of calories to your meal.
If you can’t find the calories, then you can make a good guess. Figure a 5-6 oz serving of meat or poultry is around 150 calories and a 7-8 oz serving is 200 calories. Both will usually be about the size of your palm; the smaller size for women, and the large size for men.
A quality serving of starch (potato, sweet potato, pasta, rice, etc…) will be about 150 calories for a half size portion (ladies), or 300 calories for a full size portion (guys). Like we talked about last week, the key is to just eat one serving.
It’s hard to consume more than 100 calories in a serving of vegetables, even with a little sauce. The only issue with salads is the dressing. A serving size is usually just 2 tbsp, which would be 50 calories (low fat) or up to 200 calories or more for house or regular dressings.
Soft drinks or sweet teas typically run around 120-150 calories per 8 oz serving. This doesn’t sound like much but it’s easy to have a refill or two without even thinking about it, so be careful.
Once you have an idea of what certain foods are, you can plan to fit it into your day. If you know it’s going to be a little high, you can scale back elsewhere, by skipping a snack, or in some extreme cases, another meal if you know you really need the room.
Of course you can always make up for it by throwing in an extra calorie burning workout like an extra walk at night, or staying in the gym a little longer. The point is that sometimes you can eat some of the foods you might have thought were off limits. If you’re careful, between the two strategies you can ensure that nothing will be stored as fat; you’ll just burn it.
This week they did a full body circuit with dumbbells (DB) and calisthenics for the Monday night workout. It was just 30 minutes, but I’m pretty sure they thought it was action packed. Here it is in case you’d like to give it a try:
1. DB Chest Press & DB Pec Fly’s on the Ball (Chest)
2. DB Squat & DB Deadlifts (Lower Body)
3. DB Single Arm Rows, and DB Pull-overs on the Ball (Back)
4. Pushups, Sit-Ups & Body Squats, run-in-place w/3 burpees (3 rounds)
5. DB Shoulder Press & DB Lateral Raises (Shoulders)
6. DB Overhead Tricep Press & DB Tricep Kickbacks (Arms)
7. DB Hammer Curls & DB Bicep Curls (Arms)
8. AB Routine #1-5: Crunches, Crunches w/legs up, Cross to L, Cross to R, & Leg-lifts (Abs)
First place this week was a tie between Jeremy Whitaker and Shelly Borchers who both lost 1.9% of their body weight and 3.6 and 3.4 lbs respectively. Steve Johnson III placed second, losing 1.7% and 3.8 lbs.
For more information, you can reach me at the gym, email at tomdolanfitness@gmail.com, or through Facebook at www.facebook/tomdolanfitness!
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