My friend, Nina, loved food. She is always the one organizing our group’s lunches, birthday parties, or dinners. My groups of friends get together over food at least once a week. It is easy for us to make plans for these food related events since we work for the same company. The week before Christmas, we attended 3 different office Christmas parties by inviting each other to the different department parties.

Since deciding that I want to loose weight, I…

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It would be nice to know how many calories are in that plate of pasta or sandwich before eating it when you dine out. Knowing the information might not deter you from eating the burger, but at least it would make you think twice about eating the fries. You can try looking up the information online beforehand or you can try these tricks that I use to estimate the calories when dining out.

Step 1: Break down…

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I am going to Orlando for my belated honeymoon next week. I am a little anxious. No matter how good you are doing at home, once you get away from a controlled environment (my home), I am afraid that I will fall back on my old habits of getting “my money’s worth when eating out” or eating most of the meal since I have no way of reheating my meal if I get a doggie bag.

This week…

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I hope that all the pre-planning that I am doing this week will minimize the impact of my vacation on my waistline. I had never return from a trip lighter, but hopefully this time I will at least be able to maintain the status quo.

These are going to be my rules for dining out next week:

Pick foods that are grilled, baked, steamed or broiled.
Good thing I do that now when I eat out so it should…

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Most people are creatures of habit. When we go to the grocery store, we usually buy the same foods each week. There is comfort in the familiar. That is why trying to eat healthy is so scary sometimes because we do not know how to make small changes without overhauling our entire eating habits.

It takes a month for a conscious effort to become a habit. You need to pay attention in order to eat healthier instead of reaching for…

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In a perfect world, we would all have a healthy nutritious dinner at home each evening after a hard day. Since we do not always live in a perfect world, the best we can do is make better choices when we eat out. This is the start of a series of posts discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at certain types of…

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Last time we discussed the smarter choices when eating at fast food restaurants. Here is the second post of our making smarter choices when eating out series. We will be discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at restaurants that serve American food.

For American food restaurants the fat traps to avoid are:

• large main course portion size.
• fried or sautéed food.
• cream sauce and dressing.

The smarter…

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Last time we discussed the smarter choices when eating at fast food restaurants and American restaurants. Here is the third post of our making smarter choices when eating out series. We will be discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at restaurants that serve Italian food.

For Italian food restaurants the fat traps to avoid are:

• Alfredo or other cream based sauce.
• Cheese based grain dishes…

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Last time we discussed the smarter choices when eating at fast food restaurants, American restaurants, and Italian restaurants. Here is the fourth post of our making smarter choices when eating out series. We will be discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at restaurants that serve Asian food such as Chinese, Thai, or Japanese.

For Asian food restaurants the fat traps to avoid are:

• Deep…

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Last time we discussed the smarter choices when eating at fast food restaurants, American restaurants, Italian restaurants, and Asian restaurants. Here is the fifth post of our making smarter choices when eating out series. We will be discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at restaurants that serve Indian food. So is Indian considered part of the Asian food category?

For Indian food restaurants the…

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Fast Food

American Food

Italian Food

Asian Food

Indian Food

Mexican and Greek Food

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This will be the last post for the Eating Smarter Series. I am antsy about moving on to other topics, hence I am combining the Eating Smarter Mexican food and Eating Smarter Greek food into one post. The previous posts for this series can be found here.

We will be discussing what to avoid, the smarter choice to make, and special requests we should be making when we eat at restaurants that serve Mexican and Greek food.

Mexican food…

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