Social obligations to consume food can be a nightmare! Do you recall that particular Seinfeld when Elaine gets frustrated with the endless slices of cake being shoved in her face for various celebratory reasons? When her attempt to decline cake failed she said: "You know, there are 200 people who work in this office. Every day is somebody’s special day (http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheFrogger.htm)." While part of the reason she was frustrated was because she did not want to be trapped into socializing with her co-workers, social obligations to food involving people you enjoy being around can be equally daunting! Summer seems to be the very worst for large spreads of not so healthy foods. Today we will be looking at the BBQ. Weekend BBQ’s do not need to negate your entire week of success. There are ways to leave the BBQ with your daily calorie intake in check.
What to drink - When we are out in the heat we need to drink more fluids to stay hydrated and if the wrong choices are made this alone can blow your calorie budget. Reduce your calorie intake by halfing your juice or ice tea with club soda. Diet soda’s are also a good solution calorie wise but keep a handle on aspartame consumption. It is suspected that aspartame reduces our ability to absorb water which is a good reason to aviod it when you are out in the heat.
If you are drinking alcohol avoid drinking coolers and beer. Both are extremely high in calories. Drink vodka and club soda, gin and tonic water, vodka/rum with diet pop or diet fruit soda such as fresca or grapefruit soda. Avoid drinking your calories! If you are mixing with real fruit juices half your drink with club soda because although fruit juices are good for you they pack on the calories.
What to avoid -Typical Barbeque side dishes usually involve ceasar salad, potato salad, coleslaw, and bean salad. None of these are all that healthy. While ceasar salad and potato salad are high in fat, coleslaw and bean salad both contains a fair amount of fat and a shocking amount of sugar. Take a very small amount of your favourites and call it quits!
What to bring - Bring a vegetable tray with a low fat dip. You can make this by adding a dip mix to a tub of 1% sour cream. Bring a spinach salad with cucumber, carrots, walnuts, and raspberries with a balsamic dressing. If you do not like spinach salad bring a green salad with vegetables of your choice. The key is choosing a vinigarette dressing. You never want to bring too much food because it may be seen as an insult. However, you should bring at least one item that is on your diet safe list.
Now what do we do about that hamburger, veggie burger, hotdog, or sausage? The obvious tip that everyone knows is eat half the bun or no bun, but condiments also pack a lot of calories so be careful how much you pile on. If available use a slice of tomato instead of ketchup, and a sliced dill pickle instead of relish, and forget about using mayonnaise altogther.
Best of luck!
