Salads to Avoid

An recent consultation with a new client inspired this post.

"Rick" is a former competitive/varsity athlete.  Now in technical sales, he travels quite a bit for work.  He noted that he started putting on a little weight once he started work, and figured it was due to being less active than in his college days.

Once he hit his 30's, his weight increased even more.  He is still active--playing men's hockey and basketball in the winter, and men's soccer in the summer; as well as working out at the gym, but the weight gain continued.

Then he hit 40, and the weight continued to increase, he examined his diet.  He still exercises while on the road--taking advantage of the Hotel pool and exercise room.  With all the time he spends on the road, he figured eating out play a large role.  He switched his meals to Salads offered at the restaurants he often has business dinner meetings at, but still the weight gain continued.

This is where we had a consultation.  I examined Rick's exercise routine, made a couple of tweaks, and instructed him to keep a food log for the next two weeks.  Although Rick was ordering a salad for lunch or dinner, the salads often had more than 1000 calories--often more than almost anything else on the menu.

So here are 7 salads that you should not eat.



1.  Buffalo style Salad.
1180 calories, 95g fat, 2090mg sodium.
Yes it may have lettuce, but it also have deep-fried, oily sauce, cheese, and cream-based blue dressing.  It actually has more calories than an order of wings.



2.  Tex-Mex Salad (a.k.a. taco salad, steak tostada salad, etc.)
1230 calories, 63g fat, 2380mg sodium
From the deep-fried tortilla, to the fat-drenched dressing, this is not a good choice.  Avocados instead of guacamole, and deleting the sour cream would also help this salad....


3.  Outback Steakhouse Aussie Crispy Chicken Cobb Salad with Honey Mustard.
1288 calories, 98g fat, 2096mg sodium.
Why mess with something that works???  The Cobb Salad is find.  Deep fry the chicken, add the honey mustard, and the calorie count sky rockets.  The croutons, bacon, and excess cheese do not help either. 


4.  Pecan-Crusted Salad
1360 calories, 80g fat, 2640mg sodium.
Looking at the menu description, nuts make many think that this should be a good salad, because of their protein and fibre content.  The problem, however, is when restaurants use sugar-coated nuts.  The Deep-fried chicken, and calorie heavy bleu cheese dressing do not help either.



 5.  Moroccan Chicken Salad.
1370 calories, 12g fat, 1040mg sodium, 116g carbohydrates.
This salad has more carbs than many pasta dishes, and most thin-crust pizzas.


6.  IHOP's Chicken & Spinach Salad.
1530 calories, 111g fat, 2400mg sodium.
Normally, a chicken and spinach salad is one of my favourite choices.  The difference here? Look how they prepare the chicken, covered it in sugar and calorie dense dressing, the toast, and all the cheese....


7.  Cheesecake Factory's Santa Fe Chicken Salad.
1720 calories, 17g fat, 2636mg sodium.
Sour cream, guacamole, creamy dressing, tortilla strips, excess cheese, all pile on the calories.


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Eight of the Worst Hotel Breakfast Foods.

Do you travel much?  Hotels? Restaurants?  They can play havoc with your nutrition plan.  And with the hotel industry being som competitive, pretty well every hotel offers a complimentary continental breakfast.

I travel a bit -- races, confernces, etc., and I know that the "breakfasts" offered does not meet my nutritional needs.

The compliemntary breakfast buffer may seem to be "free",  but if you partake, you are probably consumering a day's worth of calories in just one meal.

Waffles are a popular choice at the breakfast  buffer.  But they contain 375 calories, 11 g of fat, and 68 g of carbohydrates.  And all of those little waffle pockets are great at capturing and holding butter, margarine, and syrop, adding to your carbohydrate, sugar, and calorie count. Avoid.

Orange Juice?  110 calories, 33 g of sugars.  Skip the fruit juice and ear whole fruit instead.  The fiber in fruit helps to mitigate the effects of the sugar, but there is minimal figer in juice, so basically you are drinking sugar water.

Melon? A very popular fruit choice on breakfast buffet tables.  But not a strong nutrition choice.  3 small wedges contian 135 calories and 30 g of sugars. Nutrionally inferior to many other fruits, such as grapes. The equivelant surving of grapes contains 68 calories and 16g of sugars.

Like those single-serving boxes of cereals?  Remind you of your childhood and Saturday morning cartoons? Well, a single-serving box of Corn Flakes contains 267 calories, 10g of protein, and 57g of carbs.  Minimal real fiber, minimal protein, this will spike your blood sugar and insulin levels and leave you hungry as you hit the road.

If your breakfast buffer offers scrambled eggs--take it.  2 eggs scrambled contain 204 calories, 14g of fat, and 2g of carbohydrates, and will satiate your hunger for a longer period of time than creal, waffles, pastries, etc.

Breakfast proteins.  With all the positive publicity that meat and proteins have been receiving recently, we may forget that not all meat and protein products are created equally.

Breakfast Sausages are an excellent example.  Although they may be protein rich, they are also full of sodium and fat.  2 links contain 250 calories, 14g of fat (6g of saturated fat), 24g of protein and 958mg of sodium!

Muffins--as a kid I used to love muffins for breakfast.  Especially when I was out with my dad.  I was beginning my "health consciousness" and thought I was making a healthy choice choosing a muffin over a donut.  Well turns out that most muffins available at hotel breakfast, restaurants, etc. and nothing more that creatively disguised cupcakes.  The average muffin contians 444 calories, 22g of fat, and 56g of carbohydrates.  Can you say blood sugar and insulin spike? 

I love yogurt.  Protein and calcium rich, active priobiotic cultures.  Lots of good stuff.  But watch out for the yogurt served at the complimentar breakfast.  Many choices contain "fruit", a.k.a. sugar.  The average fruit (flavoured) yogurt contains 388 calories, 10g of fat, 15g of protein, and 53g of sugars.  Fruit-flavoured yogurt is laced with high-fructorse corn syrup--known to play havoc with blood sugar and insulin levels, and screw with your metabolism.

If plain yogurt is offered, take it, and if you like, add almonds and whole berries to it. 

My favourite breakfast while travelling?  A protein Vi-Shake.  I have  travel-size individual serving packets of Vi-Shake mix so I do not have to worry about taking my big bag of shake mix on the road.  Sometime I take my travel "Magic-Bullit" single-serving blender with me, in which case I will grab some of the fresh fruit from the buffet and throw it in my shake.  Sometimes I just mix the shake in my "shaker" cup, and eat the fruit on it's own.

Either way, my morning nutritional needs have been met; and more importantly, I do not get theose low-blood sugar cravings later in the day causing me to eat crap, or over-eat and sabotage my nutrional plan.

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Burn More Calories with Ease!

Okay, who needs to lose weight?  Maybe a lot of weight.  But for whatever reason--maybe joint/muscle issues, breathing issues, or because you have been inactive for so long--you can't start a running program, and do not feel starting a weight training program.

Well, the best way to start, is to start--with something easy.  Just start moving, and keep moving, and you will combat those extra calories.

A walking plan is an excellent plan to boost your daily activity. With our holiday season fast approaching, our official "over-eating" season also begins.  Start a walking program now and start losing the pounds before the holidays, instead of starting after.

Regular walking at a moderate pace is a great way to improve your overall fitness and health.  Walking is a low impact, convenient, and not too difficult.  Walking can also easily be broken down into 2 or 3 session throughout your day.

A great goal is 3 miles a day.  It may seem like a lot, you can break it down into 3 1-mile sessions.  Walk a mile on your lunch break, a mile after work, and a mile after dinner, or however you fit it into your day.

Focus on bent elbow, and swinging your arms as your walk, to really burn those calories and stimulate your metabolism.

For an extra boost, try a Go or Pro energy drink before you go, and follow up your lunch or morning walk with a Vi-Shake to continue with the metabolism boost.

Happy Walking!

6-Pack in 90 Days.

 

There are 4 key components to dropping unwanted body fat, and building lean muscle.
- Monounsaturated Fats
- Fibre
- Quality Protein
- Increased Calorie Expenditure (boosting your metabolism through diet, movement, exercise, etc.)

Today I am going to talk about MUFAs.

MUFAs are naturally occurring compounds and they make losing body fat a cinch.  Recent studies have shown that they are "exceptional" at directly targeting abdominal fat.


But first let me explain what MUFAs are.  They are a Monounsaturated Fatty Acid, and have one double bond in the fatty acid chain, while the remainder of the carbon atoms in the chain are single-bonded. (Remember organic chemistry class???).  This is different from polyunsaturated fatty acids that have more than one double bond . 

Because they only have one double bond, their melting temperature in higher than other fatty acids.  This means that it is harder for you body to metabolize them, or break them down.  This in turn stimulates your metabolism.  Studies have shown that MUFAs are associated with a higher resting calorie expenditure (higher metabolism, burning more calories) (reference).

Population studies have shown that populations that consumer a diet higher in MUFAs than any other fat have healthier body mass index (less of the population is overweight or obese), and have lower incidence of diabetes, heart disease, cancer.  In fact, these MUFAs consuming cultures tend to consumer more overall fat than other populations, but the majority of the fat consumed is MUFAs. (reference)

So what does that mean for you?  Try substituting these MUFA foods in place of other foods:
- whole milk Greek yogurt
- nuts (especially cashews, macadamias, almonds )
- seeds
- olives
- olive oil, sesame oil, safflower oil, avocado oil
- avocados
and occasionally red meat

When you include MUFA foods in your diet with the other three components, you should shortly be noticing that your belt seems to be getting a little bit longer ;)

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