Weight Loss, Diet and Fitness Program

From previous 6 Dieting Minefields and How Avoid Them (part 1)

Chinese food also can be good for low-carb diners, as long as you avoid the rice, noodles, and things like oily scallion pancakes. Sauces are often full of sugar and starch. Stir-frys usually have a little sweet element, but it probably won’t be enough to make a big difference in your insulin level. Skip the fried dishes, which are often breaded and sweetened as well. Watch out for bean paste, barbecued meats, and red-cooked anything. No wonton or sweet and sour soup, but egg drop will be fine, as will hot and sour. Some Chinese restaurants offer slices of orange for dessert, which is very refreshing; have a couple and just read your fortune, don’t eat its wrapper. An almond cookie will set you back 20 carb grams.

In a Japanese restaurant, start whit miso soup and go on to sushi or sashimi, if that’s an option, skipping the rice. You might think seaweed salad would be safe, but it’s actually quite sweet. Have some edamame (steamed soybeans salted in the pod) with your drinks. (But don’t drink sake, which is sweet.) Spinach with sesame seeds is a good choice for a vegetable. Negimalri – little bits of beef with scallion – are great with the spinach.

If you have access to a Korean restaurant, you’re lucky – this is great low-carb food (as long as you skip the rice and noodles, of course), with lots of vegetables and unencumbered meat. Sometimes kimchi, the very spicy cabbage based relish, is actually sweet, but more often it’s not – and it’s supposed to be very good for you.

At an Italian or French restaurant, just use common sense: pass up the carbs and choose from among the many excellent possibilities.

Come On Over for Dinner…
These words have struck fear in the hearts of many a low-carb dieter, who likely to find himself facing a meal of pizza, lasagna, tacos, or a backyard picnic featuring fried chicken and baked beans, or the old standby pasta and bread and salad. If it’s a good friend who’s inviting you, of course, you can casually ask what’s on the menu and offer to bring what you need to stay on your diet.

You can always bring a low-carb dessert – there’s never too much dessert at a party, and usually you don’t have to worry about upstaging the host if you explain your situation. However, I’ve seen people ignore the major high-carb dessert being offered and demand some of the low-carb cheesecake or the low-carb homemade ice cream, even when they hear it’s sugarless. One bite and they love it.

What about a true emergency? There’s a crucial client, say, who would be distressed to learn that you don’t eat what everyone else eats, or dinner at the boss’s house when the family specialty, Potato Bliss, is the centerpiece? Sometimes you just have to resign yourself to the inevitable and eat a little, not a lot.

Holidays Without Tears
The holidays are undoubtedly the toughest time of the year for low-carbers. There’s a huge emotional pull as we anticipate our family’s traditional foods, and expectations run high. We may even be expected to actually produce these foods. (Find someone else to do it if you think you’ll lose control and eat half the cookie dough while you’re baking.) Some relative will be heartbroken when you decline her special fruitcake or fudge, which had always been your favorite. It may seem like giving in is the easiest course of action, but take it from me: It isn’t. more than once I’ve succumbed, thinking I’d just lop off those few extra holiday pounds in no time. Wrong. Months later, they were still mine.

Before a party, eat a hard-cooked egg and drink a couple of glasses of water.

You also need to plan what you’re going to eat so you won’t be overwhelmed by the panoply of carbs at the buffet table. The only way you can be sure this will happen is if you bring a food contribution yourself, something you can eat. This could be a great cheese, smoked salmon, a big container of spiced nuts, a savory cheesecake – whatever’s appropriate. If you receive a high-carb food gift, as you undoubtedly will, give it to a local shelter or soup kitchen.