fitnessprincess’s BodyBlog

I think one of the biggest challenges to dieting for competition in a modern world is that most of us must eat out once or more each week due to business, social, and other obligations.  Eating at restaurants presents a number of challenges that can strain the patience of even the most careful dieter.  I do believe however that you can eat out and stay on track.  It just means you have to read the menu carefully, be detail oriented and communicate clearly with your waiter/waitress, and speak up for yourself when things aren’t right.  I was reminded of this yesterday when I decided to eat breakfast at a different place from my usual haunts.  A number of folks eat at Trident Booksellers on Newbury Street in Boston but I never had and so I thought it might be "fun" to try it out.  Sigh.  Turned out to be more of a challenge than I anticipated.

I had planned on enjoying my usual:  an eggwhite veggie omelet with 2 slices dry rye toast but it was going to cost me an arm and a leg to get my omelet - they have a $2 surcharge for eggwhites and they don’t have a veggie omelet so you have to pay (through the nose) for each ingredient you choose for your omelet.  So, I opted to try something different. I love smoked salmon and since this weekend is a holiday I thought I would enjoy scrambled eggwhites and lox with a bagel and a shmear of cream cheese.  So I ordered this (paying an extra $2 for eggwhites mind you) and waited.  When the dish finally came the bagel and eggs were swimming in yellow fluid.  I moved the bagel to  the coffee cup saucer to dry it off and put my knife under the plate to tip it so the fluid could run down away from the eggwhites.  Yep!  The thing was soaked in butter.  The waitress had carefully avoided me to this point.  I think she could tell I was not happy with my plate.  At the same time a single father seated on the opposite side of the restaurant had to deal with his young son (probably 2 years old) who was also apparently not too happy with his meal.  He however had the luxury (being 2) of banging his fists up and down on the table and hollering at the top of his lungs.  I laughed - it relieved my rising tension - and realized the young man had the right idea.  He got service right away from his dad!  So, I spoke up and said I wasn’t happy with my butter soaked eggs.  I told the waitress I had asked for eggwhites and salmon and that the salmon didn’t need any added butter.  She agreed and shortly after that the manager appeared at my table.  She insisted that they had to use oil or butter to cook the eggs.  I asked her if they couldn’t simply spray the pan with PAM.  She said that she didn’t think they had PAM but would check.  She reappeared shortly and told me they did and that I would get my eggs shortly.  About 5 minutes later the waitress appeared with a plate of eggs and lox - not eggwhites.  I took a deep breath and reiterated that I had asked for eggwhites.  She agreed and disappeared with the plate to reappear 10-min later with eggwhites and lox.  My point in sharing this is to say it isn’t always easy but you can get what you want and eat out.  When you don’t get what you ask for:  Just be a kid and speak up for yourself!  After all it’s your body and your money, right!  Enjoy!

On another discussion board I frequent, a poster interested in competing shared her concern about how she could even consider competing as her spouse is not likely to embrace her new lifestyle. Boy! Did I ever relate! LOL! That led me to penning today’s post. I am single and share my apartment with a siamese cat so on the face of it dieting for comp wouldn’t seem to be an issue but it is because on the weekends I commute to the suburbs and take care of my mom who does not embrace any aspect of the fitness lifestyle be it diet or exercise. Actually that’s why I was the way I was originally - morbidly obese because my family eats and doesn’t move much unless you consider using the remote control exercise. When I first joined WW and set about to lose weight (I eventually lost 110 lb) this was a HUGE (bad, bad pun PAM!) issue for me and while I wish I could say it is no longer an issue it remains a subtle issue that affects me even today.

I love electronics.  I am a technology diva and if there is some new electronic device out there, I have it.  Especially if it is tiny.  The tinier the better – even my laptop is tiny (Acer Aspire One – sweet baby!) but I am digressing from my topic.  Hmm.. must be brain fog from dieting – LOL! 

My most recent acquisition is a tiny food scale that I can carry with me anywhere.  I bought it for about $12.95 on Amazon.com (URL:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EW315E).  The scale is 1 lb 2.5 x 4 x 0.65” in size and weighs anything up to 250 g.  You can also convert the measure to ounces if you prefer.  The scale cover doubles as a weighing pan.  The scale has a blue backlight and a tare feature so you can put a napkin in the weighing pan and zero the weight.  It runs on two lithium batteries.  Gotta say this works great! Weighs next to nothing so I have been carrying it with me everywhere in my purse and weighing everything.  Used it in a restaurant this weekend eating out with my mom.  I will admit she was a bit irritated but the scale was so cute that her irritation with me was very short lived.  If you are anal compulsive as I am about what goes in your mouth, for ten bucks you can’t go wrong with this baby.  It gets 5 stars!

Sigh!  Back from yet another business trip.  Thank goodness this is the last one for a while.  I am truly beat.  Good trip.  I don’t want this to be an infinitely long post so I am not going to list all the foods I ate and the exercise I did over the past week.  Instead I think I will summarize what I think are the most helpful key points to relate.

First, if you are ever traveling to Philadelphia on business I strongly encourage you to check out the Club Quarters Hotel. It is centrally located on corner of Chestnut Street and 17th Street.  There is a Rite Aid, a Vitamin Shoppe, and GNC all right there.  The hotel is home to Davio’s, a world-class Italian restaurant where you will find top-quality beef (if you are a meat eater) and the freshest fish.  The service is first-rate.  The rooms in the hotel are somewhat small but very quiet.  Each room has the obligatory coffee pot, blow dryer, etc. and thirsty Martex towels (sigh!).  In the hall the hotel provides refillable water bottles and a water source so you will be well hydrated during your stay.  The fitness center located on the 12th floor is the weakest element of the hotel.  They have several bikes, an elliptical, and several treadmills.  While I was there only one of the three bikes and one of the two treadmills actually worked.  That wasn’t a problem as I only encountered two other people actually using the room during the week I was there.   The fitness room has a set of dumbells that max out at 15 lb - yep! you read it right!  Pretty useless although this one guy tried to impress me while I was on a bike by grunting and doing chest presses, bicep curls, and military presses with the 15 lb dumbells.  I tried so hard not to laugh because it was clear that he really thought I should be impressed.

Davio’s Rocks!!

In terms of food, I ate dinner several evenings at Davio’s simply because the restaurant was that good.  Everything was fresh and simply prepared - not overdressed.  I had crab cake with no breading as an appetizer, scallops and shrimp for entrees and asparagus - really great asparagus and lots of it, too.  Sigh!

Little Pete’s Diner

Another great find was Little Pete’s diner which is located at the corner of 17th and Chancellor.  They are open 24-h a day 7 days a week and make a darn good eggwhite veggie omelet and oatmeal.
A Visit to the Ripoffhouse Hotel for Tea - a Miserable Experience

The low point of my visit was a trip to the Rittenhouse Hotel henceforth referred to as the Ripoffhouse hotel for tea.  Everywhere I travel I always make a point of having afternoon tea at a nice place. I first went to the Ripoffhouse Hotel in August 2004 and had a wonderful afternoon tea.   As I always do I made a special request for a low-fat tea in advance of my visit.  When I went in 2004, the hotel ended up having a special event with famous chefs from around the world the afternoon of my tea so I ended up being displaced.  Nonetheless the chef and waitstaff went out of their way to accomodate me - the chef even prepared a parting gift of two truffles in a box which I brought home to mom.  Well, apparently they have a new chef and I guess the folks who cared about quality service have also since departed.  This time around I was treating my student to tea in celebration of a successful first meeting presentation and as a way of teaching him about fine dining and culture.  Boy did this backfire on me.  The staff had no record of my special request (this time around I had asked for a low carb, low fat tea) and when tea was served, I received a salad plate with 5 pieces on it:
a small hand-cut piece of plain toast, a cucumber with a tiny piece of salmon topped with a few pieces of caviar, a piece of green pepper wrapped around spinach and topped with red pepper (supposed to look like an olive with a pimento), a piece of toast with red pepper sauce and a small piece of prosciutto, and something else that was clearly tiny and not memorable.  When I complained (I was told that tea consisted of five pieces - um, yeah, right- a thin slice of cucumber equals a scone, very filling) which I was loathe to do because I didn’t want to ruin the experience for my student, the waitress brought a plate with 4 chocolate-dipped strawberries- hmmm… someone clearly didn’t understand the concept of a low fat tea.  When she saw I still wasn’t happy she returned with a plate with 6 small pieces of chocolate on it - can you believe this?  At this point I gave up for the moment.  Couldn’t do anything more as my student had already noticed my discomfort and this was most regrettable as all I had done up to this point was talk about how much fun tea would be - LOL!  As soon as I could get away I called Ripoffhouse and spoke to the Tea Manager who promised she would look into everything and get back to me - yeah, right!  What is today?  Oh, Friday…hmm…maybe she meant next year? OK why share this with you?  I think the important point is I didn’t eat the crap that they served and I didn’t let the miserable service sidetrack or sabotage my diet.   Instead, I mentally decided to focus on the fact that I would be enjoying a first-class meal at Davio’s later that evening and I did

Exercise

As I mentioned above, as soon as I saw the fitness room I realized there would be no weight training.  So, I decided to do cardio only.  I alternated between the elliptical and the stationary bikes.  The meeting I participated in was huge - some elements of it took place at the convention center and others took place in hotels at disparate locations in the downtown area so I supplemented my cardio with walking everywhere.  The convention did offer buses so attendees could move quickly between the different hotels and the convention center but I decided to walk.  The only thing I wish I had done differently was wear my pedometer as I would love to know how many miles I walked but sad to say that’s (pedometer) the one I didn’t bring with me.

All in all it was a great meeting and I am really happy with how things went.  Now it is time to get back to work.  I am about 9 weeks out at this point from my next competition!  Monster Mash in Marlborough, MA.

Research the restaurant you will be visiting in advance using the internet.  If they are a major chain restaurant, the calories and macros for their entrees are more than likely published.   I like Subway, they are in most major cities, and have fairly healthy fare as far as fast food places go.  I usually do an internet search before I travel to find out where they are and then get veggie salads which I supplement with the bags of salmon or tuna I carry with me.

At the restaurant, order first.  This will prevent you from being influenced/pressured by anyone else into ordering or eating anything.

I love bread but it really is a no-no for me.  I simply have no control over myself when it comes to bread.  So, when I eat out I encourage everyone to pass  the bread basket and then ask for it to be removed.  This way everyone gets a piece but I am not tempted.  LOL!  And yes, I am very assertive!  You need to be if you want to be successful in dieting or anything in life!

I usually begin my meal with a veggie salad.  At most restaurants today unfortunately salads are deadly.  They are topped with cheese, grease-soaked croutons, seeds, nuts, fruits, and of course, fat-filled dressing.   So, always ask the waiter to describe exactly what is in the house salad and then tell them exactly what you want and don’t want on yours.  I always ask for dressing on the side and I always ask for balsamic vinegar.  Believe me you can’t trust them when it comes to salad dressing or anything else.  Once I got a balsamic vinaigrette not vinegar.  On my most recent trip, I was given literally a full cup! of a gross looking salad dressing “on the side.”   (see photo:  This was at a “restaurant” – I use that word very loosely in this establishment’s case -  in Bloomington that was supposed to be a Greek restaurant but was really a bar).

I already said it but it bears repeating be explicit when you order.  Tell the waiter or waitress exactly how you want your entrée prepared and served.  I usually end up eating fish when I eat out – hard to find genuine vegetarian fare – so I ask that it be steamed, no oil, butter, sauce, or bread crumbs be used in its preparation or presentation and I ask that my sides be prepared and served the same way.

Most of the time your entrée will come with a starch and a veggie and most times the veggie is grease or butter-soaked.  Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.  I always turn down the starch (usually potato or white rice) and ask for double the serving of veggie and request that my veggie choice be steamed and that no oil, butter, or bread crumbs be used in its preparation.  Yeah! You read that correctly no bread crumbs.  I have had people put crumbs on asparagus, broccoli, and green beans – gross!

If your entrée comes to the table and it wasn’t prepared the way you requested, have the waiter/waitress take it back.  This is perhaps the most important piece of advice I can give you.  It is the one that I have stumbled on the most and it has the power to make or break me.   It never pays to sulk and eat something you don’t really want because you are only going to get upset.  It sure gets me bent out of shape.  I huff and puff and usually in the end end up eating something else later I shouldn’t have eaten all because I feel I have already blown it.  So much easier to smile and get what you want and enjoy it.  Last point related to this if the wait-staff won’t give you what you want even after you have asked don’t eat crap!  Pay for what you did eat and leave and then find food  elsewhere that fits your dietary needs.

Don’t feel obligated to eat the whole thing.  Today some restaurants seem to pride themselves on serving you a pound of lasagna, a whole chicken, or fish.  The servings sizes are simply gross.  Ask what the serving size is (likely your waiter/waitress will have to go back to the kitchen to ask).  I have found that the serving size is often double what I need/want so I simply tell the waiter to serve me half and to box up the other half.  Depending on my circumstances I will take it with me (reheat later in a microwave for another meal) or I will give it to the first homeless person I meet on the street.  Either way:  dietary success!

On this same theme, never be afraid to order an appetizer as your entrée.  When in doubt, ask!!

At the end of the meal order a cup or coffee or tea if your companions are having dessert.

Specific Suggestions for Different Meals

Breakfast:  Eggwhite omelet with veggies and a cup of oatmeal or a half a grapefruit.  This is a meal with staying power!  That will see you through a grueling morning of meetings.

Lunch and dinner:  If meals are provided lunch and dinner are often buffets.  Salad may be available but, in my experience, salad is often tossed with cheese, croutons, and other unmentionables.  Don’t be afraid to speak to the wait-staff and ask them to bring you a plain salad.  Greens are cheap!  I carry with me a pouch of tuna or pink salmon that I can add to it for a protein-packed lunch.   If the meal is sit-down/served, same rules apply.  Don’t be afraid to ask the wait staff for a salad.  When dessert is served, don’t be afraid to ask for fresh fruit or a fruit salad instead of the proffered diet disaster.
If I can in terms of my schedule when traveling, I often eat another eggwhite veggie omelet for lunch.  This just happens to be my favorite meal and it is a high protein, low calorie meal that is quite filling and tasty.   Sometimes, I will even repeat this at dinner.  LOL!  As I said this is a favorite for me.

Snacks:  Pack your favorite protein bars.  I know different folks have different opinions about the nutritional value of protein bars.  My personal opinion is that they are only a tad better than candy bars.  That said they are sweet.  Some are tasty.  Some contain chocolate and peanuts or peanut butter.  From that standpoint I consider them a preferable alternative to snacking on candy, fatty muffins, donuts, cake, etc.  I carry some with me and include them in my travel plan as “desserts” that I schedule for the end of the day.  I brew coffee or tea in my hotel room and relax and enjoy one of these bars at the end of the day.  This helps me say no to the many temptations I encounter when traveling and eating out at restaurants.  I know that I have a nice tasty bar waiting for me if I am a good girl back in my room.