Q. I don’t know why I am gaining weight. I don’t eat as much as I used to but still, I am getting bigger. What’s the best way to lose weight?
— Jane from Pasay
A. How to lose weight? How to live longer? How to stay beautiful? Never-ending questions with no clear answers. But we don’t give up easily, right? So here are 25 tips to help you lose a little weight:
• Take cocoa instead of chocolate. Cocoa powder is really chocolate with most of the fat removed. When you crave chocolate, try the unsweetened cocoa powder as a substitute.
• Don’t eat croissant. A small flaky croissant may have as many as four teaspoonfuls of butter. The rolled dough can have up to nine grams of fat. Take a pandesal or a bagel instead with only one gram of fat.
• Check the nutritional label. Look at the calorie count per serving and see how large one serving is. To lose weight, an average meal should only be 400 calories or less.
• Choose tuna packed in water. Avoid tuna soaked in oil. This will save you two grams of fat per tuna sandwich.
• Avoid organ meats like bopis or sizzling sisig. These foods are loaded with cholesterol and uric acid. Very unhealthy.
• Buy healthy bread. There are healthy breads around like Walter Bread’s Sugar-Free Wheat Bread. It has zero sugar, no cholesterol, and each slice of bread only contains 65 calories.
• Increase fiber intake. Vegetables like patola, okra, kangkong, and cabbage are high in fiber and good stomach fillers to lessen hunger.
• Use light spreads. There are low-fat spreads available like jams and margarine. Make sure to spread it thinly. Every little bit you scrape off and every pat less count in your favor.
• Go lite. Choose low-calorie food items. Goldilocks Bakeshop’s popular ensaymada, brownies, and cakes are now available in lite and low-calorie versions. They’re good for diabetics and overweight persons.
• Look for fat-free and reduced-fat products. Fat-free means that the product contains less than 1/2 gram of fat per serving. Reduced fat means it has 25 percent less fat than the regular version. Fat-free is better.
• Don’t stock foods at home. Your home is your last line of defense. If it’s not within your reach, then you can’t eat it. Don’t hoard food items, especially junk food, just because you think guests might come. Can you guess who will end up eating them all?
• Say no to buffets. This all-you-can-eat strategy is simply against common diet sense. Add to your dilemma the “no leftovers policy or you pay double.” Just order a la carte and look the other way.
• Split your meals. Most restaurants offer servings fit for two persons. Don’t be ashamed to split your meals. Share your food and instantly cut your calorie intake in half.
• Go for less pizza toppings. I am surprised at how much fat they can add to a flat pizza. It’s supremely unbelievable to put cheesy-cheese and hidden hotdogs inside the pizza’s crust. Talk about feeding the unsuspecting buyer! For your sake, just order Hawaiian pizza or just plain cheese.
• Go vegetarian. One of our favorite food chains is Bodhi which offers low-fat and tasty recipes. They’re healthy. But just don’t eat vege-meat every day as they’re high in uric acid and can make you develop kidney stones.
• Go easy on the gravy. The gravy is free, but the calories will cost you. I’ve seen people make their fried chicken disappear in a pool of gravy sauce. That’s real fatty, my friend.
• Minimize mayonnaise dressings. They call it Thousand Island Dressing for a reason. It’ll cost you a thousand calories. Caesar’s dressing is undesirable, too, especially with the fried bacon bits. Try vinaigrette or vinegar-based dressings, although it takes a while to get used to the taste.
• Order plain rice. As your filler food, a big temptation is to go for the garlic rice, the bagoong rice or the Fookien fried rice. Order plain rice and save 30 percent of the calories with the same filler effect.
• Eat bread instead of rice. Low-fat sandwiches, like Subway, are good diet options. They’re packed with vegetables and healthier meat like turkey or tuna. Just skip the mayonnaise or spread just a little for taste. My wife Liza even avoids the cheese.
• Avoid loaded and killer drinks. These are no-no’s, please, that you must avoid like the plague. No whip cream floating on your coffee drink. No vanilla ice cream sinking in your Coke float. Less syrup for the fruit shake. No to go-large drinks in fast-foods. No to bottomless iced tea.
• When they ask you what drink you like, say cold bottled water. Water has zero calories. Zip calories, too, for Chinese tea. If you can’t help it, diet soft drinks are allowed in moderation.
• Give your calories away. Be nice to your friends (or enemies). Give your chocolates, cakes, sweets to them.
• Leave something on your plate. I know there are people starving in Africa, but you can’t send those grains of rice there, can you? Leave a little food and prevent a few calories from entering your body.
• Walk after eating. Once you’ve eaten, don’t get sucked by the sofa, watching your favorite soap. Take a short walk and burn a few calories. It will help in the digestion.
• By all means, avoid temptation. Far from sight, far from mind. Avoid people that make you hungry. Avoid gatherings that tempt you to eat. Remember, we eat to live and not live to eat.
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For your questions and comments, send e-mail to willietong@gmail.com.