Cooking your own food is the best way to know what ingredients are going into each dish you eat, which makes it easier to track how many calories you’re consuming each day. Sometimes when you get home from work you may not want to have to go through the hassle of cooking, especially if you don’t have healthy ingredients on-hand. While eating out, getting takeout, or having a pizza delivered would be a lot easier than having to go to the supermarket to buy food and then come home, cook it, clean up the kitchen, etc., it’s also not as good for you.

To reduce the friction of cooking it helps to have some go-to ingredients at the ready. Most of these don’t require any forethought or take much time to prepare a quick and nutritious meal.

I’ll be using the term “pantry” loosely, and for this post will just mean “a place in your house where you can store food,” including the refrigerator and freezer. Whether you have a walk-in pantry, room in your kitchen for shelving, or just a cabinet next to the dishes with enough space to store some canned-goods, you can load that area up with healthy foods.

Clean House

Before you stock-up on healthy pantry items, take a few minutes to go through the food you already have on-hand. Get rid of anything that you’re not going to eat. If it’s expired, throw it out. If it’s still good, but you’re not going to eat it, put it in a box and donate it to a local food bank or charity.

This isn’t a screed about getting rid of junk food or removing temptation from your sight. This is about cleansing – getting rid of the things that are taking up room that things you’ll want to keep on hand will need. Even if you have a giant walk-in pantry that’s only a quarter full, trimming the cruft will be invaluable both organizationally as well as in creating a fresh start to keeping healthy things at the ready.

Last year my wife and I moved from renting a huge place with a dine-in kitchen (it was bigger than my college apartment, practically a live-in kitchen) to buying a place with a more traditional, modest kitchen. I miss the large island and tons of counter space, sure, but I miss the pantry closet and room for additional shelving even more.

Now our pantry is limited to two kitchen cabinets (whose top two shelves are mostly out of reach even for a tall guy like me) and a corner cabinet with a built-in lazy susan[1]. It’s not much, but of course we also tend to eat a lot of fresh things which mostly live in the fridge.

Even with a modest amount of space we manage to come up with healthy meals most nights, having to stop by the grocery store only to pick up fresh things, or re-stock items we’ve run out of.

Pantry Staples

• Eggs – I love eggs, and we always have them in the house. Besides being great for when you want to, um, eat eggs, they’re also a common ingredient in breads, used as a binder in ground meat, used to provide some lift in waffles or pancakes, and many other uses.
• Bread – Sure, I don’t eat as much bread as I used to, but I tend to always have a loaf on-hand in the freezer. I like hearty, whole grain bread. The new Arnold’s “Health Full” varieties are excellent, and at 80 calories a slice, not too much of a ding in your daily caloric budget (as long as you only eat one slice at a time).
• White Corn Tortillas – Maybe these aren’t a pantry staple for most Americans, but we swear by white corn (instead of flour or the grittier yellow corn) tortillas. We use them to make tacos at least once a week, and use them in place of bread with stews like my wife’s family recipe “spicy tomatoes” (or sub-in potatoes or eggplant for the tomatoes).
• Cheese – We always keep fat free singles cheese in the fridge, as well as some one ounce medallions of goat cheese from Trader Joe’s. They keep for a long time and we never seem to use enough goat cheese to warrant buying a whole log of chevre.
• Butter – Butter? But… but… that’s a saturated fat! Yes, it’s not the healthiest thing in this list, but it’s tasty, contains few ingredients which are more natural than margarine and so-called healthy spreads, and a pound of it tends to last about three months in our house. A little butter (at 100 calories per tablespoon) goes a long way.
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil – Great on salads, for lightly coating any vegetable, and making hummus, olive oil is a heart-healthy oil that also tastes good. The taste, of course, makes it problematic for applications where you don’t want the oil to taste like much of anything (like in baking) but when you want the taste of olive oil, accept no substitute. The downside of EVOO (other than price) is that it has a low smoke point, which means it’s not useful except for lower-temperature cooking. I find it’s fine for roasting vegetables (give some brussels sprouts a toss with 1 tbsp of olive oil) but for pan cooking, you need something else.
• Cooking Spray – Cooking sprays like Pam are a great low calorie way to oil a pan lightly without contributing too many calories. Pam and their competitors get away with claiming their spray is “0 calories” because of a loophole in the nutrition facts guidelines which let you claim zero calories if there’s less than a certain threshold of oil in a serving (that threshold is currently 0.5g). You know what a “serving” of Pam is? One-quarter of a second. That’s four servings per second. I’d estimate that I usually use 3–4 servings, depending on the size of the pan. It’s still a LOT less oil than you’d use if you were just pouring canola oil from a bottle, though.
• Canola Oil – Canola oil is one of the healthier oils, doesn’t add much flavor to a dish, and has a very high smoke point, so you can cook things at high temperatures with it before the oil burns.
• Low Fat Milk – Milk does a body good! It really does. While studies have shown that drinking milk may help you lose more weight milk is also a low-calorie, high-nutrition beverage chock full of calcium and numerous other vitamins. I think the sweet-spot for me is 2%. Skim milk just tastes watery to me, and 1% isn’t much better. I also tend to buy the ultra-pasteurized milk because it stays fresh so much longer than standard pasteurized milk does.
• Flour – You can’t make your own healthy bread without having a little flour in the house.

Canned Goods

This one will be short. Canned goods are great things to keep in the pantry, though, because they essentially last forever[2]. Whether you’re stocking your bomb shelter or pantry, canned goods can provide that “always at the ready” convenience we crave.

• Tuna Fish – White albacore tuna packed in water (not oil) is a fantastic low-calorie, low-fat source of protein, and a high source of omega–3s. While canned tuna isn’t incredibly versatile, you can still use it to make tuna salad for sandwiches or salads, toaster oven tuna melts, etc.
• Beans – We usually keep at least a few cans of black beans, pinto beans, chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), and maybe some white beans (aka cannellini beans). Of course, there are many other kinds of beans: kidney, navy, great northern white, etc.
• Low-Sodium Chicken Broth – Canned beef broth is awful, but chicken broth from a can (or usually a cardboard aseptic pack) is so close to making your own broth/stock that you may as well save yourself the hassle. Useful for soups, braises, anything where you could add a little meaty flavor instead of water.
• Tomatoes – Whole or diced, having canned tomatoes in your pantry means you can make all sorts of tomato-based dishes in a pinch without having to have fresh tomatoes, which tend to go bad pretty quickly.

You notice what’s not on that list? Canned soup. Loaded with sodium (yes, even the “reduced sodium” varieties) canned soups are generally saved for a “once in a while” kind of food list along with pizza, pasta, and cheeseburgers.

While I’ll eat canned soup from time to time (usually some yuppie brand from Whole Foods, whose sodium per serving is less than 200mg), but in general we’ve taken to making our own more often. If we do keep canned soup “in stock” it’s usually tomato soup or cream of mushroom, for making sauces or just because tomato soup and a grilled (fat free singles) cheese is so darned tasty, and when you’re sick, just what the doctor ordered.

Canned vegetables are also not on that list, but that’s mostly because their quality is generally far, far lower than frozen vegetables. Stick to the bags of frozen, except for:

• Beets – Canned beets are almost as good as fresh (depending on application), and require no boiling, peeling, or other work.
• Artichoke Hearts – Another vegetable you can’t really get frozen, and probably wouldn’t want to if you did, artichoke hearts are delicious by themselves in a salad, or mixed with a little bit of olive oil, panko breadcrumbs, and parmesan cheese to make a little artichoke bake that’s a great side-dish with a nice piece of fish.

Jars and Bottles

Foods that come in jars tend to require refrigeration once they’ve been opened, but let’s walk through some standards to keep on hand.

• Spanish Green Manzanilla Olives – Usually stuffed with a mild red pepper called pimento, green olives are a fantastic addition to salads, can be just eaten on the side, and are even good heated in dishes. My wife introduced me to sliced green olives as a pizza topping, which I found off-putting at first but have come to enjoy. They’re salty, high in omega–3s, and low-cal.
• Marinara Sauce – Just because we don’t eat much pasta these days doesn’t mean we don’t still use some tomato sauce for mixing with vegetables. Sure, you can make your own sauce from fresh or canned tomatoes, but that takes hours. Not all jarred sauces are created equal, but I like the Classico brand of standard tomato sauces (skip the creamy ones or any containing cheese).
• Fruit Jam – You want to try something? Eat a piece of toast with jam and no butter. I’ll bet you won’t even miss the butter, and you’ll save yourself around 100 calories (depending on how much butter you use).
• Lemon and Lime Juice – For a splash of flavor on vegetables, seafood, or to add a nice brightness to sauces, Real Lemon in a jar is great. While we usually try to keep fresh limes in the house for squeezing on tacos, in a pinch the stuff from the bottle will do.
• Maple Syrup – While I’ll make waffles or pancakes from time to time, most of the time we use maple syrup for oatmeal (just a teaspoon per bowl).
• Honey – In oatmeal or tea, honey is a great natural sweetener.

Condiments

We don’t really use as many condiments as we used to. I always like to have katsup and mayo in the fridge, although the current bottles are getting pretty old.

There are some condiments, though, that I use regularly.

• Low-Sodium Soy Sauce – The name is a bit of an oxymoron, since soy sauce is essentially a liquid flavored salt, but the reduced sodium still has plenty of flavor and not quite as much sodium in each serving.
• Balsamic Vinegar – Spring for the more expensive kind that’s been aged, comes from some land far away, etc. The cheaper stuff doesn’t have even remotely the same flavor and you’re not going to use much of it at a time. We hardly ever buy salad dressing, instead opting for a little bit of good extra virgin olive oil (see above) and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Sometimes we’ll get a balsamic made from fruit other than grapes, like fig, black cherry, or pear. I’m partial to the fig. We just got a thing of chocolate balsamic, which tastes really good on its own but tastes weird on salad (to me, my wife loves it).
• Hot Pepper Sauce – Hot sauce can liven-up even the most chaste of dishes. I usually have a few on my table (most hot sauces don’t require refrigeration): Cholula for eggs, some kind of habenero sauce for when I want to crank up the heat, sambal olek and sriracha for adding a nice Thai spice to stir fries, and maybe some kind of smoked sauce, like a chipotle pepper sauce, for giving meat and vegetables a nice smokey barbecued flavor. Want a way to punch-up a dish without adding extra calories? Hot sauce is your amigo!
• Dijon Mustard – You want to add a lot of flavor to a sandwich without adding calories? Mustard to the rescue!

Freezer

• Frozen Vegetables – Packed at the height of their freshness, frozen vegetables are often fresher than the fresh produce you can get at the supermarket. If you’re intending to cook the vegetables anyway, frozen veggies are very convenient. Some are better than others, but you can’t go wrong with frozen corn, peas, green beans, okra, and cauliflower. I’ve found that frozen carrots and broccoli tend to get mushy fast, so stick to fresh for those. Thankfully carrots last for weeks in the fridge.
• Coffee – Yes, I keep my coffee beans in the freezer.
• Berries – You can buy bags of frozen berries, but I’ve found that fresh blueberries freeze amazingly well and stay individual. Add a handful to your yogurt or oatmeal and they defrost in just a few minutes.
• Walnuts – Nuts will keep better in the freezer, and we always have walnuts in an airtight container for yogurt or oatmeal.
• Uncooked Peeled and Deveined Shrimp – They come in bags with various numbers on them like 16/20 or 26–30. Those are the average count per pound. So the smaller the number, the bigger the shrimp, and usually the bigger the shrimp, the more expensive. I usually opt for middle of the road “medium” to “large” sized shrimp, as they’re big enough for cooking up on their own, eating in tacos, salads, etc. Getting them frozen means always having some shrimp at the ready for a quick weeknight meal. You can defrost a few servings in a bowl full of water in about ten minutes, pluck the tails off[3], dry them quickly on some paper towels, and you’re ready to toss them in a hot sautée pan. They cook in a minute or two per side.

Dry Goods

• Oatmeal – Filling, healthy, cholesterol-lowering oatmeal is a great, quick & easy breakfast. We usually keep two kinds in the pantry: quick rolled oats that have been par-cooked so that you can simply add hot water and enjoy them in a minute or two (or just put cold water and oats in a bowl and microwave for a couple of minutes), and steel-cut Irish oats which are better (nuttier, chewier) but take longer (although are just as easy to make).
• Granola – So this is really just another way to eat oats, but I loves me some granola in my morning yogurt. You can’t eat a lot of it, because it’s high in calories, and you can get some brands that are loaded with sugar and oil, but if you’re careful granola can be a healthy way to jazz-up your yogurt. I like the “Bear Naked” brand’s fruit & nut variety.
• Whole Grain Brown Rice – We probably don’t eat as much rice as we should because it’s higher in calories than most beans or vegetables. If you’re going to eat rice, though, stay away from that bleached white rice that’s been stripped of the healthiest part of the seed (yes, the part you eat of the rice is actually the seed). Rice has several layers, like an onion (or an ogre) and with whole grain brown rice, only the outer indigestible hull is removed, leaving the healthy bran and germ intact. White rice is further refined and polished, which eliminates the aleurone layer that contains the rice’s healthy omega–3 and omega–6 fatty acids. It doesn’t matter if it’s long-grain or short-grain (that just depends on the variety of rice) but make sure it’s whole-grain.
• Beans – Beans again? Beans are one of the healthiest foods you can eat, so sure, we keep some in cans, some dry. The texture and flavor of soaked dried chickpeas, for instance, is completely different than canned, but it requires the forethought to soak them for 12–18 hours before you want to eat them (there are tricks to knock that down to an hour or two with a pressure cooker), whereas canned chickpeas are immediately ready to be pulverized into hummus, coated with spices and roasted (they get crunchy and nutty), or just enjoyed in a salad. So keep some in a can, some in a bag.
• Lentils – A staple the world-over, lentils haven’t really caught on in the U.S.
• Brown Rice – Whole-grain brown rice is an excellent source of fiber and complex carbs.
• Popcorn – Not microwave popcorn, just a bag or jar of unpopped kernels. We recently bought a microwave popcorn air popper, which is basically a specially-shaped bowl with a lid that’s meant for nuking raw kernels of popcorn so that you can make it without using any oil. It works great, and it takes no longer than a microwave bag of popping corn.
• Panko Breadcrumbs – Panko, sometimes called Japanese breadcrumbs, are different than standard breadcrumbs mostly due to the shape of the crumb. Examined closely they resemble those little tire spikes (caltrops) that James Bond would drop behind him to flatten the tires of a bad guy who’s chasing him. Panko crumbs tend to stay crispier because less of their surface area touches the item to which they adhere, so they don’t get soggy like traditional breadcrumbs. You can even get things reasonably crispy with panko crumbs by baking rather than frying.

Spices

Most spices are for all intents and purposes non-caloric, and make all the difference when making low-fat meals. A little spice goes a long way toward making even the most mundane mélange of vegetables taste gourmet.

Here are some spices you should consider keeping in stock:

• Salt – Everything tastes better with salt. You have to be careful about how much salt you use, as consuming too much may raise your blood pressure and cause you to retain fluid (and water is heavy, so you won’t lose weight as fast). This is our go-to spice, though. I can’t think of a single meal that doesn’t have salt added.
• Pepper – Peppercorns were once so valuable they were used as currency. I have to admit that I don’t put ground black pepper on as many things as I used to, aiming for a larger variety of spices, but salt & pepper are so ubiquitous in American cooking that to not list them together would be a misdeed.
• Cayenne Red Pepper – Hot pepper is completely different than black pepper and adds a lot more spice.
• Red Pepper Flakes – Not as spicy as Cayenne, and usually containing seeds which aren’t digestible, red pepper flakes are great on salad, pizza, flatbreads, and italian dishes.
• Paprika – Yet another ground pepper, paprika adds a nice heartiness and color to rice dishes, goulash, soups, stews, and sauces. I especially like Spanish smoked paprika which gives a nice barbecued smokey flavor to marinates and spice rubs.
• Garlic Powder – Simple dried and ground garlic powder is a godsend when you don’t have fresh garlic. Skip the garlic salt (you can better regulate how much salt is in your dish separately) and I’ve found that dried minced garlic tends to need a lot of time to reconstitute, so is only useful in things that take a long time to cook in a liquid.
• Dried Jalapeños – Rounding out our pepper section, dried jalapeños are not exactly a common spice staple. Nonetheless, we’ve been picking up some from our local spice house (you can get them online too). They’re great for adding to a dish to get a nice spiciness quickly, adding to scrambled eggs, and soups.
• Tomato Powder – Here’s another one that’s harder to come by, and you can always keep those little cans of tomato paste in the pantry, or if you can find the little toothpaste tubes, those are good too. The problem with the cans of tomato paste is that you have to use it all shortly after opening the can, whereas with the tube or tomato powder you can use just a little dash or spoonful in a dish to make a nice tomatoey sauce in no time flat.
• Cumin – There’s no better way to make something taste all Mexicany than to add a little cumin.

tl;dr version

Go buy a bunch of stuff to stick in places in your house so you don’t have to go shopping when you want to make a quick meal after work.

When I talk to people about losing weight, one of the questions I’m often asked is “How do you find the motivation?” It’s a reasonable question that I wish I had a better answer for. I’m clearly motivated but until I started writing this post it was something I didn’t really think about much.

First of all, what does “motivation” mean? What changes in you when you’re motivated? When I think of motivation I think first of “motivational speakers” and then those strange Successories posters that douche-bags hang in their offices. Is that what motivation is: platitudes and trite quotations laid out aside stock photography?

I think in the general sense people mean “inspiration” rather than “volition” when talking about motivation as an influence on behavior. Inspiration is an external influence, a push from the outside to enact some (usually positive) movement in the person being inspired. Volition is your internal mechanism for choosing to do something. It’s your decision-making mechanism, sometimes called The Will.

Motivation is usually lower-level than inspiration or even volition. It’s a catalyst to action, for sure, but motivation is to action what the Id is to the psyche. It’s in that lizard part of your brain. Hunger is your body’s motivation to eat – it creates an unpleasant sensation that eating can extinguish. It’s not that big of a decision. I’m hungry. I should eat something.

Volition is your mind making choices. Should I eat this or that? Must I eat now or can I wait for a bit? What shall we do after dinner?

Volition is a big part of what makes us human, but is there something to motivation as an external influencer? Can someone else motivate you to act?

Motivation can come from without rather than within if there’s a reward involved. When you were a kid you probably were motivated to do chores by the promise of an allowance, or the threat of punishment if you didn’t complete them. Both the reward and the desire to avoid punishment are external motivators, but you still had to make the choice yourself.

In vs. Out

Motivation is an intrinsic force. It always comes from within. Using “motivate” as a verb is a bit of a misnomer. It implies an extrinsic reward for doing a thing that you otherwise would not want to do. In that sense, you can’t motivate yourself without giving yourself a reward.

Your desires are entirely in your own mind, and under your own control (although it doesn’t always feel that way). You either want to do something or you don’t. If you do, you’ll probably do it. If you don’t want to do something, external motivation will only get you so far[1].

I can hear the voices from the peanut gallery now. What’s that? You want to lose weight but find yourself unable to? You lack the motivation to eat less and move more?

You don’t need motivation. You need to just do things that you know you need to do. Or not. Maybe you don’t really want to lose weight, but rather want to be fit. There’s a big difference.

I’ve been fat for most of my life – through the entirety of my adolescence and adulthood, and a large part (excuse the pun) of my childhood. I’ve lost nearly 180 pounds and I’m still fat. Sure, looking at photos from four years ago (or even earlier this year) you can see a difference, and next year I’ll look back on how I look now with a bit of amazement that I was this heavy, but if I simply wanted to be thinner I never would’ve come this far.

So what motivates me? What is it that drives my Will towards eating better, less, and getting more exercise? Let’s come back to that.

Motivation vs. Willpower

You can’t talk about diet and exercise without the word “willpower” rearing its ugly head.

Willpower is the negative inverse of motivation. Motivation is doing something that you want to do to get some reward. Willpower is not doing something that you want to do. It’s the stick to motivation’s carrot. It’s criticism instead of encouragement.

For example, you may be motivated to exercise in the morning because it makes you feel more energetic all day (it really does). At breakfast, though, you need your willpower to order the yogurt and fruit cup you know you should have rather than the donut you want to have. That’s a hard decision to make before you’ve had your morning coffee.

So what do you do? You take the decision out of it, or at least reduce the choices down to only those things that fit into your breakfast calorie budget. You may enjoy the donut for the 30 seconds it takes you to stuff it down your craw, but the good feeling you’ll get from eating a healthier option will last you for hours, and make you feel good about yourself for having made a good choice. You’re not depriving yourself, you’re eating what you want to eat. You just want the healthier option more.

I’ve always found that positive forces overpower negative ones, except in one area.

Pleasure vs. Pain

While we like to think we’re usually pursuing happiness, most of the time we’re motivated by the desire to avoid pain[2].

If you’ve wanted to lose weight but haven’t been able to, it’s not because you’re under-motivated. It’s because the pain of being overweight isn’t as significant as the pain of eating right, eating less, and exercising. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “No pain, no gain.” That’s only partly true, though. You can succeed without causing yourself pain.

You may think that your being overweight is causing you more pain than eating better for one meal let alone eating better most of the time, but at a certain point you have to look at your actions to see what actually motivates you, regardless of what you think motivates you.

Decisions, Decisions

I’ve said before that losing weight is a decision. You choose to do the right thing instead of the wrong thing (where “right” and “wrong” are relative to your goals). You don’t even have to change your mind right away – just start doing the right thing and you’ll start being the right thing. Your habits and actions will become who you are.

I will say that while changing what you want is sort of a decision, it’s also hard sometimes. The trick I use is to act as-if I was already fit. It doesn’t matter if you’re overweight, you can be fit in your head first and then act accordingly. Act as-if.

Move the Reward Closer

I’m not eating right and exercising so I can be fitter later. I’ve changed my lifestyle so I can feel and look better now. If you haven’t exercised – ever, or in a long while – you’ll probably be surprised by how much better you’ll feel after even a short time. I couldn’t believe my improvement after only 2–3 weeks. Instead of feeling more tired after exercise I felt more invigorated. The first few times I probably overdid it and felt worse[3], but over time I came to appreciate muscle aches and feeling more energized.

As a positive force, reward is fine, but in order to be effective the reward has to arrive sooner rather than later. Sure, it’s nice to think about how much fitter your body will be after a year of exercise and healthy eating, but that’s far enough in the future that you won’t feel motivated to do the requisite steps to get there now.

Now is always nearest, so plan for rewards as close to now as possible, and enjoy the intrinsic fitness rewards like feeling better. You get to the next milestone by just taking little steps. It helps if those little steps are also immediately rewarding.

The Snowball Effect

Seeing the positive effect of your efforts in your waistline and on the scale every morning (or week) is a huge motivator. There have been times where I’ve craved Chinese food or pizza but decided to skip it because I’ve been doing so well. That’s good motivation. I’m not depriving myself; I’m choosing to eat better because the (albeit minor) thrill of seeing my weight go down a little tomorrow (near future, close to now) is stronger to me than the desire to enjoy pizza for the two minutes it’ll take to eat a slice.

Of course, as long as I count it toward my daily calorie budget, I can eat all the pizza that I want, which is around four slices… if I eat nothing else all day.

So that’s how I stay motivated. I just choose to do the right thing so it’s not a major decision every time I eat. I don’t always feel like hitting the treadmill every weekday morning. Most mornings I would prefer not to. It’s far easier to just surf the web, watch TV, eat a Pop-Tart and skip my morning workout. You know what I actually do? I get up and walk on the fucking treadmill.

It’s easy to be down on the restaurant industry for their massive amounts of fat & salt in most dishes, but there are healthier choices out there if you’re willing to look for them.

When eating out with others I find that it’s actually easier to eat healthily because most people that I dine with know I’ve lost weight, and know that I’m still working to lose more. So there’s a certain macho bravado with ordering the healthiest meal at the table. I’m sure some people are annoyed when I make When Harry Met Sally-style special requests to cut back on the salt & fat, put the sauce on the side, make the omelette with egg whites (sometimes – usually I’ll just eat whole eggs), or substitute a salad or side of fruit for hashbrowns or fries[1].

Strategies for Eating

Eating is such a pleasurable activity, and one downside of Clean Livin’ is that it makes it more of a chore. You’re no longer just eating whatever for the pure enjoyment of your food, but instead planning an eating strategy wherein you’re mentally calculating every calorie, nutrient, and figuring out what you should be eating instead of what you want to eat. That’s the opposite of fun. That’s work.

Once you’ve learned a few tricks, though, you can dine, if not with reckless abandon, then at least with the confidence that you’re doing the best that you can. Passing on the fries is a difficult moment in any eater’s life. Let’s take the sting out of feeling like you’re depriving yourself.

• Back Yourself into a Corner – Instead of eating the bread, getting a few drinks, an appetizer, unhealthy side dish, an entrée, and then dessert – get just one of those things in addition to your entrée. You can mix it up – one meal, get an appetizer. Another, go for your favorite dessert. It really sucks to spend your calorie budget on high-calorie foods that you don’t even really like that much, so if you’re going to splurge, ensure you make the most of it. As an American, I’m all about maximizing my enjoyment, making sure that everything is always the best it can possibly be.
• Gratis Schmatis – We sure do love things that are free. Skip the bread basket and butter (unless that’s your favorite thing), popcorn, or whatever other freebies they bring you to get you eating as soon as possible.
• You Booze, You Can’t Lose – Johnny Cochran rhyme aside, alcohol contains more calories per gram than any foodstuff other than fat, so be careful to not drink the equivalent of an entire meal.

Recommended Things to Eat

Since people are always asking me what I eat, as if there’s a magical diet that will make you lose weight, I’m going to be specific about things that I order in restaurants. Granted, you won’t lose weight as fast eating out a lot, since you have much less control over how a dish is prepared, and what ingredients go into it, but I like restaurants and I can eat out and still lose weight if I’m smart about it.

When I want to eat out but don’t want to blow through two days of calories in a single meal, I’ve made a mental (and now written) list of go-to foods that are reasonably healthy. With these choices you still have to watch things (sauces, side dishes, preparation method) but it’s easier to eat right when you eat the “more right” things. You know how I am about making the right choice the easy choice.

Sushi

If you go easy on the soy sauce, skip the maki rolls loaded with fried breadcrumbs and mayonnaise, and eat only a small bit of white rice, sushi bars can be an excellent (albeit expensive) source of lean protein. I tend to stick with salmon, tuna, and other fish high in omega–3 fatty acids (since they’re known to help lower cholesterol). Miso soup, while high in sodium, is full of all sorts of beneficial compounds, and if I’m going to have anything unhealthy at a Japanese restaurant, miso is where I’ll blow it, which isn’t so bad.

Watch Out For: Soy sauce, which is essentially a flavored salt. Avoid “spicy” anything (since they make it spicy by adding chili oil to mayo – yes, fat & fat), vegetables prepared in the “tempura” style (i.e. breaded and deep-fried), and the fancier maki rolls that are stuffed with things like fried shrimp or cream cheese.

Broiled or Poached Seafood

Ask for it without butter, as most restaurants will glaze the fish with fat so it gets a nicer crust when they stick it under the salamander to cook.

Shrimp and scallops are excellent sources of lean protein. Don’t worry about the cholesterol in shrimp, especially in the small quantity you’ll be getting in a dish at a restaurant. Just be sure that it’s simply prepared without a rich, fatty sauce.

Avoid: Fish that’s battered, breaded, or otherwise fried, or served in “garlic butter” or some other heavy sauce.

Salad

Oh, restaurant salad, you’re such a tease. Salads offer the illusion of being healthy, but most salads on a restaurant’s menu get tarted-up with cheese, bacon, fatty dressing, croutons, and other unhealthy things that largely negate the nutritional benefit of the vegetables. Oh, I could write another whole post on how salads are often higher in calories than a burger and fries.

Get the salad with the most interesting greens or other vegetables, dip your fork in the dressing (that you’re getting on the side), and don’t be afraid to be annoying to your server and ask for it without the offending bits. Personally I’m a big fan of a beet salad with goat cheese, since beets are delicious and goat cheese is expensive enough that they tend to give you only a few crumbles. I love that beet salads also often come with walnuts, although a lot of places candy them first, which sullies their health benefits.

Since vegetables tend to be lower in calories, and greens are cheap, you can eat a lot of them. Fill up on the dark, leafy greens and go easy on non-vegetable toppings and dressing.

Favorite Healthy Salad Ingredients: arugula, field greens, avocado, grilled chicken breast, steak, shrimp, tuna fish, fruit, beets, goat cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, shredded parmesan, olives, feta cheese, capers, bell peppers, jalapeños, hot peppers.

Skip: Creamy or sweet dressings which are full of sugar & fat. Croutons, tortilla strips, or other deep-fried crunchy things. Fatty cheeses like bleu cheese, cheddar, or swiss.

Tacos

Depending on the place, of course – having tortillas made with lard in the traditional method will add hundreds of calories to a meal that can otherwise be fairly low-cal, and even if you get steak, chicken, or shrimp on your taco, they tend to be lean and you don’t get much on each.

Squeeze some fresh lime juice on your taco for a huge kick of flavor for almost zero calories. Most hot sauces contain little more than vinegar, hot peppers, and salt, and are usually calorie-free as well while packing in a lot of flavor (and heat!).

Beware “fish tacos” as the traditional fish taco is battered, deep fried, and covered with mayonnaise and cheese. Some places will let you substitute a grilled fish, and you can always ask them to hold the mayo.

Skip: Crunchy fried hard-shell tacos. Anything covered in a sauce, like enchiladas. Mexican Coke (just because it has sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t suddenly make it a health food).

Steak & Potatoes

A leaner cut of beef (think filet mignon, flank steak, or sirloin) and a baked potato (bonus points if you can get a baked sweet potato) and a side of some steamed or grilled vegetable like asparagus can be a pretty healthy meal (you don’t have to eat the entire potato, as the russets that most restaurants employ are gigantic).

Avoid: High-calorie sides of french fries, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and the hollandaise sauce often served with the vegetable.

Falafel

Okay, so falafel balls are deep-fried, but usually in vegetable oil, and the falafel itself is porous and tends not to hold much oil after frying. Falafel (ground up, fried chickpea balls) are usually served or garnished with hummus, mediterranean salad, tabbouleh, and pickled vegetables, all of which have numerous health benefits. I enjoy a falafel sandwich in a pita from time to time, but if you get it as a platter instead you can save yourself 100 or so calories by skipping the pita.

No need to avoid the hummus or tahini sauce – the garbanzo bean mash and sesame seed tahini come together to form a complete protein. Generally, the combination of beans + seeds = good for you.

Also recommended: lentil soup, especially if it’s vegetarian.

Desserts

I’m not going to lie – very little of what I eat would be described as a “dessert” by most people. Having said that, I’ll have a post-dinner evening snack most nights, and while most of the time we’ll skip dessert when eating out, there are still some desserts that I’ll eat when out.

• Frozen Yogurt – I especially enjoy the extra tart pro-biotic froyo from Pinkberry. Most frozen yogurt these days just tastes like soft serve vanilla ice cream (and isn’t much healthier or lower in calories) but some of the healthy frozen yogurt places do it right. The original should taste like yogurt, not vanilla. Pass on the toppings (yes, even the fruit, which is usually macerated in sugar).
• Popcorn – I used to get a big tub of popcorn just about every time I went to the movies. Now I’ll get a small popcorn from time to time (without the artificial butter-flavored grease). If I’m going to eat popcorn I’d much rather make it at home where I can control the oil and especially the salt, but if you can get air-popped popcorn out that’s not heavily salted, go for it. Popcorn is high in fiber and very filling. Just be cautious of the movie theater since the average medium movie theater popcorn contains over 1,000 calories (without the “butter”).
• Fruit – You may say that fruit isn’t a dessert, and that’s where we differ. I eat fruit most nights at home (and often for breakfast) and if I can get a fruit cup or side of fruit at breakfast I often will.

Eggs

The three most beautiful words in the English language are “Breakfast served anytime.”[2] I could eat breakfast foods for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a late night snack. Thankfully, my favorite breakfast food is also one of the healthiest: eggs.

I may have mentioned my love of eggs before. I especially love omelettes because the combinations of fillings can make what’s essentially the same dish taste completely different.

However: Sure, you need to avoid the side of hash browns, butter on toast, and fatty breakfast meats (although I’ll splurge to spend some calories on bacon or sausage sometimes), but if you want a nutritious meal that’s filling and satisfying, eggcept no substitute.

So I Just Shouldn’t Eat Out, Right?

If you’re careful you can eat out without torpedoing your fitness goals. Just remember to skip everything that’s delicious. I kid, but pick your battles. If you want a BLT get a BLT. Try eating just half of it. If you want a little extra kick in your salad, get the bleu cheese dressing every once in a while, count it in your food log, and eat more healthily the rest of the day.

Your daily caloric budget is yours to do with as you please. Enjoy yourself when eating out but a little moderation goes a long way, and restaurants are definitely working against your best health efforts.

By tomorrow I won’t be happy weighing just under 275 pounds, but today it’s a milestone that feels worth celebrating. I’ll celebrate a milestone with every 25 pound loss, which means I have about three major weight milestones left (maybe four if I count my “ideal weight”). After that I’ll have to set new fitness goals to make the most of my new body, like running a marathon, climbing a mountain, etc.

Of course, there are some BMI range and personal history milestones left to come:

• 262.5 pounds – 3/4 of the way down from my starting weight of 451+ pounds
• 250 pounds – over 200 pounds lost, and a nice round number
• 240 pounds – dropping from “obese” to merely “overweight” on the BMI scale
• 200 pounds – my base goal for now – will need to re-evaluate once I reach it – but also moves me into the upper range of “normal weight” based on BMI

Getting my weight down to below 275 feels almost as significant to me as being below 300, but maybe only because it’s been so long in the making. I reached my previous weight-loss milestone post a little over two years ago, although what really happened is that I maintained a weight of around 300 pounds for two years, and then gained 15 pounds back, and now have lost 40 pounds in the past four months. So here I am 27 months after my previous milestone celebrating another 25 pounds lost.

A Little Perspective

According to Wikipedia, a Scottish caber weighs about 175 pounds. While I’ve never picked up a caber, they sure do look heavy. I suppose that from now on whenever I reach a milestone and say I’ve lost the equivalent of [blank] that most people will have no real idea of how much that is exactly.

Since people rarely lift things that weight more than just a few pounds I’ve run out of reasonable comparisons. I know that 175 pounds is more weight than most whole persons, so maybe I should just pose for photos with people weighing what I’ve lost so I can point to them and say “There. See this guy? I’ve lost this much.”

What’s Next?

Weighing under 275 pounds was my goal for Labor Day so now that I’ve reached it five weeks early, I’m re-setting my weight loss goal to 262.5, which is 3/4ths of the way to my overall weight goal. It’s a little ambitious, but even if I miss it, at this rate it won’t be by much. I’m losing about ten pounds a month, so losing 12.5 pounds in five weeks isn’t that unreasonable.

Because everyone loves before & after photos, here’s one of me playing pool (badly) about a month into my Clean Livin’, back in July 2008:

And then to contrast and/or compare, here’s one from July 2012 (last week):

Restaurants can be a minefield of mostly bad choices for someone trying to lose weight. Everything is loaded with salt & fat, and even if you’re counting calories, without knowing how much salt, butter, or other oil goes into the preparation of your dish (hint: it’s a lot more than you would imagine) you’re at a disadvantage.

My wife and I sat at the “chef’s table” at a popular local restaurant once. It was a lot of fun, like having dinner and a show. We got to see many dishes being prepared, and were a bit startled to see an entire stick of butter go into a single serving side-dish that otherwise contained mostly vegetables. Yikes.

I enjoy eating in restaurants. I tend to order dishes with ingredients that are difficult to come by for the home chef, dishes that are difficult to prepare, or that have a long list of ingredients that it wouldn’t make sense to make at home. Eating out often also helped me to gain a tremendous amount of weight. I especially enjoy “fine dining” restaurants where the preparation of food is akin to an art form. These forays into haute cuisine are an annual tradition, though (at most) – not part of my regular diet.

Most of the time you’re not going to be eating at the best restaurants, but eating fast food on the go or grabbing a bite on the way to your next appointment. Getting delivery, fast food, or take out is “eating out” too. Just because you eat the fried chicken at home doesn’t make it any healthier. These days I tend to avoid any food served in a bucket.

I’ve noticed on days that I eat out, not only do I tend to go over my calorie budget, but I also tend to gain weight the next day. Even if I stay within my budget, if I eat out for dinner I tend to go up the next day, sometimes more than a pound or two. Since I know that you need to eat about 3,500 more calories than you burn to gain a single pound, even if I underestimated what I ate I’d still not be off by enough to warrant gaining a single pound, let alone more than one in a single day. So what happened?

Salt. Excess salt in your system makes you retain fluid because it messes with the water/salt balance that’s regulated by your kidneys. Since most restaurant food is salty, I’m more concerned with the salt than I am the fat, as it has more lasting effects (at least in the short term for the next day’s weigh-in).

When I talk about salt I mean standard table salt, sodium chloride, NaCl. The kind the girl with the yellow raincoat is standing under. Whether it’s finely ground, coarse, kosher, or comes from the sea, it’s all just good ol’ salt.

Salt of the Earth

One teaspoon of table salt contains 2,325 milligrams (mg) of sodium. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends no more than 2,300 mg per day for most adults, and no more than 1,500 mg for those over 51 or who have high blood pressure or kidney problems. How much do typical American’s consume instead? The CDC report on sodium claims that the U.S. average is 3,300 mg per day, and many restaurant dishes contain much more than that in a single meal.

You need some salt for your body to function correctly, but chances are you’re getting way more salt than you need. Most foods naturally contain small amounts of salt – even vegetables. Prepared foods are usually loaded with salt, though, as it’s a preservative, makes the food taste better (personally, I love salty things), and is a cheap ingredient to add to prepared foods.

The only way you can truly know how much salt is in your food is to cook it yourself. Well, that would be true if so many foods you buy at the store aren’t already heavily salted. Most supermarket chicken and pork are essentially brined with salt so that they stay juicier, longer. You know how if you eat a lot of salt you retain fluid? So does the meat you buy. Brining is a great way to protect meat during a long roasting or grilling process, but it does add extra salt to your diet, making your meat retain moisture too.

A Salient Point

Restaurants salt their food because salt is a natural flavor enhancer. It not only makes food taste salty – it makes other flavors taste better.

You may see a notice on a Chinese food menu that says “No MSG.” That’s an abbreviation for monosodium glutamate, another type of salt (table salt is sodium chloride, NaCl). They’re bragging about not adding MSG to their food because back in the day Chinese food in the United States was often prepared with insane amounts of MSG which causes all sorts of health issues associated with a high salt intake, like high blood pressure and heart disease.

The benefit of using MSG is that it’s a flavor enhancer like table salt, but it doesn’t taste salty. So you can eat a large amount of MSG without even realizing you’re consuming way more salt than your body can process.

When you eat more salt than your kidneys can deal with, it stays in your bloodstream causing your blood volume to increase, which means that your heart has to work harder to push more blood through your system. Some people are more sensitive to the effects of salt than others. I know when I’ve had too much salt because I can feel added pressure in my ears due to the temporary increase in blood pressure.

Chains of Fools

Chain restaurants, where the foods are assembled rather than cooked, are some of the biggest culprits in the crime of over-salting food.

For instance, the Denny’s chain’s “Moon Over My Hammy” breakfast sandwich with a side of hash browns comes out to 3,230 mg of sodium before you add any condiments like ketchup. So that’s about twice what you should be eating, or a thousand mg over your maximum recommended intake for the entire day, just at breakfast.

Eat a larger meal at Denny’s, say, a bowl of clam chowder, their Spicy Buffalo Chicken Melt sandwich, and a side of seasoned fries, and you’re eating over four and a half days worth of sodium in a single meal (which contains about 1,700 calories too).

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) performed a study in 2009 in which they looked at some national chains and attempted to put together reasonable meals at those restaurants. The amount of sodium in each is astounding:

• Red Lobster Admirals’ Feast with Caesar Salad, Creamy Lobster Topped Mashed Potato, Cheddar Bay Biscuit, and a Lemonade: 7,106 mg
• Chili’s Buffalo Chicken Fajitas (with tortillas and condiments) and a Dr Pepper: 6,916 mg
• Chili’s Honey-Chipotle Ribs with Mashed Potatoes with Gravy, Seasonal Vegetables, and a Dr Pepper: 6,440 mg
• Olive Garden Tour of Italy (lasagna) with a Breadstick, Garden Fresh Salad with House Dressing, and a Coca-Cola: 6,176 mg
• Olive Garden Chicken Parmigiana with a Breadstick, Garden Fresh Salad with House Dressing, and Raspberry Le[m]onade: 5,735 mg

Saline Solution

Cooking your own food is the only way you’ll know for sure what’s in what you’re eating. Sometimes you just have to eat out, whether it be due to convenience, a work or social function, party, or vacation. In those cases, there are some things you can do to at least alleviate the problem of too much salt and fat in standard restaurant portions:

• Eat Local – If you can’t prepare your own food, try to at least eat somewhere that prepares its own foods. Most chain restaurants do little but reheat and combine ingredients that are processed and packaged elsewhere, and have no control over what goes into your dish. Local restaurants may be able to prepare your food with less salt if you ask when you order.
• On the Side – Ask for potentially salty ingredients on the side. Instead of pouring salad dressing on your salad, just dip the tines of your fork into the dressing before eating a bite. Sauces are another culprit and are usually the saltiest ingredient in a dish, especially when eating Asian cuisines. If you can get the sauce on the side at least you can limit your intake.
• Simply Prepared – Skip the gloopy dishes where everything is mixed together with a ton of sugary, salty sauce that’s thickened with starch. Look for keywords like “roasted,” “grilled,” “steamed,” or “baked.” Avoid things that are “glazed,” “crusted,” or “fried.”
• Break the Shaker Habit – Don’t add extra salt to your food with the salt shaker on the table. Or if you do, at least taste the portion you’re about to eat before you add salt to it. When you do add salt (say to vegetables that have been as yet unseasoned) limit the amount you shake on, or better yet, shake the salt into your palm and then sprinkle it onto your food when you can see how much you’re using (salt shakers in restaurants usually use fine-grained salt which pours very easily).

When shopping at the supermarket, beware health claims on labels. “Sodium-free” means that a serving contains less than 5mg of sodium per serving, which even though it’s a minor amount toward your 2,300 mg of sodium per day, still adds up. “Reduced sodium” means that it contains 25% less sodium than the standard item. So if something’s loaded with 2,000 mg of sodium, a 25% reduction to only 1,500 mg may not be doing you much good. “Lite,” “light,” or “low” sodium means that it contains 50% less than the standard, whatever that standard is.

The USDA recommends avoiding foods containing more than 200 mg per serving. Of course, that means being conscious of how many servings you eat. The nutritional facts label on a 20 oz bottle of Coca-Cola, which I’d consider single-serving, actually claims it contains 2.5 servings. Ditto most bags of microwave popcorn.

Your taste for salty things is acquired through years of eating too much salt, so if you cut back gradually you can help retrain your body to get by with much less salt. It’ll take time to reduce your sodium intake without craving salty snacks all the time.

I’ve Eaten Too Much Salt. What Now?

Drink plenty of water to try to wash out as much as possible. As your kidneys process the salt and water the extra water you take in will help to dilute the salt.

Exercising and sweating will also help remove salt from your system (have you ever tasted how salty sweat is?).

Otherwise, wait it out and in a few days of drinking copious amounts of water your body will re-align your salt/water balance (unless you have kidney disease or another medical condition that affects your kidney’s ability to regulate sugar and water balance).

There Was Talk of Salt and Fat

Yes, restaurants tend to add a lot of fat to your foods too, but except for adding a huge amount of extra calories (since fats are the most caloric food you can eat) they have little lasting ill-effects. By eating out less, reducing your sodium intake, and being smart about what you order when you do eat out, you’ll be able to live a normal life while losing weight.

It’s possible, but it’s not easy. Restaurants really work against you because salt & fat make things taste really good. I’ve found that substituting protein for fat helps keep me just as satisfied, although most proteins contain some fat too. Once you’ve weaned-off salt you’ll find a little goes a long way.

Don’t be afraid to ask for less salt & fat when eating out. You’re going to have to eat it, and you’re paying for it, so don’t be shy about protecting your own health. Of course, your mileage may vary, so take my advice with a grain of salt[1].