Eat This Not That
The popular Men's Health monthly feature now has it's own book: 'Eat This Not That' shows you presumably comparable restaurant foods, along with their nutritional information. Most of the time you'll be shocked to find out that picking the wrong item can cost you hundreds of calories and unnecessary grams of fat. This is all laid out alphabetically by restaurant, along with big pictures and multiple good (and bad) choices at each place.
Usually when you go on a diet and are trying to watch what you eat, you can do pretty well as long as you prepare all of your meals. But realistically you'll have to go out to eat eventually, and that's what messes you up. Suppose you go to Carl's Jr and you want a chicken sandwich. You have a choice between the 'Charbroiled BBQ Chicken Sandwich' and the 'Charbroiled Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich':
| BBQ Chicken | Santa Fe | |
|---|---|---|
| Calories: | 360 | 610 |
| Fat: | 4.5 grams | 32 grams |
How are you supposed to know the Santa Fe will send your metabolism to hell when both sandwiches look the same? This book explains why (in this case it's because of the mayo and other sauces).
My Experience
I've been using this book a lot lately, usually because I end up having to go out for lunch at work. I can go just about anywhere and keep the calories down to less than 500 a meal, not 1,000 like some of the stuff I used to get. Now I know why I wasn't losing any weight even though I had been going to the gym daily.
This is a really good book I think everyone should at least take a look at. It really makes you conscious of how much damage some food can do to you. Of course I recommend reading a dedicated diet book along with this (like Atkins), because that's where you'll find out how your body metabolizes food and how it decides whether to store fat or not.
There's an online version of this book at Men's Health, a pretty cool interactive program that has the same info. It's free, but of course it doesn't feature all the info that's found in the book. Think of it as a demo and decide if you'd like to see more. | Post a Comment