Tips for Eating Thin at the Super Bowl Party and What I Ate this Week

Happy Super Bowl Day! It is a holiday, right? Does Hallmark made a card for it? I bet they will soon if not already! If you're planning to watch the game tonight or watch the commercials and chat during the actual football part, there's a good chance you'll be doing it near FOOD. And football has been shown to make people overeat.

For real! A study in the journal of the Association for Psychological Science found that fans of NFL teams were more likely to overeat during games when their teams were losing and in the day afterwards. Apparently the angst and turmoil of cheering for a losing team makes Americans take comfort in food. It's really not that surprising to me, as I know part of the reason I became obese was due to emotional eating.

Even if you're not a die-hard football fan, being at a Super Bowl party can still lead to overindulging. Now, one night of splurging on calories isn't likely to make a big impact on your weight. Remember you need to eat at least 3,500 calories more than you burn to gain a pound of fat BUT feeling guilty over the fact that you overate could derail you from healthy eating.

Basically, you need to make your own decision today about whether or not you're going to allow yourself to splurge tonight. If you are, then go into it guilt-free. If you're going to try to stick to your thin eating plan, then the following tips can help you.

1. Don't go hungry! If you walk into the party with your stomach grumbling, you're more likely to pick foods indiscriminately. Have something to eat before you go. I personally have protein. A serving of nuts if I'm not famished, or one or two eggs if I'm pretty hungry. I find that protein makes me feel fuller longer than carbs. If I ate a piece of bread and went to the party, I'd be stomach growly the minute I walked in.

2. Start off healthy! When you first get up to eat, check out everything that's there. Look for raw veggies, fresh fruit, lean meats like turkey cold cuts, seafood like cocktail shrimp and other healthy fare. For your first round of food, eat the healthiest things that are on offer. Only put those things on your plate to begin with. If you make yourself fuller on the good for you things, you'll have less room for the bad for you ones.

3. Then let yourself have the bad.Yep. If there's something amazing looking there that you know is full of calories, let yourself have a little. A smart serving size. Eat that and see if it satisfies you. If you want more, make yourself wait 5 minutes. Sometimes, you'll decide you're full or get distracted and not need to overeat.

4. Listen to your body. When you feel full, stop eating. Throw your plate away or take it to where the dirty dishes are being collected.

5. Drink thin, too. Light beer, white wine, vodka or tequila with no mixers or diet ones--these are skinny drinks. But they're not free ones. If you're counting calories, don't give yourself a free pass on the liquid ones. And whether or not you're counting calories, please don't drink and drive </public service announcement>

6. Enjoy yourself. And don't beat yourself if you veer from your diet plan. One day won't make or break your healthy lifestyle.


So what will I be doing tonight? I'm not much for football, but we will be having some dips and more fattening food this evening. My personal choice is to stick to thin eating for Super Bowl Sunday. I plan to eat sauerkraut, cocktail shrimp, whole wheat crackers, raw veggies and olives. And a small piece of birthday cake--because my Dad's birthday is today! (HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!) I'll be budgeting the cake and those foods into my calorie count for today, making a healthy choice for lunch.

Now, here's what I ate this week. Fewer pictures this week as some of the recipes came from a food blog, and I don't want to steal her pictures.

- For breakfast this week, I ate fruit-flavored yogurts for a change. Fage Strawberry and Cherry flavors. I put a half serving of pecans in for some extra protein.

- My favorite snack of the week this week was Brookside Chocolate Covered Pomegranate. I love these candies. A serving of them is 16 candies with 170 calories. I usually eat about 8 of them just to get a chocolate fix.

- Crock Pot Picadillo from Skinny Taste - Picadillo is a Cuban dish that is sort of like chilli. It's less tomato-y and has olives in it. The dish was really satisfying and filling, and 1 cup only has 340 calories.

- Easy Garlic Cheddar Biscuits from Skinny Taste - Do you like those biscuits from Red Lobster? Of course you do! Well, these are those...but healthified. At the restaurant, those biscuits set you back 150 calories. The Skinny Taste ones are just 97 calories, and they are YUM.

- Chicken Pot Pie Soup from Skinny Taste - This is what we ate with those amazing biscuits. The soup was equally amazing. It's VERY filling. 1 cup and a biscuit was all I could manage. Make them together for a treat :)

- Baked Tilapia Curry from Eating Well (picture below!) - This is like a Thai curry as opposed to an Indian one. A little coconut-y and a little sweet. There isn't a ton of spice so don't be afraid of it. I imagine it would be good with other types of fish, too, and probably with shrimp or chicken.

So that's it for this installment of the blog. Come back tomorrow when I do three more exciting things with a chambray shirt and talk a bit about CHEATING on your eating thin endeavors!  Happy Super Bowl Day!