Design your diet
16. Sandwich Strategy
Isn’t this just a calorie-control Diet? Well, No - and Yes!
Reminder. Your diet is what you normally eat.
A Diet is one of those commercial ‘plans’ that you read about,
that somebody else has made up,
that is ‘Good’ for you to lose weight.
Most of those Diets come with all sorts of Do’s-and-Don’ts with somebody telling you what you can and can’t eat - if you can stick to it. This blog is about understanding, about knowledge and about YOU deciding what you are able to do and what is too difficult at the moment. This is about YOU being ready to make some changes that you can sustain, that will get you going in the right direction. Above anything else, it is about YOU choosing - that is its purpose.
I am not on a calorie-control Diet that cuts out certain foods.
I can eat and drink whatever I want,
but in the right quantities.
I understand what can happen, so
I have decided to exercise some control on myself
- a bit at a time.
I’m also flexible now and ready to change
if I can see that something will help me towards my goal.
Am I wrong?
I imagined that people on a calorie-control diet would go round supermarkets reading all the labels on all the packages checking against their list of 'banned substances', wondering whether they can eat them or not. That’s MY imagination and I’m almost definitely wrong, wrong, wrong! I apologise to you ‘calorie-controllers’ who, in the main, are probably making great progress. Calorie-control Diets have done much good and are doing much good. If you want to think that this is a calorie-control diet, that’s alright with me.
What I am thinking, is that the control comes from inside me.
It is not imposed anonymously from outside.
You should think like that too.
Thinking back, I was sitting at the table when I just got interested in my tomato-sauce bottle and it accidentally turned out to be a good guide to energy, at a nice easy 100 calories number for 100 grams. I got more interested when I saw the mayonnaise energy number at nearly 650.
I have never walked round a supermarket checking numbers, so I don’t know what happens. I buy what I want and maybe look at it later, if it is something new to me. When I do, I am always comparing with tomato sauce for energy.
Is it sweeter or not?
That was what I thought.
In the process I discovered the amount of FAT(Oil) energy
in mayonnaise and that was a bit of an eye-opener.
Energy
Butter is 745cals (WoW!) and Margarine 587cals (Phew!) which made me spread it much more thinly on bread. It reminded me that a friend once asked me why I spread marg on both slices of bread when I am making a sandwich. She only spread it on one of the slices. I can’t remember which one.
As an experiment I tried it and she was correct when she said that you can’t tell the difference. You can’t, except that you are halving the calories of the spread. You still have the bread and the jam (or whatever), so you won’t starve. Butter/marg changes the 'texture' of the food. You spread both slices, because it is a habit. It’s what people do - isn’t it? Eventually, as I experimented, I noticed that it made the bread taste 'greasy'. Without the butter/marg I could taste the bread a lot more, especially if it wasn't plain-white. It was worth finding a 'seeded loaf' which had some flavour. I then found it easy to leave the butter/marg out, which was a surprise, but it needed 'good' bread to make it work.
Strategy.
There is always a strategy for all situations.
We can see this by looking at something very ordinary
Bread
Sandwiches and toast both use bread,
so you start off eating some carbohydrate energy.
Then: What do you put onto the bread to make the sandwich?
It is that, which will make the difference from the energy point of view. You could make a rule to only ‘butter’ one piece of bread, or one half of the toast. It's a game. To begin with, I found it easier, if I was using jam or marmalade on a single slice, to ‘butter’ only the right-hand half of the slice, then when the jam went on that half and the slice was folded, I was still eating a ‘buttered’ sandwich.
If you LOAD it with jam
you might have to use a second rule.
Only dip (25mm) one inch of the knife into the jam,
only ONCE per sandwich.
Strategies engage you with what you are eating.
You no longer take the eating for granted.
You are not on ‘Eating-Automatic’
You are thinking about it; planning it
Making the rules of the game
For Yourself
It could be worse
If you are spreading something that is regarded as being almost ‘toxic’ by slimming foodies, like smooth peanut butter (near 600), or chocolate spread (near 575), then obviously, you could consider this habit carefully and it could be a good idea to swap them for strawberry jam (255) for a while.
Nuts, I am finding, also pack a powerful energy punch. I don’t know all these numbers that I’m writing down. I am just looking them up, as I’m talking to you about them. You can look for yourself in case I am getting them wrong. It is so easy to find things on the internet these days. I came across this one: Honeynut-roast, cashew nuts (600) and was pleased that I didn’t know about them previously. Better not start now!
Toast.
I came to realise that for me, there is:
SWEET toast (breakfast) and
SAVOURY toast (lunchtime).
Savoury Toast
(A lesson to learn)
Marmite (250) is not everyone’s cup-of-tea and surprising to me, its energy number is similar to strawberry jam (255). I thought it would be a lot less. However, one ‘serving’ of Marmite would be very much smaller than the serving of jam. The taste of Marmite is so powerful, I can only eat it in a sandwich if there is the merest trace. It can be further ‘diluted’ by adding some slices of tomato to get a good balance of zingy flavour.
Not all ’Same-Number’ foods are the same.
Quantity becomes important.
You can’t LOAD marmite like you can LOAD strawberry jam.
Looking at the lunchtime, savoury toast idea, I began to see that most of the usual ‘additions’ to toast are generally regarded as being ‘Good’ from a weight-loss viewpoint. I’ll look up some more energy numbers (always per 100grams):
Baked beans (155)
Scrambled egg (100)
Sardines (70)
These are significantly low numbers and worth remembering. The sardines were in water. They can come in brine, in oil, or in tomato sauce. Pilchards in tomato sauce came in at 130. They are similar fish, or the same as sardines (70), so the sauce (Tomato 100) will probably double the energy of the fish by itself, which is no surprise to us. Eggs and fish will boost the protein numbers.
This is important if your problem is through eating too much carbohydrate, sugar, biscuits, cake plus other sweet things. If you want to reduce your dependence on them, shifting across to some more protein would be helpful - so you swap to sardines from jam. Small adjustments like this add up, in the longer run.
Strategies and Rules are important for you
IF
You decide on them for yourself and stick to them.
Walking.
Dog owners have a plastic throwing stick for the ball. I think the idea came from Australian aborigines who use a Woomera (stick) to throw spears. A man threw the ball for his Westie that has legs about six inches long. It set off to retrieve the ball when from behind a bush came a greyhound. It went like a rocket. I’ve not seen them at genuine speed before. The Westie was nowhere. I suppose it was lucky the greyhound was after the ball, rather than the ‘rabbit’ or the Westie.
It’s interesting walking these days.
My sciatica has gone.
What do you see on your walks?
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Eat Less. Ingredient. Fast Food