Guide to Healthy Fast-Food Eating. Hope S. Warshaw

of foods you need based on your specific situation, consider consulting with a dietitian expert in diabetes care.

      Everybody Sings the Same Song

      ADA recommendations for healthy eating echo the recommendations from health organizations and government agencies. Whether it’s the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, or the United States Department of Health and Human Services, they’re all singing the same tune.

      This means that as a person with diabetes, you don’t need to stick out like a sore thumb because you strive to eat healthfully. There will be times that you’ll feel like a fish swimming upstream because it’s challenging to eat healthy restaurant meals and reasonable portions. It’s not easy to eat healthfully. This is particularly true when it comes to restaurant foods—whether you are eating in or taking out.

      How Much Should You Eat?

      In order to make the long-term changes in your eating habits that will get and keep you healthy, you’ll want to continue to eat at least some of the foods you have enjoyed for years, albeit in smaller quantities. The quantities of food you eat and when you eat need to match your lifestyle and schedule. Another critical element is to determine what foods and times for meals and snacks work best to help you keep your blood glucose, blood lipids, and blood pressure in control. Lastly, what’s best for your diabetes is what allows you to feel good day to day and what helps prevent or slow down the development of diabetes problems.

      No set number of calories or amount of foods or nutrients is right for everyone with diabetes. Your needs depend on many factors. A few of them are your height, your age, your current weight, and whether you want to lose weight or are at a healthy weight, whether you have a hard or easy time losing weight, your daily activity level, the type of physical activity you do, and more.

      To develop an individualized eating plan and/or set healthy eating goals to make lifestyle changes, you may want to work with a registered dietitian (RD) with diabetes expertise, such as a certified diabetes educator (CDE). A dietitian can help support your efforts to change your eating habits over time.

      Several books on the topic of food, nutrition, and meal planning published by the ADA give more indepth information about how much and what you should eat (To order a book from ADA’s extensive library of titles, visit http://store.diabetes.org).

      Help Is Nearby

      Whether you have just found out you have diabetes or you have been doing the diabetes balancing act for years, you can always learn more and benefit from a supportive diabetes educator. Get to know a diabetes educator. A diabetes educator will most likely be a nurse or dietitian but could be a pharmacist or exercise physiologist. Many diabetes educators have obtained the Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) credential. A diabetes educator can help you tailor your diabetes management plan and offer tips for dealing with diabetes. The following resources are a good start to link you up with quality diabetes care:

      

To find a Recognized Diabetes Education Program (a teaching program approved by the American Diabetes Association at which one or more diabetes educators work) near you, call 1-800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383) or go straight to http://www.diabetes.org/education/eduprogram.asp.

      

To find diabetes educators near you, call the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) tollfree at 1-800-TEAMUP4 (1-800-832-6874) or go to www.aadenet.org and go to “Find an Educator.”

      It’s now easier than ever for you to take advantage of the services of a diabetes educator or diabetes self-management education (DSME) as well as medical nutrition therapy (MNT) services from an RD under Part B Medicare services. Medicare has been covering DSME and MNT since the early 2000s for people with diabetes. Also, in nearly all states across the country, private insurers and managed care organizations that are regulated by the state must cover DSME and MNT. It’s best to check with both the health care provider from whom you want to receive these services and your health care plan to determine the details on this coverage and ask if you need a referral.

Restaurant Pitfalls and Strategies for Self-Defense

      Eating out healthfully is no easy task. It’s downright challenging! You need willpower and perseverance. It’s tough enough to eat healthfully in your own house, but even more challenges confront you when you are not able to control the portions or the condiments. You can’t march into a restaurant’s kitchen and hold the cook’s hand while they ladle on more butter, slather on more mayonnaise, or shake more salt onto your once healthy foods.

      Healthy restaurant eating is a challenge because of numerous pitfalls—from huge portions to the use of large quantities of fats, oils, sugar, and salt. Don’t despair. You can learn to choose to eat healthfully in 99% of restaurants. To help make it easier on you, it’s important to learn the pitfalls of restaurant eating. You’ll find these discussed below. Next, you’ll want to become well versed on healthy eating strategies. As you thumb though the tips and tactics in the pages ahead, you’ll note that these strategies emerge repeatedly.

      Pitfalls of Restaurant Eating

      

You think of restaurant ventures as special occasions. Yes, once upon a time, people only ate in restaurants to celebrate a birthday, Mother’s Day, or an anniversary. Not today. According to the latest statistics from the National Restaurant Association, the average American eats six meals away from home each week. And you may easily top that number. When you eat that many meals away from home, your waistline can quickly spread if you treat each meal as a special occasion. So, do you give up restaurant foods? There’s no need to take that drastic step. Plus, depending on your schedule, cutting out eating out may not be possible for you. Today, restaurant meals for most people are just part of your fast-paced life and no longer just special occasions.

      

You’re not the cook. Your methods to control both portions and how your food is prepared are to ask questions about the food on the menu, to make special requests to get an item delivered the way you want it, and to practice portion control when you order and when you eat. Yes, assertiveness will be required!

      

Fats are here, there, and everywhere. Remember, fat makes food taste good and stay moist. Restaurants love it. Fat is in high-fat ingredients, such as butter, sour cream, or cream; in high-fat foods, such as cheese, bacon, or potato chips; and in high-fat cooking methods, such as deep-fat frying, breading and frying, and sautéing. It’s also at the table in the form of fried Chinese noodles, tortilla chips, or butter or oil for breads. You need to master the craft of being a fat sleuth. You’ll get plenty of tips ahead.

      

Sodium can skyrocket. Along with fat, salt makes food taste good. Salt or high-sodium preservatives are also used in many pre-prepared restaurant foods to keep them safe. Sodium can be particularly high in fast-food restaurants and others that use pre-packaged foods. It’s nearly impossible for you to cut the sodium count of pre-packaged foods. The sodium can also be high in restaurants that prepare food from scratch, simply because they maximize taste by lathering the food in salt. Some ethnic foods, particularly Asian cuisines, can be high in sodium because of seasonings and sauces, like soy and teriyaki sauce. If you’re watching your sodium intake, you will need to learn the ingredients and preparation methods that boost sodium and know where and how you can make reasonable special requests.

      

Portions are oversized. Restaurants simply serve too much food. Unfortunately, we’ve evolved to a value = volume proposition in restaurants.