For a nice night out, try Kinjiro in Little Tokyo (easier to get into than n/naka, which was a great suggestion). There are plenty of dishes made with little or no added fat, low in carbs, high in flavor. Go with at least one other person and share.
Thai restaurants can have some good options. I like Thai salads because they’re dressed without oil. Tom Yum soup is also good, when it’s not overly sweet. And fresh spring rolls–the ones made with rice paper, not fried–are very low fat, if you avoid the peanut dipping sauce.
What about a nice bowl of wor wonton soup? I could go for that about now–anyone know of good soup places in the SGV?
I am right there with you – weight checks in but it don’t check out, once you are past a certain age. Regular exercise just slows the gain. When I’ve been successful at taking off the excess pounds I’ve added, it’s been from a South Beach style diet with minimal carbs (especially white bread, white rice, white pasta, white potatoes). You have to watch those salads too as some of the toppings and the dressings are problematic – we like the salmon salad from Sweetgreen, also and the salt and pepper chicken from Tender Greens, with vegetables instead of mashed potatoes and a side spinach salad with dressing on the side (which is critical-- restaurant salads are way overdressed), for weight conscious eaters, it’s actually way better than the Happy Vegan from TG’s. I also like a fatoosh salad with grilled chicken on top from say, Gaby’s or another Mediterranean place. Just ask for it without the pita chips, and light dressing. There’s also a family-owned place in Westwood and one in West Hollywood called Fresh Corn Grill that makes a lot of very good dishes (salads and plates) with salmon. Truth is, the best way to lose is to count calories, as much as we all hate it. Stay below 1200 a day, throw in some exercise and the pounds will come off, but slowly as you get down to the last 5. It’s tough and you will be hungry the first few days, but it gets better. I generally find that eating out can be a real challenge in the first few days of a diet, before you get into a rhythm of what you will allow yourself to eat. Also, just want to mention that both Pollo Loco and Marie Calendar’s have “under 500” calories menus that are decent.
A healthy diet isn’t a temporary regime, it’s a permanent lifestyle change.
Just counting calories makes no sense since they’re not all the same. If you get around 40% of your calories from fat, 25% from protein, and 35% from low-gylcemic-index carbohydrates (whole grains, legumes, sweet potatoes, winter squash, but no flour, sugar, or potatoes), and every meal includes large helpings of vegetables, most people will lose weight without feeling like they’re dieting (unlike Atkins and other ultra-low-carb diets).
Yes I agree with that, but part of the challenge of staying on a diet is seeing some early success and I’ve found that eliminating “white” carbs is a must. After a couple weeks you can add the low-glycemic carbs back in. Psychologically speaking, one feels deprived while dieting, regardless of the diet, so the deprivation may as well produce results. The problem with a focus on vegetables is that they aren’t particularly flavorful or satisfying – sure, you can eat a pound of steamed spinach, but you won’t enjoy the meal. Protein is much more filling and satisfying.
I don’t feel deprived on the diet I’ve been following since the beginning of last year. The amount of food allowed is more than I can bring myself to eat. Here’s a cheat sheet for the three meals a day I could theoretically eat (two plus sometimes a snack is plenty for me):
Depends on the preparation! There are so many ways to flavor that spinach, for instance. Puree it with chicken stock, garlic/onions/ginger, maybe a little non-fat milk, and curry. For a few more calories, that pound of spinach is a tasty, comforting soup.
I never said you should just count calories, but it may be necessary to understand how much you are eating and to better appreciate the choices you are making. Should I eat that extra handful of nuts as a snack? How big should my portion be? Your approach is sound if you don’t care about having control over how fast you are losing the weight and/or are eating so poorly in the first place, that simply eating cleaner will suffice. Keeping track of calories and macros is indeed a huge hassle for many people, but I think it helps if you are actively trying to lose weight. I even go to the level of tracking grams of macros rather than go by percentages, to make sure my intake is appropriate for my goals. I wanted to lose about 1.25 pounds per week without losing any muscle, so in order to go at that fast of a clip for 3 months, I needed to count calories.
I used to be super into the glycemic index, but ultimately I personally found it better to know within a few hundred calories how much I was eating than whether I ate brown or white rice. The low GI stuff is pushed heavily by Paleo / Mark Sisson type diets, but at least there is no calorie counting, which can be hard for people.
Ultimately, adherence is a key. So if you just want to follow some rough guidelines and it is working, then keep doing it!
God - I fucking love plain tahini which – as I believe even @Aesthete is now willing to admit – is just ground sesame seeds. I put it on toast, crackers, chips, my finger. Almost anything.
try it - it may blow your mind.
And get a good Israeli tahini.
You may think, as I do, “If it is just sesame seeds how could there be variations?”
I can’t answer that since I never tried - or read the labels - of mass market brands.
Get tahini from places that have dedicated Mediterranean/Middle East shoppers. Turnover on this stuff helps.
I picked up a jar once from a local chain at the last minute - from the “foreign foods” section - and used it to make hummus.
Pretty hard to mess up basic hummus, right? Tasted bitter and rancid. The culprit? The tahini - it was rancid and bitter. Probably either sat on the shelf for ages, and/or someone opened the jar and put it back on the shelf.
You are aware that experiments/calculations for calories of nearly all foods are quite inaccurate. Weighing your food will give you little information about the calories you consume. (Marion Nestle’s book “Why calories count” is a good starting point for the discussion)
That is true, but the actual number isn’t really that relevant. If you eat fairly consistently then the idea is to establish a baseline of how much you are eating best you can and adjust. Similarly you could weigh things to establish how much. Or you can eyeball it. These have varying levels of accuracy.
And measuring calories from restaurant food is so hard because you don’t know how it is cooked either.
