Lose weight, eat out happily, choose the right food, and lose calories easily

Losing weight is not difficult, but the difficult part is how to not let it affect your social life, and make losing weight a part of your life, so that you can eat wherever you go and still lose weight at the same time! Today, let us learn how to choose food at snack stalls so that we can easily control calories and balance eating out and losing weight.

Get to know the food at the noodle food stall**

Whether you live in Taipei or central and southern Taiwan, the most common snack shops in Taiwan's streets and alleys are probably noodle stalls. Most of these stores serve mainly pasta, with some side dishes. Now, let’s take a look at the most common types of food in these stores:

The staple food includes various types of noodles: dry noodles, soup noodles; some are without toppings (Yangchun noodles), and some are with toppings (wonton noodles, pork liver noodles, etc.). This type of food belongs to the "staple food" category with a high starch content.

Soups: There are a variety of soups, ranging from meatball soup, miso soup to pork liver soup. Basically, most of the ingredients in the soup are meat.

Side dishes: Most of them are meat-based, such as cut tofu, braised eggs, liver with meat, squid, etc.; sometimes you can also see vegetable side dishes such as kelp, cucumbers, and kimchi.

Blanched greens: The most common ones are Qingjiang vegetables, spinach or mainland vegetables, etc. Of course, they belong to the "vegetables" category with low calories. Basically, 100 grams of green vegetables contain about 25 calories, which is not high in calories. However, be careful with the braised pork with shallots or sauce poured on the blanched vegetables, as these are high in calories.

Relax and happy eating!

Choosing the right food makes losing calories easy!

No matter where you eat, the easiest way to lose calories is to choose the right food. One tablespoon of oil has about the calories of half a bowl of rice. Therefore, as long as you choose the right food (for example, soup noodles instead of dry noodles), you can easily reduce hundreds of calories, allowing you to be full and slim at the same time. So, how do you choose a noodle stall? Food selection strategies:

1. Staple food (noodles)

Soup noodles > dry noodles; clear soup noodles (such as pork liver noodles, etc.) > soup noodles (such as squid soup, etc.)

Explanation: Dry noodles have more calories from extra oil than soup noodles, and soups have more calories from thickening flour and seasonings than clear soups. This calorie difference can range from tens of calories to hundreds of calories.

2. Soups

Clear soups > soup stocks > thick soups; in addition, soups with less ingredients (seaweed soup, miso soup, kelp sprout soup or radish soup, etc.) > meat-based soups (pork rib soup, pork liver soup, etc.)

Explanation: Similarly, thick soups or broths have more extra calories than thicker soups and clearer soups; and soups with more ingredients have higher calories because the ingredients themselves have calories.

3. Side dishes

Vegetable side dishes (such as kelp, cucumber salad, kimchi, etc.) ＞ meat side dishes (such as dried tofu kelp, preserved egg tofu, braised beef tendon, etc.)

Explanation: Because the calories in meat are higher than those in vegetables.

Estimate portion sizes, calories aren't hard to measure!

If you are counting portions (taking 3 staples and 2 meats as an example), you have two options:

1. Choose meat soup noodles (such as pork liver noodles, liver noodles, etc.)

Eat enough staple food and meat at one time, and then order some vegetable side dishes. Basically, one ball of noodles from a noodle stall is equivalent to three servings of staple food, and if you choose about four tablespoons of pork liver or liver with meat, it will be two servings of meat. This way, it will be exactly the amount of three servings of staple food and two servings of meat.

Of course, to increase your sense of fullness, you can cut a plate of kelp, or order a plate of side dishes such as cucumbers or kimchi, or a plate of blanched vegetables. Such a meal contains about 3×70＋2×75＝360~400 calories. (More vegetables will add slightly more calories)

2. Choose plain noodles

Cut some meat side dishes and add some vegetable side dishes. Similarly, a bowl of plain noodles counts as 3 servings of staple food. If you order a meat side dish (refer to the table below for portion calculation), and some vegetable side dishes or blanched vegetables, the calories can be controlled to 3 staple foods and 2 servings of meat (about 360~400 calories).

How to calculate the portion size of meat side dishes at common noodle stalls

3. Other Food Choices and Changes

If you have a large appetite, you can also order a bowl of soup to increase your sense of fullness. Basically, if it is a clear soup with no ingredients such as seaweed egg drop soup, miso soup, pig blood soup or radish soup, you can estimate it to be around 50 calories. If it is a soup with a little meat such as clam soup or bitter melon and pork ribs soup, or a soup with more ingredients and thickening such as hot and sour soup, you should estimate it to be around 100 calories.

But if it is a soup with a large amount of meat as the main ingredient, such as pork liver soup, liver soup or beef soup, you have to directly calculate the amount of meat in it. Generally, a bowl of this kind of soup contains about 2 to 3 servings of meat, which means it has 150 to 250 calories (remember, drink less soup).

This article comes from: Nutritionist Stella's Weight Loss & Nutrition Blog

※For more information, please see "Nutritionist Stella's Weight Loss & Nutrition Blog"