We often talk about eating on the run and how difficult it is to eat healthy, but what about eating at home. These days many people work out of their house on a consistent basis, whether we’re talking about stay at home parents or business men and women. Think about it. Where do you have access to all of the foods you desire, and endless amounts of it? Where can you eat an entire bag of trail mix or a whole plate of leftovers? In your home!
When people are out and about every day, working in an office or traveling, they may struggle to make healthy choices, but when you’re in your house every day your options are more plentiful and the servings are never ending. Being at home means you can eat what ever you want, when ever you want, and no one is around to see or notice. Being aware of your at home eating habits can help you set up guidelines to help you balance your food intake.
Tips For The Home
1. Keep junk foods that you shouldn’t be eating out of the house. When the wrong things are so easily accessible it’s more likely you’ll make bad choices. There will be times when you just have to have some ice cream. Instead of buying it ahead of time for those “just in case” situations go get an ice cream cone…you’ll end up eating less!
2. Plan meal and snack times. In your mind set up the times when you are going to have your next meal. If you don’t do this it is too easy to graze all day and trick yourself into thinking you didn’t eat very much because you never had a big meal.
3. Portion out your foods, even though you’re not leaving the house. Each night place the amount of food you should eat in baggies and containers. If you’re eating leftovers it’s too easy to finish them off if you don’t have them separated into servings. We all do that, don’t we? Who wants to waste that last little bit of food?
4. Have a glass of water with you at all times. We hear a lot of patients say that when they are at home their water intake decreases. So pay special attention to how much you drink, it will help to keep you from eating when you’re not hungry!
Every situation is different, so if these tips still have you struggling to moderate you’re food consumption in the house, let us help. I’ve worked with a wide array of clients. Coming up with tips and tricks for getting nutrition under control has been a major part of my job. For every excuse you have why it won’t work for you, we have an answer why it will!
What To Do When Your Spouse (Partner or Kids) Is A Different Diet Type
We hope that eventually cooking for two different Diet Types becomes intuitive. To be honest, it’s not as tricky as you may think at first. You must first remind yourself about the basic tenants of your Hauser Diet. Hauser Lions and Otters need to think protein and fat. Carbohydrates are not the mainstay of their diets; where Hauser Monkeys and Giraffes need to think veggies and complex carbs and less about the protein and fats. The Hauser Bear Diet is about BALANCE.
We recommend that you get a copy of our book, The Hauser Diet: A Fresh Look At Healthy Living, for a more extensive discussion on each of the five Hauser Diet Types, meal plan ideas, and recipes. This is where you will find the nitty gritty details! We call it “tweaking for your Type!”
Let’s take 3 common examples of dinner meals and put the right proportions of food on each plate for the different Hauser Diet Types.
MENU#1: ROASTED HERB CHICKEN AND GARLIC RED POTATOES
Sounds delicious! Let’s review the two items of this main course: The chicken is the protein and the potatoes (skins left on) are a complex carbohydrate. Every Hauser Diet needs vegetables, so this menu needs a little vegetation addition. So let’s go simple and toss a salad with mixed greens, tomatoes, bell peppers, onion, and cucumbers. Top with an olive oil-based dressing.
LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT HOW EACH OF THE DIET TYPES SHOULD EAT FROM THIS MENU:
Lions and Otters: Choose to fill about half of your plate with meat, take only a couple potato wedges (or skip them), and add a nice portion of salad to fill the rest of the plate.
Bears: Choose to fill about 1/3 of your plate with chicken, 1/3 with potatoes, and 1/3 (or even a little more) with salad.
Monkeys and Giraffes: Choose to fill most of your plate with salad and potatoes. Monkeys take a very moderate portion of chicken (one thigh, half a breast). Giraffes can opt to leave off the chicken and just have salad and potatoes, or only have a very small amount of the chicken.
So you can see that you can still make a meal that everyone in your family can enjoy – even if you have a Monkey and a Lion at your table!
MENU #2: ASIAN SHRIMP AND VEGGIE STIR-FRY WITH BROWN RICE
In this type of meal, our protein (shrimp) and veggies are cooked all together and added to the complex carbohydrate (rice). Stir-fries are versatile (and delicious) meals to make because everyone can pick out what they need without a problem!
NOW, HOW SHOULD EACH OF THE DIET TYPES EAT FROM THIS MENU?
Lions and Otters: Your plates should be heavy on the protein and moderate on the veggies, and quite small on the complex carbohydrates. So you’ll be looking at plenty of shrimp, a moderate amount of vegetables, and a small scoop of rice, or skip it all together.
Bears: Remember Bears are balanced: Choose to fill about 1/3 of your plate with shrimp, 1/3 with veggies, and 1/3 with rice. If you want to maintain or lose a little weight, do not go back for seconds! HA HA!
Monkeys and Giraffes: Now you Monkey/Giraffe Types need to remember to think VEGGIES! Choose to fill most of your plate with rice and vegetables. Shrimp is a good protein choice for you, so a few atop your veggies would be perfect, although a Giraffe should opt to skip it.
Again, see how understanding the nuts and bolts of your Hauser Diet Type will help you make the appropriate food choices, no matter what is being served?
MENU #3: ITALIAN MEATBALLS AND SPAGHETTI
Who doesn’t just love this classic meal? Because it is so delicious, every Diet Type needs to keep portion control in mind, no matter if you need to eat more protein (meatballs) or carbohydrates (spaghetti noodles). If you choose to add veggies to the red sauce, that is fine, or you may want toss a salad. Remember, as every diet needs their vegetables! Some of the veggies we love to add to our red sauce include zucchini, bell peppers, and spinach. But we also love a good salad or roasted veggies as well. Check out Chapter 9 of the Hauser Diet book for many great recipes!
LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT HOW EACH OF THE DIET TYPES SHOULD EAT FROM THIS MENU:
Lions and Otters: Choose to fill most of your plate with meatballs and red sauce. If the spaghetti is whole grain, you can have a small scoop (about what you would fit in your hand). If you are serving regular white pasta, Lions and Otters should skip the pasta and have meatballs marinara, with a side of salad or veggies! Try sautéed spinach! It goes great with this menu!
Bears: Remember, Hauser Bears are doing that balancing act! Choose to have a balance of the pasta, sauce, meatballs, and side salad or veggies. Specifically watch the portions of the noodles, so they don’t get out of control. It is very easy to over-consume pasta!
Monkeys and Giraffes: Remember to think vegetarian! Choose to have primarily pasta with red sauce. Monkeys will typically feel fine with a few small meatballs, while Giraffes should pass on them. Both should eat a generous portion of salad and/or vegetables since veggies are a staple for all of your Monkey/Giraffe meals!
Note: Many pasta companies are now making whole grain, higher protein types of pasta which are tasty as well as better choices for all of the Diet Types.
