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Restaurant Concerns

Was it helpful to see how I would approach lunch in an office setting and you feel in the sometimes this is worth it but oftentimes it's not and how to make those decisions regularly did you like the lance did you? Did you did you feel yourself making healthier choices today? Yes, anybody not they're going to go all in on like the tri tip sausage sean did I know I totally avoided that after hearing what you said about the sauce, the cater is going to kill me it's true that so these are the things you have tio think about we'll talk more about that in this segment is that often times when you don't cook the food yourself, there's hidden things in there, especially sugar, because that's a great way to make food taste better and caters and restaurants knew that so they'll add sugar in there even for something that seems like a savory dish and that could be a trouble if you're if you're eating stuff like that all the time, so I'm glad we got to do I thought that was great and I but I just ...

wanna go back we got cut off a little bit when I was talking about exercise in the last segment I think this stuff is so important that I want to make sure that we cover it, so we talked about meat and ten thousand steps right? And I think if you keep it so it's really easy to be sedentary I think we all have jobs where we sit in a car to commute we sit at a desk all day, we go home, maybe we'd some dinner in recent in front of the tv because we're exhausted, so for most of us we had that would be called a very sedentary life and that is even true we most of us are even sedentary if we go to the gym regularly, so even if you sit all day at work and then just go to the gym, you're still probably not breaking five or six thousand step today, so to really get to that ten thousand steps a day, you have to be very aware and you know it get's more difficult depending on where you live, you know, if you live in a city in an urban environment, we're walking is more normal it's a lot easier to get ten thousand steps if you aren't in that kind of environment and you're like like a suburb or maybe somewhere more rule and it's difficult to get those steps you're gonna have to find something else to do to sort of be more active and it doesn't have to be walking, but it might be at that point worth it to invest and maybe ah some sort of exercise equipment at home or or find some other way to be active is really important ah and but but the good news is needs and ten thousand steps are one of those things that if you can manage tio integrate them into your lives it is really effortless you know, if you could manage to work it in and you don't feel like you're sweating, you don't feel like you're struggling to squeeze a workout on and in fact walking is one of the very few ways you can actually increase your activity levels without increasing your hunger. So you've does, um triathlons cheryl, you know that when you start doing a really like a real heavy exercise program, your hunger just skyrockets mind us, everybody's doesn't what happens often one of the reasons more formal exercise makes it difficult to lose weight is that way eat more and there's benefits to doing that which I'm about to get into. However the need and the ten thousand steps a day is a great way to burn extra calories without getting more hungry and without even breaking a sweat so that's great. Now I want to spend a little bit of time just talking about mohr what's called strength training or a little bit of slightly more formal workouts and like I said, I don't think you have to do this the most this most thing that's for me, I care about your health, and the most important thing for your health is that you're not sedentary there's actually, the most recent data shows that that's actually worse for you than smoking seriously, if the six sitting all day but if you're talking about zeke, you know, we talked about how it's not shallow or it's not trivial to think, to care about how you look, I think it's very important and in fact a lot of our lives and can really impact the quality of our life. I think you cannot beat strength training for improving the way you look, I mean there for me, yeah, I used to do cardio like a crazy person I would literally get up at five in the morning and go to the german for two hours before work every day our school lab and it wasn't until I chi cut way back on that down a half hour of cardio and started adding weights and only only twenty minutes a weightlifting completely transformed my body and all the like trouble spots we've yet and all those things that make it frustrating to really you know, sometimes you feel like you lose when you still don't look good, strength training is really the way to it fix that, so I highly recommend it the other thing is it skyrockets your metabolism do you think about it muscle like no kidding like but muscle burns a lot more calories than fat when you start putting muscle in your body and I'm not talking big bulky muscles I'm talking about just toning up both sides of your legs you know both sides your arms, your your chest, your shoulders, your your stomach and you're back to tiny bit skyrockets your metabolism and what the results of that is that you have a lot more leeway with those ever so often special occasion indulgences and if you don't have strength training in your life, so for me it was like this double bonus right is like you look awesome and then you can eat whatever you want, but I'm in a place now where I don't really have to worry about eating dessert ever I can do it almost whenever I want and it's largely because my metabolisms insane I actually got and it didn't used to be used to be really so I used to eat I was to calculate calories don't eat around two hundred calories a day is still struggle with weight loss I had a basal metabolic rate test you could do a test where you breathe into a tomb for a long time actually don't recommend it it's really uncomfortable, but I had that done because I was curious and I think my basil resting metabolic rate which is much calories I would burn while sleeping there just like laying down and doing nothing is over two thousand calories a day so you can imagine how much leeway that gives me and look I'm not free big you know like I'm just like a furnace burning calories and I attribute that all the strength training so it's I'm just I'm not saying you have to do it but I'm putting in my plug because I think it can really change your life and it's totally worth it do kettle bell is that also strength training or is there something that you would recommend yeah so I go to the gym and work out I do about two sets of muscles a day so I'll do like chest and triceps or biceps and legs or something like that and uh I do that I try to make it four or five times a week it usually ends up being these days around three or four the days I can't make it to the gym I will do a kettle bell workout and it's I do consider its strength training but it's very difficult also cardio training because it takes your breath away get your heart rate up it also takes about two minutes to get a workout in it's a high intensity exercise and that is a great alternative for somebody who's sitting back at home right now saying I mean I don't have time to work out four hours a week you know, if that sounds unreasonable to you to get to get started you know something high intensity intervals either on a stationary bike or with a kettle bell are great weight oh get that exercise in a very, very short period of time the kicker those you have to work really hard so it's not necessarily the most pleasant two minutes but people do report that they actually enjoy it and they enjoy shrinking the workout so it doesn't you know drag out through the entire day so it's up to you uh, the only thing my only warning to you with this is that when you start dealing with weights and things like this strength training you could get hurt, so be careful use your best judgment don't push yourself too hard and don't be afraid to get a trainer for a few sessions you don't have to have him forever to say, hey, I want to get into string training let's spend maybe two days and just show me around the gym so I know how to how to do things in here so you don't feel silly as you don't hurt yourself and that could be really helpful highly encourage that and you guys are all going to start tomorrow right tolly gonna start tomorrow sounds great we're going to get into my wonder woman outfit and do it um but you know, we again, we have all these barriers, all these mental beliefs, limiting beliefs that say, I don't have time, I don't want to get bulky. Has anyone ever said that? Well, not wanting to go to the gym, ladies say that I'm so people just hate the gym, and I hate the gym as if that were the only place on earth you could work out aa lot of people are very self conscious about and, you know, maybe even putting on the clothes we heard yesterday from somebody who doesn't like running outside in front of people that that's it's a limiting belief and it's something that's worth working through and, you know, also even just being cold, you know, people use this as an excuse to not exercise for four months out of the year because, you know, they live in a place where they're really winters and like, here in san francisco and that's a great excuse, but but it really is worth making exercise a priority and understanding that these are limiting beliefs and limiting beliefs are not fax and their ways to work around it. So I really love this quote from ellen degeneres, who is awesome and hilarious, that she doesn't really think she needs funds of steel should be happy with bunds of cinnamon. I write on dh you don't have to be crazy about this stuff a little bit of exercise go with a long way so don't feel like you need to be in the gym five days a week don't feel like if you don't hit ten thousand steps every single day the world is going to end do your best maybe find be more creative find other ways to toe work physical activity into your day but do your best to make it a priority okay restaurants the real topic for today so I wanna how often would you guys say you eat in restaurants let's say hughleys and restaurants one day a week who is certain restaurants two days a week three four five it's okay thick all day used tio do you but do do people eat it every day? Almost almost every day is very common, especially in cities you know it's very convenient and it's often very delicious you know it's funny how we rationalize spending money on vegetables but we'll go out to eat and drop twenty bucks like it's nothing um but there's a lot of wonderful I love restaurants, restaurant or some of my favorite places we'll definitely in this city I adore them and I think they're fantastic but of course there's a lot of things to consider when you're thinking about eating out so frequency is a big one right, we're just talking about if eating out is a special is a rare event for you, there's some people that just don't go out very often, they will, you know, go out for a special occasion or for a birthday or an anniversary, or maybe just on the weekends, but for the most part, they stay at home, other people again, especially city people, it's a way of life, you know, it's, your main default choice for food and cooking at home, is more of an exception, more of a that's more than the special occasion, you know? And again, this is just this is just habits. This is one is not easier than the other one is definitely cheaper, but it's still it's just a matter of habits and what what you're comfortable with again, the occasion it really matters when you're thinking about what to order in a restaurant, how to handle a restaurant, how important it is that you're there, and the reason you're there matters tremendously, and we'll get into that. Not all restaurants are created equal, you know, some are great, some restaurants, like I could eat out every day and feel like I was as good, if not better, than I could make for myself home generally cannot. Afford to eat in those places every day but they exists and chairs to anyone who can but at the other end of the spectrum there's places where there's almost nothing in there I can eat this often happens to me when I visit my family you know we'll go out tio you know I'll be visiting family like let's all go out to brian sure let's go god to general on get there and I'll look at the menu and I'll just be like, well, he's going to show you something a long meal because every basically everything is either gross looking, you know, low quality or very, very, very unhealthy if if even if it looks a little taste here so that could be a big issue restaurants are getting better at this, but still the majority of places I the portions are way, way bigger then I need and this is even in san francisco, you know, this is even in a place where quality is emphasized over quantity, there's still joy enormous place and when you go in some places in the middle of the country, I've seen plates of food in this big stack this high with no shame, you know, it's considered a good deal and uh so is and we've already discussed all the triggers that causes toe eat more than we need and just have we have a tendency to just finish with on our plates, so when you're at a restaurant, you're being triggered tow, overeat if they're feeding you big portions, which they are so let's talk about choosing restaurants a little bit so eso, when you're eating out, you're either you do do you guys you're laid out by yourselves? Or do you usually go with someone else? Someone else? You guys go together, you guys usually go with other people, ok, half in half, so if it's up to you so s so if I'm if I know I'm going out with with friends, I do everything in my power to steer where we go because that, like that could stone on the difficult decisions so much like if I can say, hey, I have a great suggestion let's go to this place where I know I can get something healthy and delicious as opposed to let's go to a place where I could maybe find something healthy, but it's probably not going to taste very good or nothing's good, you know, one of the other or everything's on healthy, you know, all of those options are are are there? And so what I look for when I'm choosing restaurants on my own is restaurants that share my value system. And you guys all know what that is now right on the food ist I care about real food I create I care about seasonal ingredients I care about, you know, handcrafted lots of vegetables, low processed foods just high quality and so you know, fortunately, this wasn't always the case and even not very long ago but these days it's much much easier find restaurants like this all over the place um I was just not too long ago in omaha and I couldn't eat it all the good restaurants there was so many like seasonal fresh food places and I was a little impressed I was surprised, eh? So it's becoming more and more popular more more common and actually the price point I think is coming to a more reasonable place that used to be you could only get seasonal food at very high end restaurants and I think that's shifting down, which is awesome. So there's great resources online obviously for finding restaurants like this. But one thing I look for when I'm checking out their websites and when I'm checking out the comments on, you know sites like yelp is looking for those shared values seasonal menus aa lot of restaurants will emphasize where they get their produce and where they get their meat so small farms are always a better option because you're going to be avoiding industrial overly process meet our ingredients and the bare bare minimum I look for is just uh like if I'm gonna next weekend I'm traveling to a city that doesn't have a lot of excellent options and it was my responsibility to choose for a group of girls where we're going to eat and my and I was I was down the like bare minimum from like what's my bare minimum requirements here and I just found a place that just had a lot of salads I mean you you know, like I was just like, ok there's a lot of vegetables I don't know how they're going to taste but have nothing on the menu looks appealing at least it won't be a kn indulgence I don't want right at least like if I'm gonna eat something bad for me I don't want it to taste that I think that's horrible that's like the war so at least there's a lot of vegetables I don't know how they're going to taste but at least I'll be comfortable knowing that I did my best and I'm not going to feel terrible about it and feel like after make up for it later in some way great so once you are in a restaurant how you order but this is this is its own sort of art form and again it depends on the quality and the type of restaurant you're in so the number one question you have to ask yourself that's what your goal are you here today for celebration? Are you here today to fuel yourself and that will dramatically impact your decision making the next big question you have to ask yourself is how good is this place right because whether you know I go out again sometimes when I'm like I'm like totally thrown in my family under the best today hopefully they're not watching but sometimes I go home to visit my family they'll want to go out and celebrate that these restaurants that they think are amazing and I'm just I get amazing food a lot because I live in san francisco and so I'm not so impressed with those places and so you know, even though it's a celebration and I have a reason to indulge a little bit I don't necessarily want to because I know the celebration comes from spending time with the people not necessarily from the food we're going to be eating so those air sort of the that's like the hierarchy of questioning that I do in my own brain is and I just eat it and I'm just trying to get a quick lunch and he like the healthiest tastiest thing I confined or am I here to celebrate and if I am here to celebrate then is it worth it? Is this place good or is it just about spending time with people I love make sense so we're getting down to values here right and that's really what you need to be in touch with your values when you make food choices so this is there's a wonderful thing I learned about called experience stretching and it's sort of what I just discussed when I you know you moved to the bay area you moved to a city where the has amazing food and suddenly your standards for what is good change dramatically and this changes the rest of your experiences so I discovered this not too long ago actually from a lovely wonderful book called stumbling on happiness by dan gilbert and by the way, if you just want a little preview of his philosophy has a fantastic ted talk totally worth watching so basically what this mean like you could imagine this well here let me just give you let me give you what his quote from that one of the quotes from the book is that once you have an experience you can't go back to your previous experience you can't what like if you thought something was good and then you had something that was just like just better in every way next time you have the thing that used to be your favorite it doesn't have the same luster that it did the first time now in stumbling on happiness gilbert describes this as sort of a negative thing you know how he's like I used to be happy with just a simple sunset then I had this experience where I had a sunset with like a cigar on a beach and life from now on like if I don't have the cigar in the beach the sun sets not is good and he says that's a bummer and that is kind of a bummer but with food this can actually work in your favor because one s o I this the the example I like to give for this for my own personal experience is in and out burger and but every ended it in writing and out do you love it right? So I grew up in so cal and man in and out is like a religion there every like you it's just a given best hamburgers on earth, right? Best cheeseburgers and well, you get those double doubles I mean, that is a special thing and when I moved up to the bay area it was like the one like treat that I really missed from home and I would drive, you know, there's a couple in announce in this area, I mean, this was back in ninety seven there weren't very many we drive for like half an hour on saturday to go find it in and out burger and we'd love it, you know, the best and and then I started, you know, discovering all this stuff about real food and you know, exploring the restaurant scene here in san francisco, and eventually I found a place that has just the most amazing burgers. I love this place, there's a few places, actually some darn good burgers in the city, by the way, on my my personal blogged area, pino dot com I have a list of my favorite restaurants in san francisco that if you're visiting here, check it out for sure. I keep it up to date all the time, and I'll tell you where all the best burgers are, but I started just becoming obsessed with this one burger. It was the best, but I still thought I would live in and out burger. And so the only time we never really let myself indulge in that. And now is when he would take the long drive from northern california to southern california on the five freeway and, like, stop it like kettleman city in the middle, there's an in and out, right? We've all yeah, anybody who lives a parent is yeah, it's, just it's what you do. And I did this for years, and I enjoyed it. But after I started becoming some of this sort of, like berger connoisseur here in the city the last time I went to in n out burger was probably gosh by six or seven years ago now and I remember so distinctly was so excited I got in there and I ordered my burger and it took a bite and I was like, now the meat is really thin like I had gotten used to sort of a thicker burger and you know is this kind of is over done this kind of and it was kind of talking and I'm like there's a really strong onion taste not a lot of nuance and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm such a snob, but guess what? I don't get in and out burgers anymore on so in that sense, it's it's kind of good because there's often this assumption that fast food is so good and so tempting the you it'll always be this like the siren call that you can't resist but when you start exploring the words were world of real food and your palate no longer just responds to sugar salt and fat which is the flavor trifecta they like a dicks us tio those process foods why we actually like them why we think they like them but when you start tasting riel foods and you start having riel flavors in your life, you can start to recognize those those fake, tasty patterns like that just sugar, salt and fat without actual flavor and it becomes less appealing and this is awesome because it means that I am not tempted by french fries, in most cases, I'm not tempted by mcnuggets at all. Like, at a certain point, it starts actually seems sort of gross because you have. I'm in a place where I think salads or delicious, because the salads I eat are amazing. They're based on fresh seasonal ingredients, and so when I'm faced with a delicious salad or a mediocre burger, guess what? I'm gonna choose it's, no brainer for me, whereas before my experience was stretched, that wouldn't necessarily be true. Makes sense, though. It's. One of the great things about exploring real food is that you get in this wonderful place for suddenly the really, really bad for you. Stuff isn't so tempting, like a secret magic trick.