I Can Make You Hot! (14 page)

Plate your food as if it were being served to you in a fine restaurant. Use a fancy foreign accent as you invite everyone to come to the table. Or try saying it in French. My girls love it when I announce,
“Le dîner est servi!”

Fast food doesn’t have to be fat food. Tomato and scrambled eggs is fast but not fat. A slice of commercial pizza is both fast and fat. Sprinkling sugar and cinnamon on your popcorn is fast; eating the entire bowl is fat. When I was a teenager, I’d go to a fast food place and order large fries—not a good choice. Not so long ago, I made another bad choice. I was looking for something that would be “fast,” and I came up with ramen noodles. Not a good idea. I didn’t think I was eating very much but I actually seemed to be gaining weight. I finally figured out that I was retaining tons of water from all the sodium in the noodles. It wasn’t the noodles themselves—if I’d been eating pasta or brown rice I would have been fine—it was all that salt! There are always fast options that won’t make you fat. It’s just up to you to choose them.

Some Fast (Not Fat) Go-To Foods

Steamed broccoli: My kids were raised on broccoli and organic pasta. This is my diet when I’m filming or have to be photographed.

Oranges: I eat 2 every morning.

Steamed spinach: My daughter Teddy’s favorite side for eggs.

Blueberries: My after-exercise snack.

Turkey: My go-to sandwich on whole wheat bread (try cracked pepper turkey).

Soy: If you see me in Starbucks, I am ordering a Venti Iced Soy Chai Latte (with an extra shot of espresso when necessary).

Yogurt, 2% fat (I don’t feed my girls food that’s had all the fat removed, and I don’t eat it, either. It usually means they’ve added something else we shouldn’t be eating—or else it doesn’t taste good.)

Salmon: I love baked salmon. It is a surprisingly easy dinner to make. (See
Easy Baked Salmon with Fennel
)

Nuts (especially almonds): A must for every salad.

Beans (and rice): My go-to high-energy meal.

Tomatoes

Even when I’m eating at home alone with my girls, we are mindful of the total dining experience. At first you’ll have to think about it. Make yourself pause between bites. Pay attention to the conversation around you. Soon enough you’ll find that these good habits become automatic. Mindful dining is totally different from mindless eating. Mindless eating is sitting in front of the television with a bag of potato chips or walking down the street slurping on an ice cream cone. You’re not really aware of how many chips you’re consuming and you’re probably rushing to finish that cone before it starts to melt and run down your arm. So how much can you really be enjoying what you’re eating? How much are you really taking in of the program you’re watching or your surroundings on the street?