San Marino Weight Loss Doctors Asks:
Can you find healthy Chinese Foods?

You would think that someone could make Chinese food healthful as part of your diet to lose weight, considering the tons of vegetables, host of seafood options, and great potential to keep saturated and trans fats down. Almost all of the preparation uses vegetable oil. Brown rice is almost always an option, and usually a section of the menu focuses on steamed dishes, prepared with no added fat or sodium. Still, navigating a Chinese food menu is confusing, as many entrees contain much more than 1000 calories—at least half a day’s worth of calories for the average person. This is obviously a big obstacle in trying to successfully achieve weight loss. Sodium is usually high in Chinese foods because of all the sauces, and portions are often twice as big as necessary. Again, it doesn’t matter how healthy the food may be, if the calories don’t add up, weight loss will be difficult.

San Marino Weight Loss Doctor on Helpful tips for ordering:
Try these helpful tips when ordering

• Have tea as part of healthy nutrition in your meals! It will slow down your meal, and you will feel fuller sooner. Also, tea will replace caloric beverages you may otherwise consume. Lower calories means easier to lose weight.

Other San Marino Weight Loss Doctor Suggestions:

• Order a lunch-sized portion, if available. Some restaurants will let you order a lunch-sized portion any time of day; lunch portions are smaller than the dinner size and will help prevent overeating.
• Choose soup to start your meal, unless you struggle with hypertension or sodium-sensitive medical issues. Egg drop soup, hot and sour soup and wonton soup average 100 calories per cup. They are better choices than most appetizers for your diet, which may have more calories and fat than your entrée. Remember, goal is to keep everything beyond the main entrée to less than 100 calories to stick to weight loss caloric goals.

Additional San Marino Weight Loss Doctor Suggestions:

• Choose one spring roll or two steamed dumplings as alternatives to soup, if you have a friend to share the order with (most spring rolls will come two to an order and most dumplings have five or six per order). They average 100-150 calories and are lower in sodium than the soups.
• Order a vegetarian entrée that is stir-fried or steamed. Choose a vegetable-based dish that does not absorb oil readily (think snow peas vs spinach). Portion some of the dish onto your plate of rice, so that your food does not continue to sponge up the added sauce that accumulates in the bottom of the serving dish.

More San Marino Weight Loss Doctor Suggestions:

• Choose something from the steamed menu if you are ordering from the vegetarian menu. This will keep the caloric-rich fat contents low in the diet. Ask for the sauce on the side to “dip”; keep your dipping down to a tablespoon and you’ll have made a better choice to facilitate weight loss.
• Pick a chicken, shrimp, or vegetable dish vs noodle and rice dishes, which tend to be skimpy on the vegetables and heavy on the fat and sodium. It is best to stay away from the combination choices. 
  

In addition,  San Marino Weight Loss Doctor Recommends:

• Select a dish without the added sauce. In the calorie department, soy sauce, duck sauce, and mustard sauce won’t put you over the edge. However the added sodium is something you can live without; the food is most likely salty enough. Remember saltier food tends to trigger craving, making it more difficult to stick to weight loss goals set in your diet.
• Include a serving of rice (1 cup brown or white), which has approximately 200 calories and no fat. Rice is going to help fill you up, and make your meal more satisfying and balanced. 

Lastly, San Marino Weight Loss Doctor Suggests:

• Split your entrée or take half home for another time. 
• Ask for low-sodium sauces. Request that the kitchen substitutes broth or water for the oil normally used to prepare your meal.
• Ask if nutrition information is available. Because Chinese food restaurants can vary greatly in preparations and methods, it is difficult to determine the nutrition content of what you are eating. Just when you think are keep to your diet goals, if you are not seeing the weight loss results, it may be time to reassess not only the calories in your diet but also the method of preparation for hidden calories.

For more information about Los Angeles' premier Medical Weight Management Center near San Marino, please contact Valens Medical and come in for a One-on-One consultation with one of our specialist doctors.

www.valensmedical.com