Sticking to Your Diet on a Date

By:
Jonny Bowden

Few experiences seem so fraught with danger for my female friends as the prospect of mixing the early phase of a dating relationship with an ongoing weight-management program.

While men seem to have only one simple rule to worry about — "don't order the spaghetti on a first date" — women, as usual, seem to have a far more complex situation on their proverbial plate.

On the one hand there's the issue of how to maintain a weight-loss program while going out socially — without appearing to be picky, hard-to-please, or, worse yet, on the road to an eating disorder. On the other hand, there's the issue of how to enjoy food with gusto without appearing to be someone who doesn't care about her appearance.

How do you strike a balance between having a good time in a social atmosphere and staying committed to your waistline — which doesn't let you overlook your bad behavior at the buffet?

This is when all that spiritual, new-agey advice about "just being yourself" is about as welcome as Monica Lewinsky at a Hillary Clinton fund-raiser. You want answers and you want solutions, and you want them now. Before the doorbell rings.

In dating and dieting, like so many other areas of life, a little preparation and planning go a long way toward making life easier.

• First of all, remember the 80/20 rule (sometimes known as the 90/10 rule, depending on how strict your superego is). It goes like this: What you do 80 (or 90) percent of the time is what makes the difference in the long run. Translated to weight loss, it means that going out for a special Sunday brunch date that involves pancakes and bagels is probably not going to undo everything you've worked for — if you've worked for it most of the time. If the "brunch detour" is only taken 10 percent of the time, it might knock a few apples off the apple cart but it won't turn the whole cart upside down.
• Second, don't starve yourself in anticipation of the big dinner date during which you're sure you're going to overeat. Arriving hungry is a definite recipe for disaster. Here's why: Skipping meals, or undereating, during the day is perceived by the body as starvation, and it primes the fat-storage enzymes for an "emergency" situation. Since you arrive at dinner starving, you're far more likely to overeat, which in turn triggers both high levels of insulin release and lots of activity on the part of the enzymes that store fat. A much better strategy is to eat small, sensible meals during the day and arrive at the dinner date just hungry enough to be able to eat but not starving enough to eat the bread basket.

• Third, you can minimize the "damage" in a recreational meal by doing a few easy things. First, eat the whole meal — from soup to the proverbial nuts — within one hour of starting. This technique, pioneered by the Hellers in their Carbohydrate Addicts program, helps to keep insulin levels from going out of control. The Hellers also recommend beginning the meal with a salad and dividing the rest of the meal into equal parts protein, fiber (vegetables) and starchy or sugary carbohydrate (potatoes, rice or dessert). I'd add to that the recommendation to include some good fat such as olive oil or nuts. The point, however, is to keep the total glycemic load of the meal relatively low. The inclusion of the protein, fat and fiber helps keep the overall effect on blood sugar and insulin levels in the reasonable range. And for best effect, eat the carbs last.

Teachers are familiar with a concept called overlearning. It means, briefly, that if you know a subject "cold" before the midterm, you're more likely to do well on it, even allowing for the fact that stress may make you temporarily forget stuff you'd easily recall under less tense conditions. Dating can be a big source of anxiety, and most of us — men and women — find that when stressed we are least likely to do what's difficult and most likely to revert to what's comfortable and easy. That's why building the kind of eating habits that support you in your goals is so important. The more those habits are second nature to you, the more likely you'll be able to incorporate them even when worried about something (or someone) else.

And when all else fails, remember this: However much you think he's paying attention to what you're eating, he's probably not. In fact, if in between bites you just keep asking questions and nodding your head at the answers, he'll be far too busy thinking about what a wonderful conversationalist you are to worry about anything else.

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