Host: Football season’s here and you know what that means, time to throw in your jerseys,
cheer for your favorite team and tailgate of course with a few of your friends. But while
the endless burgers, chips and all you can drink beer might be all fun and games, the
final score, aka the scale might leave you down the dumps. Nutrition and wellness
expert Melissa Cassera is here. She’s got a few tips to help you enjoy the day without
putting on extra pounds. Good to have you here. Nice to meet you.
Melissa: Thank you for having me.
Host: It’s tough even if you don’t like football. And you’re hanging around people that are
watching the game. It’s easy to just start eating and eating, you don’t realize how many
pounds you’re going to gain, how many calories you’re eating.
Melissa: It’s so true, you’re there, you’re hanging out with your family and friends who are
usually huge football fans and while you’re enjoying the festivities, you’re hanging out,
you’re cheering on the team, there’s going to come a time when you need to eat and
you want to drink. It creeps up on you so I’m here to give this little tailgate party a
makeover.
Host: The first thing is you hear light beer and you think it’s okay and then the fruit drinks as
well but you say those are no, we should avoid those.
Melissa: Here’s the thing. It’s light beer so light beer means that it’s lighter than its counterpart
but when you actually stack it up against other light beers, not all of them are the same.
So you want to look for ones that are under 75 calories. The one I brought today is
actually the least which is 64 but there are a number of them out there. The second is
the juice. Don’t be fooled because it says juice that it’s not soda so it’s a ton of sugar.
This one has 45 grams of sugar in it so that’s something that you definitely want to stay
away from.
Host: So I know we should be drinking a lot of water but what’s hidden in there, is that a little
secret?
Melissa: Hidden in here is the homemade drink so if you make something at home like sangria,
you can actually tell what kind of calories are going into it, make something a little
healthier, bring it with you. My tip with the water besides being good to drink, it keeps
you hydrated, you get very dehydrated out in the cold. And also if you have one bottle
of water for every one bottle of alcoholic drink, you’re going to drink less and eat less
throughout the day.
Host: Let’s move on here, it’s got the burgers here because that’s something everybody wants
to have.
Melissa: Yes, the burgers and the sausage sandwiches which I made are actually nos. Usually it’s
about 420 calories and 20 grams of fat for each one. So you want to stay away. Now
with the healthy counterpart to that, I made up some grilled chicken on a skewer which
is easy to eat outside and also tuna steak. Don’t think that the guys in your family or
your friends aren’t going to eat the grilled chicken, they will. So it’s a great alternative
to the burgers and the sauces.
Host: It’s food they’re fine.
Melissa: It’s food and watch the sugar content in the barbeque sauce as well.
Host: So we’re going to skip over this one really fast, the chips and the macaroni salad, the
potato salad, those are nos but we should stick with like the chips and salsa and the
baked potato you say is better?
Melissa: Absolutely, even baked potatoes or sweet potatoes are great on the grill. They’re about
80 calories, one gram of fat.
Host: Sounds good so that’s good to know. At least we can have some chips. Last but not
least, unfortunately we cannot have too many of these.
Melissa: No, those packaged goods are terrible and the candy bars. They’re about half the
allowance of saturated fat you can have per day so if you have two of those babies or
one of these and a burger, forget it, you are done for the day. They look great but
they’re not great for the waistline so instead make some homemade trail mix with some
peanuts, some chocolate chips are great, some cranberries and even some dark
chocolate.
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