Food Blahs

Typically my blog revolves more around teaching than fitness, but it is Sneaker Teacher, so every once in awhile I do like to throw in a few posts about fitness/eating. Today is one of those days.

As many of you know, my husband and I recently moved from OR to Germany. So far most things about living here have been great. I love my job, the country is scenic and beautiful, and we are going to have lots of opportunities to travel....so far so good.

That is, except, in the area of eating.

I guess I would call myself a picky eater. It's not that I don't like a lot of foods, more that I am always concerned about what I am putting in my mouth and how it is going to affect my body. In other words, I am always concerned about gaining weight. There, I said it. I love food, I love eating, and I enjoy spending time with my husband, which often involves trying out different restaurants and types of cuisine here in our new country, so eating here has been tricky.

I quickly learned that authentic German food is not really for me. With an abundance of pork, cheese, and potatoes, the typical dishes are not at all healthy and are full of fat. German portion sizes are not huge like they are in the U.S., but when foods are prepared with cream and butter, even a small amount is not doing me any favors. Even the salads are drenched in dressing.

I don't so much mind treating myself at dinner time to something a little special and indulgent, but not all the time. Living in a hotel makes that hard because my options for cooking our own food are pretty limited. In this post, I described a little bit more about what our "kitchen" is like at the hotel. I am trying to cook more "at home" but we are eating out for dinner probably between 3-4 nights a week.

Breakfast each day consists of the daily buffet menu at the hotel. There are a lot of meats and cheeses as well as fattening cereals like granola that are part of this spread. I am pretty sure the milk is whole milk and the temptation of Nutella does not bode well for me. I am used to a pretty low calorie protein shake in the morning, so I know I have been adding lots of extra calories from larger than life breakfasts in the morning.

My biggest struggle seems to be lunch. I don't know what was so special about what I used to bring for lunch in the U.S., but I just can't seem to get it right here. I have been having sandwiches with ham and cheese, but I feel like I have been eating way too much cheese and meat and that is adding up each day. The selection of fresh vegetables/fruits is okay, but I am still getting used to it. I know there are farm stands that sell fresh produce, but I am not yet to the place where I want to divide my purchases amongst specialty places like bread from the bakery, meat from the butcher, vegetables and fruit from the farm stands, and the rest from the grocery store. I am still kind of dependent on one-stop shopping.

I was happy to find a few products that are exactly the same as I had at home such as Babybell & Laughing Cow light cheeses which I like because I am familiar with those products and I like them, but for the most part, I am getting used to new things and trying to figure out whether or not they are healthy.

Reading nutrition labels in German is proving to be a pain in the butt! Typically the nutrition information is provided for one serving and also for the amount of 100g. It doesn't matter how big the container is, or how big a serving size is, you will know how many calories are in 100 grams. With something like peanut butter (which by the way I have not tried yet here), 100 grams is a lot more than one serving, so I don't really see the need to know the nutrition info for 100 grams. I looked at the label on a jar and it said something around 500 calories. I was blown away. Then I realized that was for multiple servings, so that info did not really help me!

Also, the labels usually do not tell how many servings are in a package so you have to look at the total number of grams on the outside of the package, then divide by the serving size to find out how many servings are in the whole thing. I have to do this because if I read that a serving size is 30 grams, I have no idea how much food that actually is. I can't wait to get my kitchen scale! I am very familiar with eyeballing a Tbs. or a 1/2 cup, but I do not have estimation skills using grams at all! I guess I can say the good thing is that I am practicing my math skills daily! All this multiplying and dividing is keeping my brain cells active.

I keep thinking that I just can't wait to have our own kitchen with all of the cooking utensils I am used to and a larger fridge for storing food. We learned yesterday that even though we get the keys to our new place in two weeks, the kitchen is not going to be installed until the middle or end of October. That means we will get a "temporary" kitchen consisting of a sink and two hot plates. It could be awhile before eating gets back to normal...

I guess I am just in a food funk!