I'm in a sort-of unique situation here - I work overseas, and for weeks at a time I have to stay in a compound where our food is prepared by staff and brought to us.

My question is - how do you deal with not having control over what goes into your meals? The food here is well balanced at least, with vegetables and fruit at every meal. The trouble is, it is usually prepared with a lot of fat. I'm trying to keep my portions small to compensate, but it's not always easy.

I refuse to make an excuse of this! I know that I still have final say over what goes into my body. But I could use some tips for how to make the best choices, and turn away the desserts and deep-fried foods! Help!

Thanks,

Green Heidi

That's a tough one - poor Heidi. Does that mean you literally have no choices as to what fruit, what vegetable,, etc.? You probably just need to work on portions or come up with some lie why you can't eat alot of fat? Have you tried Xenical - it's supposed to absorb 1/3 of all fat you intake. Good luck. It's hard. :laugh:

I think with xenical you get sick if you eat too much fat so that might not work in this situation..it is really good advice to tell them you have health issues about eating fat, and to ask for a few special extras..it shouldnt be out of line, im sure you arent the only one who would like them..like ask if you could have cereal or oatmeal with non fat milk for breakfast...when you make your choices, see if you can get your salads with the dressing on the side, then dip your fork into the dressing FIRST then into the salad..scrape off all sauces on the meats...try to choose baked or steamed fish as often as possible and boneless skinless chicken breasts..take your baked potato without anything on it and put some non fat milk on it instead of butter..try to choose whole foods as often as possible..the orange instead of the juice for example...baked potato instead of mashed...put mustard on your sandwiches instead of mayo..this must be really difficult!! hang in there!!!