Q: You can’t possibly eat ridiculously healthy ALL the time. What are the foods that you loosen the healthy strings on?

A: True. True. Unfortunately True. I don’t think anyone does. If they do they are probably a big fat liar. Of course, we can’t confuse eating ridiculously healthy with regular healthy eating. So when you are eating redic-healthy, you omit EVERYTHING processed, and basically you eat fruit, veggies, lean protein, a little low fat dairy, and whole grains. When you eat just regular healthy, there are some of those baddies that sneak in. Where I tend to slack the most are:

Slack: Bread
So in perfect land, we would all eat whole grain sprouted gluten free no sugar added bread. But in regular land, that bread annoys me for the following reasons:
1. It is expensive, I only end up eating about 6 slices before the bread starts to go bad, and that works out to $1 a slice of bread.
2. They taste OK at best. I don’t love it, so why would I sit and eat something I don’t love? Oh right, to be healthy.
Make it better: Stop eating so much bread? Have open faced sandwiches instead? Bring your own loaf of bread to restaurants and ask the chef to make your sandwich using you bread instead of the restaurants? I have a friend who brings her own whole wheat wraps to fajita night, yes I’m serious.
So yes, sometimes I slack on bread and just have regular whole wheat, or ‘multi grain’ which usually means regular bread with some seeds and grain thrown in.

Slack: Wine
Drinking is fun. That is all.
Make it better: Stick to wine (or a personal fave I just invented last weekend: vodka + Perrier + fresh lemon and mint leaves). Alcohol is still sugar, so there is no way of getting around it unless you stop drinking alcohol. Stay away from liquors, mixes with soda or sugary juices, slushy drinks, dessert type drinks. Some higher end places have cocktails or martinis made with real no sugar added juice; again...alcohol is not ideal to have on any diet. However, I am a realist, who loves wine.

Slack: Restaurants
Make it Better: Generally I just try to order something healthy. I suggest a few changes if I can (no butter on the veggies, dressing on the side, no cheese, etc...) to make it a little less bad. But going out to dinner is essentially going out to have fun and a good time with friends. Make sure you get your workout in that day, and watch your calories for the rest of the day. Also, don’t go out to restaurants a lot, and then ones that you do go to, make sure they are awesome and have a chef, not some chain restaurant whose motto is “quantity over quality” or “all you can eat whatevers...”, and don't ever go to a buffet unless you master will power.

Slack: Noodles
Sometimes you just want pasta. Still buy whole grain noodles, but who are we kidding? Pasta contains a lot of carbs to consume in the evening.
Make it better: Have vegetarian pasta, I guarantee you won’t miss the meat, load that sucker up with veggies! No cream sauces. Period. Have a tomato based sauce. Skip the cheese and don’t even think about buttery garlic bread.

Slack: When someone else is serving me
In order to eat super healthy are we never to go eat at a friend’s house again? Luckily, most of my friends are fitoholics, so I enjoy when I get the break of cooking and get to eat their food. My family however? Different story (my parents still eat simulated bacon bits for crap sakes! Is that even food?).
Make it better: Show up with a salad to help contribute to the dinner, load your plate up with too many veggies, tell them you aren’t eating cheese right now and maybe they won’t throw it all over your food? It helps if you can find out what they are making for you ahead of time, maybe you can ask them to leave BBQ sauce off your chicken breast, or the mayo off your sandwich.

Slack: Chocolate
What? I have ovaries!
Make it better: Dark Organic Chocolate. Cocoa itself isn’t bad for you, it is the fat and sugar added to cocoa that makes it bad. So stay away from the Twix (that you eat the caramel off the top and then eat the biscuit, right? We all do....I mean....We all DID that right?), Reese PB cups, and all the commercially prepared bars. For some reason, organic dark chocolate bars seem to only come in MASSIVE bar size, so make sure to break off a few squares and not take the whole bar into a movie theatre with you.

Slack: Coffee
Make it better: No cream or sugar! Someone brought me a large with 2 cream coffee yesterday, I politely declined, they where beyond offended, and everyone kept say "uh, you're not going to drink it???".  As if!  Why would I drink 14 grams of fat?

Slack: Sushi Restaurants
Make it better: No tempura, less rice dishes, watch the sodium, remember you are going to be hungry in an hour anyway.